With the country facing a monstrous federal debt crisis, spending federal funds to undercut state laws may not be a good use of taxpayer money. Ashley Schapitl, spokeswoman for Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara/Ventura, said “Lois’ position is that the federal government should defer to state law on this issue, and given the tremendous fiscal difficulties facing the federal government, the crackdown is not the best use of federal taxpayer dollars...”
“Forcing dispensaries to close does nothing for the demand for the medicine, instead it only pushes the market underground, which in turn invites more illegal activity into our communities,” said Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara/Ventura. “I see the federal crackdown as an aimless and senseless misuse of resources.”
Someday people will look back and wonder, What were they thinking? Why, in the midst of a stalled recovery, with the economy fragile and job creation slowing to a trickle, did the nation’s leaders decide that the thing to do—in order to raise the debt limit, normally a routine matter—was to spend less money, making job creation all the more difficult? Many experts on the economy believe that the President has it backward: that focusing on growth and jobs is more urgent in the near term than cutting the deficit, even if such expenditures require borrowing. But that would go against Obama’s new self-portrait as a fiscally responsible centrist...
It all goes back to the “shellacking” Obama took in the 2010 elections. The President’s political advisers studied the numbers and concluded that the voters wanted the government to spend less. This was an arguable interpretation. Nevertheless, the political advisers believed that elections are decided by middle-of-the-road independent voters, and this group became the target for determining the policies of the next two years.
That explains a lot about the course the President has been taking this year. The political team’s reading of these voters was that to them, a dollar spent by government to create a job is a dollar wasted. The only thing that carries weight with such swing voters, they decided—in another arguable proposition—is cutting spending. Moreover, like Democrats—and very unlike Republicans—these voters do not consider “compromise” a dirty word...
This all fits with another development in the Obama White House. According to another close observer, David Plouffe, the manager of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, who officially joined the White House staff in January 2011, has taken over. “Everything is about the reelect,” this observer says—”where the President goes, what he does.”
Plouffe’s advice to the President defines not just Obama’s policies but also his behavior. Plouffe tells the President, according to this observer, that the target group wants him to seem the most reasonable man in the room.
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