Rep. Charles Rangel's recent comments about President Barack Obama's budget exemplify the liberal ruling class's Beltway arrogance and blind faith in an ideology that compels it to press on the accelerator as we head for the cliff toward the nation's financial ruin.
How else do you explain the administration's and Congress' seeming indifference to the inevitably bankrupting consequences of their profligacy; their disguising a $1 trillion political patronage bill as an economic stimulus package when only 23 percent of it is arguably stimulative in the short term; and their audacity in forcing (and rewarding) banks to make uncreditworthy loans, pressuring Freddie and Fannie to "securitize" them, encouraging AIG and others to traffic in "derivatives," and then punishing all of them instead of taking the blame themselves? They are the ones who created this havoc and then refused to take corrective regulatory action when warned of the impending financial disaster.
Chris Wallace, the host of "Fox News Sunday," asked Rangel whether he was troubled by Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obama's deficits will be $2.3 trillion higher than the already-astronomical White House projections.
"I am more impressed," said Rangel, "with the fact that Obama is looking for a better-educated and a healthy -- a stronger work force, going into a new green economy, that this has to show that America can get off the ground with the deficit and move to where we were under the Clinton administration -- drawing a strong surplus. The only way for us to get out of this is to change our way of living in this country, and that's the direction in which the Obama budget is going, and I strongly support it."
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When Rangel says we need to "change our way of living in this country," he does not mean that the solution to our unsustainable budgets is to tighten our federal belt and curtail government intervention in the market.
What he's really saying is, "We liberals are going to do what we've been itching to do for decades, and even though our policies will place greater burdens on the economy, retard economic growth, and cause the debt and deficits to further explode, we'll end up with a surplus anyway because we are so doggone virtuous with our liberal compassion that fate will have to reward us."
Does anyone really believe that greater federal control over education replete with liberals' priority for indoctrination over academics, the environment -- with its onerous cap and trade requirements -- and health care will stimulate the economy and reduce our deficits?
Of course not, but their agenda is not about economic growth, which is bound to occur as a matter of course despite their irresponsibility. These liberal tinkerers believe they finally have a chance -- because of the crisis mentality, which they see as an "opportunity" they can't waste -- to implement their comprehensive agenda -- and not just on education, the environment and health care. Now is their time to strengthen labor unions, punish producers and redistribute wealth. Now is the time to convert the war on terror into a law enforcement matter and coddle foreign dictators even as they laugh in our face. Now is the time to use the power of the presidency to promote the abominable practice of abortion.
The way they see it, they now have a chance to actualize their vision for an America that is remade in their image and that is radically at odds with the vision of this nation's Founders. It doesn't matter that there couldn't be a worse time in our history for implementing their reckless policies. They know they may not get another chance in their lifetimes to work such mischief. Even though it will break the federal bank, us, our children and our grandchildren, it's all going to be OK because they will finally have achieved their statist vision for America.
Their ideology tells them that any means justify the ends of achieving their liberal Utopia -- even means (such as literally bankrupting federal budgets) that logically guarantee it can never be achieved. That's what I mean by their blind faith in an ideology.
For greater insight into the liberal mind, to help you understand why liberals are blissfully driving like Mr. Magoo toward the precipice of our national financial destruction, I refer you again to Mark Levin's "Liberty and Tyranny," in which he dissects the statist's unshakable drive to expand government and control our lives.
The statist never learns from his policy failures. He is never deterred by the destruction he causes. Negative data are simply rejected, as with his steadfast allegiance to failed Keynesian economics.
"The fact is that the New Deal was, overall, a dismal failure," writes Levin. "Yet today it serves as the Statist's prototype for governance. … (The statist) is unmoved by reason, evidence and history."
Blind faith, indeed.
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