Do you remember Twilight Zone--The Movie? I did not see it--my mother was extremely strict and never allowed us to watch horror movies or even light comedy containing anything that smacked of the occult. But I remember my father coming back from a trip and telling us that he had been driving with his nephew on a dark, wood-lined road when his nephew told about the scene from Twilight Zone where a set of characters are in a car at night trying to scare each other. Finally, one of them says to the driver of the car, "Do you want to see something really scary?" When his friend agrees, he turns his face away, and when he turns back he has become a monster who kills the young man who is driving.
If Hollywood were making that movie today, rather than having the actor turn into a monster, the director could just show him the dismal state of the economy and a list of the executive orders, taxes and new rules waiting for Americans in 2013. When he saw what is looming in front of us, he would die of a massive fear-induced heart attack.
Let's start with the executive orders issued by the Obama Administration. President Obama has repeatedly complained that our current system which requires that laws be passed by Congress is just too difficult to navigate, so he prefers to run the country by executive order. Below is a short list of some of the major executive orders which he has signed while President:
UPDATE NOVEMBER 1, 2012: Yesterday when I initally posted this, I took the executive order list from a popular email that is circulating. A reader commented that in reality many of these executive orders date back to the Kennedy Administration, although they are still in force and could be used by the president. However, I strive to always be accurate, so I have corrected my list today to include only executive orders signed by the President this year. Each of these is recorded in the Federal Registry:
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13602 signed March 15, 2012, creates the White House Council for Strong Cities and Communities to implement locally-driven community and regional planning approaches. Think Federally-driven implementation of Agenda 21 goals for Smart Growth and Sustainable living.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13603 signed March 16, 2012, gives the federal government via various federal agencies control over all food, agriculture, livestock, farm equipment, all energy, all modes of transportation, all waterways, and all other resources including construction, in case of a national emergency and allows the secretaries of various departments to prioritize and allocate resources in both emergency and non emergency situations.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13618 signed July 6, 2012, gives the federal government power over all modes of communication in a national emergency.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13624 signed August 30, 2012, call for increased investment in industrial energy efficiency, allowing federal agencies to set and enforce new standards for manufacturing energy use.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13625, signed August 31, 2012, calls for the Federal Government to do a more thorough job assessing the mental health and possible mental instability of our troops and requires that federal agencies enroll 100,000 troops in a comprehensive mental health study no later than December 31, 2012.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13626 signed September 10, 2012, designates the Administrator of EPA and the Secretary of Agriculture as additional trustees for Natural Resource Damage Assessment and restoration solely in connection with injury to, destruction of, loss of, or loss of use of natural resources, including their supporting ecosystems, resulting from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. This order will give the EPA power over the areas affected by the Gulf Coast Spill of 2010 (effectively guaranteeing that they will never have any industry or drilling in these areas again.)
FURTHER UPDATE NOV 1. (This morning Janet Napolitano announced that since Congress has failed to act with a CyberSecurity bill sufficient to meet the needs of the nation, immediately after election day the President will be issuing an executive order restricting the internet.)
In addition to the executive orders, we have his signature legislative efforts which did pass through Congress--Obamacare and Dodd Frank. Obamacare imposes taxes and restrictions on freedoms of Americans which we will just begin to experience in January of 2013, such as the new 3.8% tax on the sale of houses. The taxes, fees and fines of Obamacare threaten individual access to healthcare and the very existence of small businesses nationwide. And Dodd Frank, one of the scariest pieces of legislation ever passed, is about to produce crippling new regulations that will put homeownership out of the reach of average Americans.
We can expect greater and greater central management of our lives from Washington D.C. as the President forces us out of single family suburban housing and into tiny cramped quarters in the cities as part of "sustainable living." And we can expect massive new powers bestowed on the EPA which will destroy the coal industry and cripple energy production while causing prices to skyrocket. These new regulations are ready to be implemented but have been specifically delayed until after the election.
We can also look forward to 2 trillion dollars in tax increases to pay for massive spending and more nationalization of industry as the President campaigns by telling us that he wants to do the same thing for every industry that he did for the auto industry. (Meaning, I suppose that he wants to take over all businesses and then sell them to foreign entities as he did Chrysler.)
We can expect greater inflation as fuel prices continue to increase, and we can anticipate even higher unemployment so that the ranks of the 23 million already unemployed will swell as more and more businesses shut their doors under the weight of heavy taxes and regulations. The ranks of the 47 million people on food stamps will also swell, while the number of seniors will begin to shrink as the government rations health care.
And let's don't forget about implementation of the indefinite detention provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. In September, the Obama Administration was able to get a three-judge panel to overturn the stay previously issued to prevent detention without trial or charges for Americans accused by the government of being threats to national security. In a second term, we can look for the president to begin to use these broad powers against those he deems "domestic terrorists."
Anyone of the above list could be the subject of its own horror movie. Taken together, there is nothing I can imagine that is scarier than an Obama second term.
