What Happens if Obama Wins?

On Tuesday evening Glenn Beck declared that if Barack Obama is reelected president, Americans will have only themselves to thank and will, essentially, reap what they deserve. He qualified that it pained him to admit such truths, but stressed that it is far better to deal with "harsh warnings" than the harsh consequences of a second Obama presidency. He ceded that during the 2008 election, Americans, being the consummate optimists, hoped to believe the best about Barack Obama when he emerged on the political scene. While the warning signs were there the public was "blinded" by the moment. "This time around there is no excuse, we will get exactly what we deserve," Beck said.

Beck posited that under another Obama presidency America could become vulnerable to additional terrorist attacks and that the threats to Israel would mount as anti-Semitism rises across the globe. Likewise, record deficits, spending, bailouts, rising unemployment and corruption along with unsustainable investments (like Solyndra) will all boil down to disaster. He added that the economy both here and abroad could likely collapse and that the Muslim Brotherhood will begin to see success as it morphs from Islamic militant group to the architects of a far-reaching, anti-Western caliphate.

The usual suspects

So what, exactly, would the country look like during and after a second Obama term?

Aside from the possible outcomes Beck outlined, are increases in defense cuts and "green energy" investments -- sound or otherwise. In turn, should President Obama occupy the Oval Office for another four years, it is almost definite that the Affordable Care Act will not be reformed in any meaningful or significant way, even if Republicans keep the House and take the Senate.

But while speculation abounds, Obama has  been far from reticent in voicing exactly what he himself would like to accomplish if reelected. At the end of March, the president detailed his second-term priorities which include immigration reform, energy reform with an emphasis on climate change, education reform and executing an “effective transition out of Afghanistan.”

Of course, a 2012 agenda would not be complete without tackling the deficit, which Obama proposes to do by raising taxes on the nation's high income earners.Some believe a continuation of these failed economic policies will only result in America's credit rating declining even further. Since liberals have shown little desire to curb spending or truly address entitlement reform, the country's S&P rating is "practically guaranteed to drop at least another notch," by some report's estimations.

More than meets the eye

As we seek to glean additional insight into the years 2012-2016 under an Obama presidency, one cannot help but look to Dinesh D'Souza and his recently released documentary by a similar name: "2016: Obama's America," in which the author posits that the president's deep-rooted anti-colonial worldview will result in the downsizing of America. D'Souza explores the potential "global reparations" that would be doled out by a second-term Obama administration seeking to reduce America's footprint in the world. According to D'Souza, so deep is Obama's anti-colonialism, that he seeks to aid the world's "99%," not just America's. The logic adds up when one considers that if the president truly does believe the U.S. to be an imperialist, aggressor state that has "stepped on" other countries, then by that same token he would seek to make amends with said countries and bring America back down to size.

"So, anti-colonialism is a program of global reparations, not racial reparations," the author said in an interview with the Christian Post. "It's reparations for global injustice. Obama's goal is to shrink America. He wants to reduce America's footprint in the world because he thinks we are stepping on the world. He wants to redistribute money away from the rich and toward the poor. But we are not talking about the rich and the poor in America solely. We are talking about a redistribution of income away from the rich countries – America included – toward the poor countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, and so on."

In fact, if one looks not very far back, Obama seemed fixated on the Brazilian oil industry, offering Petrobras oil company $2 billion in loan subsidies to encourage the very same kind of offshore oil exploration he deemed verboten in America. Ironically, Human Events noted that the president's offshore drilling moratorium had already cost the U.S. economy over a billion dollars and some 20,000 jobs at the time.

Thus, D'Souza's observation that Obama is preoccupied with giving a leg up to other countries "in need" while at the same time demoting American progress could be an astute one.

Redistributing suburbs' wealth? 

As highlighted on the Blaze Blog is the president's dubious plan to rob from the suburbs to give to the cities. Yes, you read that correctly. According to a Stanley Kurtz at Forbes, another second-term plan of Obama's includes an initiative to "systematically redistribute the wealth of America’s suburbs to the cities." The project has been crafted in collaboration with one of Obama's community organizing mentors, Mike Kruglik.

Kurtz explains:

Kruglik’s new group, Building One America, advocates “regional tax-base sharing,” a practice by which suburban tax money is directly redistributed to nearby cities and less-well-off “inner-ring” suburbs.  Kruglik’s group also favors a raft of policies designed to coerce people out of their cars and force suburbanites (with their tax money) back into densely packed cities.

To wit, the Sustainable Communities Initiative is now setting up planning commissions across the nation with “regional equity” and “smart growth” as goals -- each code words, of course.  According to Kurtz, “regional equity” means that:

...by their mere existence, suburbs cheat the people who live in cities.  It means, “Let’s spread the suburbs’ wealth around” – i.e., take from the suburbanites to give to the urban poor. “Smart growth” means, “Quit building sub-divisions and malls, and move back to where mass transit can shuttle you between your 800 square foot apartment in an urban tower and your downtown job.”

The author suspects that said planning commissions will soon issue “recommendations” which Obama would directly turn into requirements for additional federal aid -- not far fetched considering his administration has used these very tactics to impose federal education requirements on certain states.  Further, Kurtz believes one of Obama’s motivations for targeting suburbs is to "undercut the autonomy of suburban school districts."

Other milestones the president may seek to achieve 

Some conservatives also posit that a second-term Obama administration would create a modern version of Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration program, thus creating a new bureaucracy with which to expand government. Following suit would potentially be a proposal for an increase in the minimum wage and even mandates forcing businesses to provide or extend paid benefits to employees seeking bereavement, sick or maternity leave.

Among Townhall's "7 things to expect" if Obama is re-elected, are an increase in taxes on the middle class (this is already a given when Obamacare is enacted); gas and energy prices would sky-rocket under the burden of cap and trade and the president's "doubling down" on green energy investments. This prediction seems all the more plausible when taking into consideration the following statements Townhall reminds us of:

Obama once said, "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." His Energy Secretary Steven Chu added, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

Perhaps that is why the president blocked development of Keystone oil pipeline and banned drilling in ANWR.

SCOTUS moves to left?

Another interesting point Townhall's recent review brings up is that The Supreme Court could very well move further left. Currently, four of the justices including Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer are well over the age of 70. Replacing any of them them with younger, left-leaning judges would guarantee the president five SCOTUS votes to use as his "wild card."

Of course gun control will be a priority:

Barack Obama filled out a "questionnaire in which he called for banning 'the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns'" and he let everyone know what he thought about gun owners even before he was elected with his notorious "bitter clingers" quip. His campaign website doesn't even have a section addressing 2nd Amendment issues, perhaps because Obama would have to admit that he's already calling for a reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban.

And no second-term Obama presidency would be complete without at least one renewed attempt to close Guantanamo Bay, especially if his phase-out efforts in Afghanistan fall short of the mark.

At the end of the day, the policies Obama has already enacted in his first term are indelibly etched into the nation's framework. A second term, where the president may feel more liberated to take even greater risks, can only guarantee that which he so desires: a fundamental transformation of America.