A Post Obama Top 10 List For American Prosperity...

America has a love affair with Top 10 lists. Probably the most well known is David Letterman’s “Top Ten List” that began as a throwaway skit on NBC 30 years ago and soon became a cornerstone of his program, even more so when he later moved to CBS. There’s also ESPN’s Top 10 Plays of the Day… and they even have a Not Top 10 list. And no walk through a grocery checkout would be complete with catching a glimpse of at least one magazine touting a Top 10 list of beauty tips, sexiest men or Hollywood divorces. Then of course there are the Internet’s ubiquitous click bait ads featuring “Top 10 things you didn’t know about…” this celebrity or that food or cute animals.

If nothing else, Top 10 lists are an attempt to focus attention… whether they are seeking to entertain audiences, sell magazines or drive online stats. They can however sometimes be things of consequence. This is one of those times, and this list is about more than just making viewers laugh or readers envious. It’s about the first ten (domestic) things the next president should promise to do immediately upon taking office from Barack Obama. While a complete list would no doubt be exponentially longer, a Top Ten list provides an opportunity to focus the attention of voters and candidates in the months leading up to next year’s election, and provide clarity about what a candidate’s priorities are.

Drum roll please…

Number 10: Refocus NASA on science and space exploration rather than “Muslim outreach”.

Number 9: Eliminate NLRB Ambush Election Rules – This rule is a giveaway to unions and dramatically ties the hands of employers seeking to present a balancing argument against unionization.

Number 8: Eliminate the HUD rule that seeks to “diversify” wealthy neighborhoods… or what I call the Obaminization of your neighborhood.

Number 7: Withdraw all NLRB lawsuits and actions seeking to apply Joint Employer legislation to franchisors. This position threatens the very foundation of the franchise model that has been so extraordinarily successful and has generated a countless choices for consumers, great wealth for entrepreneurs, and tens of millions of jobs across the country.

Number 6: Eliminate the EPA’s job killing and extraordinarily expensive rule requiring a 30% reduction (from 2005 levels) of CO2 emissions by 2030.

Number 5: Announce that the administration will work with Congress to repeal Dodd Frank… the disastrous legislative and regulatory leviathan implemented in the wake of the housing collapse.

Number 4: Repeal every Obama Executive Order pertaining to immigration and amnesty. Simultaneously announce that the administration will not engage in immigration reform until legislation is passed requiring work begin on a wall from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego.

Number 3: Announce that the Department of Commerce will immediately cease all efforts to relinquish control over the Internet and, further, announce that the contract that comes up for renewal in 2017 will be written for 25 years to preclude another attempt to internationalize control over the Internet.

Number 2: Immediately move to have the FCC repeal Net Neutrality and utilize all administration resources to block implementation and enforcement in the interim.

And the Number 1 thing the next president should do upon taking office is to immediately repeal all executive orders and eliminate all waivers pertaining to Obamacare. Simultaneously the president should send a team to work with Congress to repeal Obamacare and replace it, with the goal of passing reforms that allow free markets and entrepreneurship to provide solutions to tackle the American healthcare situation.

Of course this will not be enough, as there would be myriad things remaining to be addressed such as the oppressive tax code and tax rates, a failed federal education bureaucracy and a stultifying energy policy… and of course a catastrophically dysfunctional foreign policy. But by conspicuously unfurling a standard with such a list, a candidate would quickly put voters and the nation on notice that with him, or her, economic freedom, entrepreneurship and the pursuit of widespread prosperity would once again be primary forces driving US domestic policy. One can only hope that after the long national nightmare of Barack Obama’s reign the country still remembers what prosperity looks like and is willing to pull the lever for someone who understands how to achieve it.

The Obamanization of your neighborhood... turning your community into the south side of Chicago

Next to families, communities are perhaps the single most important part of American life. Communities are made up of the places we shop, the churches we attend, and perhaps most importantly where we live. Aside from where we work, our homes are probably the places where we spend the most time. It’s at home where we typically can be most relaxed, where we can be ourselves, where we can feel comfortable, or at least usually have some level of control.

If you are like most Americans, your home, whether it’s an apartment you rent, a single family home you own or anything in between, is the single biggest expense you have and we usually take great care in figuring out where we want to live. Everything from the number of rooms to its proximity to your job to quality of the schools to the price all play a role. Another big part of the decision about where we live is the understanding that we are making a significant commitment, not only in terms of dollars, but in our time as well.

One of the great aspects of the American Dream has always been the notion that one of the benefits of hard work and becoming successful is that we give ourselves more options in terms of where we can live. We may have more income to spend on housing which may allow us to buy a bigger home or move to a nicer neighborhood. We may have more highly valued skills that expand the number of cities or states we can go for a job. Whatever it is, for most Americans a core element of the American Dream involves some element of housing. The ability to choose where we live, the communities we want to be a part of are integral to the concept of being American.

With the advent of the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s, many limitations of homeownership based on race were eliminated. As a result communities across the country became integrated as minorities found that they too could move anywhere they could afford to buy or rent.

That ability for anyone to live where they want, to live anywhere they can afford to purchase or rent is a core American freedom. While there is no “Freedom to live where you want…” enshrined in the US Constitution, that’s because the Founders understood that it was such a basic freedom that it didn’t need to be codified. Needing such a declaration would be the equivalent of needing one that says “The freedom to breath air is protected.” Some things are so basic that they simply don’t need to be stated. The freedom to live and raise our families where we choose has lasted for two centuries, but it may not last much longer.

If you are one of those homeowners or renters who has chosen to live in a good neighborhood, worked hard to move to a community with (relatively) good schools, if you’ve decided to move to a community where trees and green lawns are common, the Obama administration is coming after you. If you and your family struggled to leave behind the crime, deprivation and crumbling schools of the city for the relatively tranquil suburbs, don't get too comfortable, the Obama administration is planning on sending you back to the future.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the people who inflicted the squalor and tragedy of public housing on citizens and communities for five decades, have decided that they are now not only qualified, but also have the power, to decide what your neighborhood and community should look like. That’s right, the Obama administration has decided that they have the power to decide what your community should look like from an economic, racial and ethnic makeup. Essentially they can decide who should live in your neighborhood. If you’ve moved into a neighborhood that only has single family homes they can force local authorities to zone for apartment buildings or high rise condos. If you’ve moved into a community that recognizes that owners tend to take better care of their properties and therefore limits rentals… too bad. If the citizens of your community choose not to rent to those using Section 8 vouchers for payment, too bad, the government can force them to do so. Essentially, the government that gave us a failed education system, figured out how to make welfare pay more than work and loses billions of dollars annually on green energy boondoggles now plans to manage our neighborhoods…

Our communities are the core of American life. They are where you spend the majority of your non working hours. They are where you are the most vulnerable – i.e. where you close your eyes and go to sleep. They are where you raise your children, send them to school and volunteer at their scouting functions. They are where you go to church and the Rotary. They are the anchor around which much of your life revolves. So the question is, for something that is so fundamentally important, who is better positioned to decide what your community should look like, some nameless cog in the machine of government sitting behind a desk in Washington or the people who live in the houses, mow the lawns, attend the churches, raise their families and pay the property taxes? If you said the latter, you must be one of those anti-government zealots who the Obama administration thinks is a threat to America. Welcome to your new neighborhood. Enjoy!