Update on Predicted Moves

A little over a year ago (November 15, 2012), I posted a list of ten predicted moves by Obama during his second term. It seems to me that now would be a good time to evaluate where each of these moves currently stands. The predicted moves were:

1. Initiate an expansive de facto amnesty program for illegal aliens via executive order and interagency directives linked with a reduction in the capabilities of the U.S. Border Patrol, which, with the removal of caps on H-1B visas and green cards, will bring in untold numbers of new immigrants.

This has not happened fully as yet, but "immigration reform" is now being brought up again as the next big issue to address and the use of Executive Orders to bring about reform has been openly discussed.

2. Initiate government-funded, neighborhood-based programs to better integrate the newly amnestied immigrants into society, including education centers and health-care centers. This will be the "federal solution" to ensure that all amnestied immigrants are treated "equitably" across the United States.

We’re not at this point yet.

3. Re-create a 21st century version of FDR’s Works Progress Administration program within the Department of Labor that would oversee a massive new bureaucracy and millions of new federal jobs.

Nothing on this that I’m aware of.

4. Initiate a National Infrastructure Bank which would "evaluate and finance infrastructure projects of substantial regional and national importance" and would finance "transportation infrastructure, housing, energy, telecommunications, drinking water, wastewater, and other infrastructures."

Nothing on this one either that I’m aware of.

5. Wrest control of the military budget away from Congress by placing an "independent panel" in charge of military spending while slashing the defense budget in shocking ways.

Military spending as been slashed substantially due to "sequestration," but I don’t know of any proposals to create an "independent panel."

6. Use the U.S. armed forces to combat "global warming," fight global poverty, remedy "injustice," bolster the United Nations, and to handle "peacekeeping" missions.

Obama has recently been quietly purging the upper echelons of the military of the generals who has opposed him or taken a stand to his disliking. This could be laying the groundwork for re-purposing the American military. Time will tell.

7. Institute a new "green" stimulus program and a federal "green" bank or "Energy Independence Trust," which would borrow from the federal treasury to provide low-cost financing to private-sector investments in "clean energy."

Nothing on this one that I’m aware of.

8. Nudge the nation closer and closer to a single-payer health-care system controlled by the federal government. (Obama stated back in 2007 that this was his ultimate objective, though he admitted it might take 10 or 15 years to get there.)

The utter incompetence of the Obamacare kick-off may have been an intentional effort to bring the current system to its knees and virtually force the federal government to enact a single-payer system. Whether the bungled effort was intentional or not, it has certainly "nudged" us closer. In the past two months I have heard several pundits and politicians state outright that they favor a single-payer system. What gets talked about by liberals usually ends up happening...eventually.

9. Begin a federal process for determining the "value" of individual jobs in the private sector instead of allowing employers to pay what they want.

The premise for such determinations has been subtly established by the occasional criticism of how much some athlete is getting paid and by the suggestion that doctors and other professionals and white collar workers make "too much."

10. Enact a "living wage" requirement that would force all employers to increase the salaries of their workers to meet "basic needs" such as housing, food, utilities, transportation, health care and recreation.

There is certainly continual pressure on the states to raise their minimum wages (many recently have), and were it not for a few stalwart Tea Party congressmen, the federal minimum wage would probably be substantially higher than it is today.

If anyone has other information on any of these predicted moves, please post it.