Power of the Purse

Desperate to counter the profoundly negative effects of Obamacare on this year’s upcoming Congressional elections, the Obama administration is attempting to bribe as many voters as possible.  This includes trying to extending unemployment benefits, forgiving the penalties for neglecting to sign up for Obamacare, expanding the food stamps program (see: CNS News Story), (over)using the canard “equal pay for equal work (for women)” and now abandoning attempts to collect hundreds of million of dollars of past Social Security overpayments … see: CNBC Story.

As long as President Obama has the power of the purse … and can capture two minutes of every nightly TV news broadcast with these saccharine promises, it will be a more difficult for the Republicans to make significant headway in this November’s elections. The term “buying votes” really does have meaning … and the Democrats seem to know most of the old tricks.  Alexis de Tocqueville famously said that “the American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” He clearly neglected to include the President in this insight.

But stay tuned … over the next six months I am certain that this administration will discover and propound even more voter bribes. Watch and wait.