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  The first Pacific President? Or Rather, the first European President? by Alexander Zaczkiewicz University of Vienna Alexander Zaczkiewicz is a member of Westside Republicans and an advisor to the Pete Kesterson campaign for Congress - CA36th. He is currently studying in Vienna.
 On his recent trip to Asia, President Obama has called himself America´s first "Pacific President", obviously referring to his childhood spent in Hawaii and the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia. With this statement, he tried to score some foreign policy points in Asia, in order to advance his trip´s agenda. When looking at his domestic policies though, one might get the idea that in fact, we might as well be dealing with the first European President in U.S history, or at least since FDR and his new deal. On pretty much any domestic issue, Obama has outdone even his own party´s left wing. He is pressing the country ever further into the direction of an economy based on the outdated and inefficient ideals of the Social-democratic system. This system has crippled economic growth and innovation in Europe´s economies ever since the end of World War II. By overtaxing and overregulating the job market and the  overall economy, many European governments are now confronted with a population so dependent on government subsidies, that make real reforms impossible. Over several decades this has led to a growing competitive edge of the U.S over Europe. The American economy has always been more productive, more innovative and overall more competitive than our European counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic and for that matter, we have also always been the most competitive economy in the world. This is the result of the strong and proud tradition of American suspicion towards government involvement in any part of our lives, which has been passed on from one generation to the other, ever since the Founding Fathers freed themselves from tyranny. Europeans have always been belittled or even ignored by their own governments, but they did not really care. As long as the nanny state took care of them, Europeans were willing to give their freedoms and control of their own destinies into to the hands of dictators, bureaucrats and any higher power. By higher power I am not talking about God, but government, which has in many cases in Europe substituted God. We can still witness the results today, with overblown welfare states that encourage living off the taxpayer´s wallet (others would call it, living off your hard working neighbor´s wallet) and at the same time, discouraging or even punishing innovation, growth and small businesses, or to add it all up, the American free enterprise system. This has never really been a problem for us, since it gave us an economic advantage over the Europeans. Sure, we had to subsidize their welfare state with our military security guarantees,which in the first place enabled the Europeans to lead their carefree (or should one say reckless) lives in their Social-democratic utopia, called the European Union. Nonetheless, it was never really a great concern, if people on the other side of the Ocean sold out their freedoms in exchange for a giant leviathan, a massive centralization of power on the federal level, in the hands of a few unaccountable bureaucrats.  It never used to be a problem for us, until January 20, 2009. Ever since this day, it seems as if we are seeing the same movie all over again, that we have been watching in Europe for the past five decades. Just this time we are terrified, because we notice that our own government is the main actor in this horror movie and we do not really want to, or dare to, think through how this movie will end, even though we all know where this is going to lead our nation, if we do not stand up and fight for our freedoms.  President Obama has bloated the non-defense budget by 25%, the deficit will rise to up to $20 trillion in 2019, up from about $11 trillion when Bush left office. This is not justifiable with an emergency spending to stem off the largest recession after 1945. Instead, there is only one explanation for this exploding government spending: Obama wants to abandon the heritage of the American revolution and turn the U.S into Europe. Much has been written about Obama´s legislative agenda and how deeply flawed it is, so I do not want to go into detail here. But it is interesting to see the bigger picture. The Cap and Trade Tax, government bailouts, expiration of the Bush tax cuts and last but not least, the so-called health care “reform”, will all lead to more taxes, more power in the hands of the federal government, more public debt for our children and most importantly, less freedom. Obama tries to implement the European welfare-state agenda in the U.S, without any regard to the proud tradition of limited and constitutional government in the United States, as it was envisioned by our Founding Fathers.  If one truly wants to defend the steps taken by the current administration with the collaboration of Congress, those people will have to explain to Americans the consequences these actions will inevitably have, as we have witnessed in Europe. But we still have a chance to preserve our freedoms, constrain the federal government and get the power back to “We the people of the United States”. Those are not Utopian demands, but those are our God-given rights which no government has the right to take away from us. The Founding Fathers understood this very well and gave us the best worked out political strategy in human history, our Constitution. Following the advise of this document has turned the United States into the most prosperous,  most promising and most powerful nation in the world.This country has been known as the beacon of freedom, “a shining city on the hill”, “the last best hope of man on earth”, or as most people simply refer to it: The United States of America. What matters most though, it kept Americans the people on the face of the earth with the most freedoms ever enjoyed in history of mankind. All this was not achieved by a European-like, Social-democratic agenda, that runs contrary to all our beliefs and the U.S Constitution. Instead it was the strong desire for liberty, that enabled us in each and everyone´s own pursuit of happiness. Let us fight to get our country back on track, by simply following our Founding Fathers advise. Let us hold our Representatives in Congress accountable for their actions and votes and punish them if necessary. On the other hand, let us support those Representatives and Candidates that support the Constitution, liberty and limited government. When President Obama was in France in June this year, he complained about not having time for sightseeing and promised, that when he leaves office, he will take a one week vacation to visit Paris. Let us work together to give him that opportunity in 2013. We look froward to Alexander's next visit home to America.
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