George Orwell's 1984 is alive and well in Obama's Rhetoric

It appears a major part of Barack Obama and his administration's effort to promote his agenda is to create as much confusion as possible in the message. This is particularly true when you review his economic agenda.

• The problems that led to the financial meltdown of 2008 were rooted in too much debt. The solution, we are told, is more debt.


• If we are guilty of generations of wasted money on excessive spending and borrowing, let us pursue more of it as an answer to the problem.


• Are artificially low interest rates cheapening the value of money and creating instability? The simple response to that would be to lower the rates further.


• If the market is not confident because of volatile spending and monetary irresponsibility, create more of both.


• If a company is "too big to fail," force weakened businesses to merge making them large, weak, businesses.

This theme is pervasive through out the Obama government. Economist Hunter Lewis points out in his book "Where Keynes Went Wrong" that the President's first budget, entitled "A New Era of Responsibility" (you have to love the irony) claims that it moves us "from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest," but creates additions to the national debt of approximately $1 trillion a year.

This odd approach to government responsibility is seen in the healthcare debate in which we are told that, in order to reduce government spending we have to have more spending by government for health care. In the same vein we are told by government that we need to artificially increase demand through bailouts in order to boost the economy in general, but that same type of spending on health care will not lead to high prices. This ignores one of the basic tenants of economics that prices are predicated on demand. According to the left there are around 45 million people waiting for "free" health care. Conservative estimates put it at around 15 million. Either way, that will be a huge demand that will result in higher prices.

One does not need to be a conspiracy theorist to be alarmed by the rhetorical tools used by Obama and his staff to promote the President's agenda. The parallels to Orwell's 1984 are eerie, in which the people in that novel were told that "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," "Ignorance is Strength." Unfortunately, our story is not fiction, but real and in this "newspeak" world we are told that debt equals fiscal responsibility. George Orwell's warnings have, sadly, fallen on deaf ears.

Kevin Price is Host of the Price of Business, the longest running show on AM 650 (M-F at 11 am) in Houston, Texas and on AOL Radio. His articles often appear in Chicago Sun Times, Reuters, USA Today, and other national media. Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal calls Price the “best business talk show host in the country.” Find out why and visit his blog at www.BizPlusBlog.com and his show site at www.PriceofBusiness.com. You can also find Price on Strategy Room at FoxNews.com.