Prior to the election of Barack Hussein Obama, some Republicans complained that identifying him as a socialist, which I have done since he announced his presidential aspirations, was “too extreme.” Shortly after his election, the same lot insisted, “He’s our president now. We should show him respect.”

It is notable, however, that I have not heard a single such complaint since BHO’s inauguration.

In fact, Newsweek magazine ran a cover story about Obama’s so-called “Recovery Act” legislation proclaiming, “We are all Socialists now.” Of course, because Newsweek is suffering from an acute case of revenue shortfall, a tabloid shock cover like the aforementioned is to be expected.

But there is no shortfall of truth in my claim that Obama’s “stimulus bill” has much less to do with economic recovery than it does with, in Obama’s proclamation, “We are…fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Indeed, as Obama’s chief water boy, Rahm Emanuel, told the New York Times right after the election, “Rule 1: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.”

Obama is accomplishing this socialist transformation at lightning pace under cover of “responding to the economic crisis” in order to “save or create 3.5 million jobs.” (Note the clever construction “save or create,” which is to say that even if there is no net increase in jobs, he’ll still take credit for having saved 3.5 million jobs.)

Despite Obama’s claims, this ruse wasn’t a “crisis spending bill.” Nor does it provide “economic growth,” and it certainly has no legitimate “bipartisan support,” with only three RINO senators from among 219 Republican legislators having been swayed by BHO’s incessant fearmongering.

In fact, some Republican and Democrat governors have since calculated the costs associated with accepting the redistribution of “your money” by Obama, and they’re saying, “no thanks,” because the terms of acceptance would mean significant state tax increases on their citizens.

In my home state of Tennessee, Republican Sen. Bob Corker concurs with the Congressional Budget Office’s summary that “the [Obama] legislation would result in a slight decrease in gross domestic product compared with CBO’s baseline economic forecast.” Sen. Corker has determined that it will not create any new jobs in Tennessee and is assisting Democrat Gov. Phil Bredesen with a determination of how to minimize the impact of the federal mandates.

Indeed, when all the mandates and interest expenses of BHO’s programs are calculated, his legislation amounts to more than $3 trillion of “your money” being redistributed to his constituencies.

In an effort to restore the consumer and market confidence so essential to economic recovery, Obama addressed Congress, and by extension the nation, Tuesday night, saying, “While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

But even Obama’s messianic standing among his adoring adolescents has begun to wane, as it becomes increasingly apparent that he’s far more fragrance than substance.

Of course, he spent less time cheerleading than he did promoting his next stab at the free market. To wit, a $3.6 trillion budget for the coming year that includes significant military cuts and significant tax increases on the innovators and entrepreneurs who dared turn a profit during the “era of profound irresponsibility,” but which also expands government funding for his constituencies so much that it stands to increase the federal deficit to $1.75 trillion for 2009, or 12.3 percent of GDP.

On the front of Obama’s 142 page budget are these words in bold print: “A New Era of Responsibility.”

The U.S. has not been saddled with a deficit representing that much of our GDP since we were fighting a World War on two fronts in 1942.

Regarding his “transformation of America,” Obama proclaimed that “the day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here. Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.”

The New York Times gleefully summed it up: “The budget that President Obama proposed is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters.”

“The ideas of Ronald Reagan?” Well, only in that President Reagan’s ideas were dominated by the foundational principles of our nation – individual liberty, constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, free enterprise, strong national defense and traditional American values.

BHO also continued his Herculean effort to redefine the reality that the current economic debacle is not the result of Democrat housing policies, insisting, “I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions.”

Obama added, “CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to … buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.” (For the record, Michelle has been renovating the White House, and Barack has been crisscrossing the country in his private 747 with his “dog and pony” show, all with taxpayer money.)

Regarding Obama’s “war on success,” The Wall Street Journal notes, “A tax policy that confiscated 100 percent of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 (before the recession started) would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That’s less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable ‘dime’ of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.”

Needless to say, there will be far fewer folks with earnings over $500,000 this year.

In addition to tax increases on “the wealthy” (which all get passed along in the form of increases in the cost of products and services), Obama proposes to limit tax deductions. In other words, he doesn’t want billions of dollars in tax-deductible donations to go toward charitable ministries and services, because his administration knows better how to allocate “your money” for social services.

For all his lofty grandstanding about private-sector greed (a.k.a. “free enterprise”), Obama hasn’t proposed any salary rollbacks in the executive or legislative branches, much less big layoffs. Conversely, Obama’s proposals will swell the ranks of the central government to unprecedented levels, all paid for with your tax dollars.

So much for the federal government tightening its belt amid massive salary cutbacks and layoffs in the private sector, or, should I say, out here in the real world.

Bottom line, in his first month in office, Obama has proposed more spending than George W. Bush did on two war fronts in seven years, and the Katrina recovery.

Despite this, the biggest expansion of government programs and spending in history, Obama had the audacity to say, “There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. … We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences.”

One might fairly conclude that Obama is attempting to spend our constitutional republic – and its assurance of individual liberty predicated on individual responsibility – right out of existence. Indeed, it’s no coincidence that Obama’s recovery plan is similar in principle to Red China’s emergency $586 billion “stimulus package,” emphasizing massive government growth and infrastructure projects – except that Premier Wen Jiabao is offering tax incentives to help small businesses.

In doing some research this week, I came across the bios of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Ronald Wilson Reagan on Obama’s White House Web site.

Under Roosevelt, one finds accolades for all the government spending he enacted in an effort to end the Great Depression (the Obama model) but not one word about the lack of effectiveness of any of those programs. Of course, not even the most zealous Leftists among Obama’s historical revisionists in the White House would dare make such a claim, because they’re unable to find a reputable economist who stands behind FDR’s New Deal policies.

On the other hand, when I visited the Reagan bio, much to my amazement and amusement, I found this information: “Dealing skillfully with Congress, Reagan obtained legislation to stimulate economic growth, curb inflation, increase employment, and strengthen national defense. He embarked upon a course of cutting taxes and Government expenditures, refusing to deviate from it when the strengthening of defense forces led to a large deficit.” (Translation: Congressional Democrats refused to cut spending for “social programs.”) “A renewal of national self-confidence by 1984 helped Reagan and Bush win a second term with an unprecedented number of electoral votes. In 1986 Reagan obtained an overhaul of the income tax code, which eliminated many deductions and exempted millions of people with low incomes.”

The Reagan bio concludes, “At the end of his administration, the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression. Overall, the Reagan years saw a restoration of prosperity, and the goal of peace through strength seemed to be within grasp.”

So, what is one to conclude about the policies of Obama versus Reagan? Well, Obama’s own White House Web site says it all: Cutting taxes and spending works, raising taxes and spending does not.

That not withstanding, Obama’s trillion dollar “stimulus bill”, which, combined with his $410 billion Obamanibus Spending Bill, $3.6 trillion budget, $1.5 trillion socialized health care bill and $2 trillion carbon “cap-and-tax” folly, amount to an 8.5 trillion dollar ruse to hasten “the fundamental transformation of the United States of America” into a socialist state.

Despite Newsweek’s cover proclamation, we are NOT all socialists now. In fact, there are more than 60 million gun-owning Patriots across this nation, many of whom have taken sacred oaths “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Of those, more than a few stand ready to honor that oath.

After all, in the words of John Adams, “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

Radical and thus uncomfortable as this fact may be, there is, nonetheless, a groundswell of discontent across the nation – millions of Patriots who reject Obama’s agenda for transforming the USA into the USSA. In the first Revolutionary War, George Washington mustered fewer than one percent of his countrymen against the mighty army of King George at the onset of hostilities. A far larger percentage of Americans stand ready to defend liberty today.

A year ago, I could not have forecast that the tenor of discontent would have reached such fervor that one now ponders, “Is insurrection the only answer?” I hope not, but it is the 800-pound gorilla at the table, and a growing number of Americans are taking note – and I am not referring to only those who have lost jobs or incomes. At this writing, every Patriot I know, employed or not, subscribes to the sentiments of Thomas Paine, who penned these inimitable words in 1776: “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”

Indeed.

P.S. For those who have been most grievously affected by the liberal agendas that seeded the housing and financial market crisis, those of you who have lost your job, had your income cut and your savings and retirement funds gutted, help is just a click away. Visit the Federal Election Commission’s campaign finance disclosure page, and under the map, select the search criterion menu “Donor’s Name” and change that criterion to “Zip Code.” Enter your zip code and click “Go.” (This search may take up to a minute, so be patient.) Once the search is complete, select the column to search by “Candidate Name,” and scroll down to see all the donors in your neighborhood who supported Obama. Since they enabled Obama to redistribute your wealth, surely they would be willing to share some of their own to cover your expenses until Obama’s recovery plan has restored your job, your income, your savings and your retirement fund. (Heck, you might even find, as I did, that one of your neighbors far exceeded the legal giving limits to Obama’s campaign.)

(Oh, and I took a peek at Obama’s bio and almost suffered a myocardial infarction after reading this opening line: “His story is the American story – values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family….” What? Barack who?)