By Marc Thiessen / THE AMERICAN
In today’s Washington Post, I argue that while electing a transformational conservative president may not be in the cards this November, stopping a transformational liberal president still is. The damage of a second Obama term could be potentially irrevocable. I asked a number of conservative thinkers what they feared most from a second term, and compiled this list of the top ten disasters that would befall America if Obama were re-elected this fall:
1. Obamacare will not be repealed.
2. The unprecedented levels of spending in Obama’s first four years will become the new floor, as America sets new records for fiscal profligacy and debt.
3. Job creators will face massive tax increases, and more Americans will come off the tax rolls—resulting in fewer citizens with a stake in keeping taxes low and more with a stake in protecting benefits.
4. Government dependency, already at record levels, will continue to grow.
5. Four lost years in dealing with the entitlement crisis will become eight—digging us into a hole from which we may not be able to emerge.
6. Obama, unworried about the impact of gas and electricity prices on his reelection, will finally wage the regulatory war on fossil fuels the Left demands.
7. He will unleash the Environmental Protection Agency to impose crushing new burdens on U.S. business.
8. His administration’s assault on religious freedom will go on and expand to new areas.
9. The Defense Department will be gutted, with cuts so deep that America will no longer be a superpower.
10. Obama could have the opportunity to appoint more liberal Supreme Court justices, ending the Roberts court in all but name for a generation.
This is, of course, not a complete list—not by a long shot. I’d be interested what readers and my fellow AEI scholars think: What’s missing from this litany of impending disasters?