Is Barack Obama a Socialist?

Is Barack Obama a Socialist?
Burt Prelutsky

Answer: Does a bear do dooty in the woods?

The other day, I heard a conservative talk show host insist that, with the 2012 presidential election looming on the horizon, it would behoove Republicans to stop referring to Obama and his enablers in the House and Senate as socialists. Instead, he advised, we should focus on the fiscal policies that are leading the nation to the verge of bankruptcy. I, on the other hand, say if it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, and pushes a socialist agenda, it’s a socialist duck.

What was it but socialism when Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and their left-wing cohorts, insisted that no-down-payment home loans be made to folks with no money, a policy that inevitably led to our own financial catastrophe?

What was it but a socialistic agenda that has led federal and state legislatures to give public sector union members exorbitant salaries and pensions?

What else but socialism would you call constantly extending unemployment insurance? Who would ever have imagined that people would be receiving checks three years down the road?

What else would you call forcing schools, not parents, to feed children, and inviting 41 million Americans to collect food stamps, if not socialism?

What would you call spending tax dollars on Planned Parenthood, Public Broadcasting, the U.N. and the National Endowment for the Arts, along with billions of dollars more for climate research, farm and oil subsidies, and trillions in foreign aid to countries that hate us?

If something costs the federal government money and isn’t specified for in the Constitution, it’s a good bet that it is the result of socialists playing Lady Bountiful with our tax dollars.

The Democrats, ever since the halcyon days of FDR, have insisted that socialism is the cat’s pajamas, and that capitalism is only fit for greedy pigs. But they then close their eyes and bury their heads when Canada, England, Australia and France, elect conservative governments as the natural antidote to socialism. Furthermore, they ignore the spectacle of socialistic nations such as Greece and Ireland going, hat in hand like Oliver Twist, to ask their neighbors for more. Although in their case, it’s money they’re begging for, not gruel.

I keep hearing the teacher’s unions demanding that more money is needed for schools. The problem, as I see it, is that we’ve been squandering far too much on so-called public education for the past 50 years, and all we have to show for it are really ignorant students, who nevertheless glow with absurdly high self-esteem, and a lot of self-righteous teachers who are finding it harder and harder to keep a straight face when complaining about being underpaid.

It’s been decades since I attended public school, but I distinctly recall never having been in a class that had fewer than 30 students. I also recall that by the time we graduated from high school, we could all read, write and do math, well enough to get into the college of our choice.

So, perhaps the problem isn’t too little money, but too much. I say we cut school budgets by 25%. It may not result in smarter kids, but they could hardly be dumber, and it would save us a ton of dough.

We could save even more money if I could get everyone to go along with my plan to sell naming rights to our schools. Our sports facilities do it all the time. Why is it that every other school is named after some old dead guy named Roosevelt, Jefferson, Kennedy, Franklin, Lincoln and even McKinley, even though none of them ever coughed up a plugged nickel? Frankly, when you consider the state of public education these days, I doubt if any of them would consider it much of an honor to have their names associated with such places.

Anyway, isn’t it enough that cities, towns and even mountains, are already named after these same people? I say if it’s worth millions for corporations to have their names plastered all over football stadiums, basketball arenas and baseball parks, it should be worth a few bucks for corporations to use grammar schools, middle schools and high schools, for advertising purposes.

Heck, for enough moolah, even I would consider changing my own name to Greyhound, Southwest Airlines or even Yahoo.
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