In human relationships, there is the flirtation stage, followed by what my
grandparents called "courting" and, if that works out, marriage. For those
who are co-habiting, that was once the order of things, before disorderly
social conduct took over.
In presidential politics, the analogy also works. We have passed the
flirtation stage with Barack Obama and now it is time for a serious
background check before too many of us follow our hearts instead of our
heads and enter into a bad "marriage."
That MoveOn.org and Sen. Edward Kennedy have endorsed Obama ought to be
enough for any conservative - even moderate - to pause before heading toward
the electoral altar. But Obama has offered more cause for alarm by heralding
his left-wing economic philosophy in a recent interview with The New York
Times.
Obama told the newspaper the top priority of the next president should be
the creation of a more lasting and equitable prosperity than achieved under
Presidents Bush and Clinton. Obama apparently missed the class that teaches
government doesn't create prosperity; people do.
During last Thursday's debate with Hillary Clinton, Obama said he would pay
for his proposed new programs, including mandatory health insurance, by
imposing higher taxes on "the wealthy" and raising the tax on Social
Security wages. He added, "What we have had right now is a situation where
we've cut taxes for people who don't need them." Should government determine
how much money people "need"? This is Marxism: "from each according to his
ability; to each according to his need." Sen. Clinton expressed similar
sentiments on ABC's "This Week" when she said if people refuse to buy health
insurance under her plan she might garnish people's wages.
One reason this socialistic mind-set resonates favorably with many is due to
the shift in the last half-century from promoting hard work,
self-sufficiency, marriage, personal responsibility and accountability and
living within one's means, to a mentality that I am entitled to the fruits
of other people's labor. That used to be called robbery before government
started doing it more than a century ago through the income tax.
Another reason the Obama (and Clinton) class envy works is that too many
people are economic illiterates. They can't tell the difference between
compound interest and a compound fracture. How many politicians today talk
about looking out for one's self, not relying on government? Too many
Republicans negotiate with Democrats over the size of new programs and
budget increases, rather than reducing the cost and size of the nanny state.
The era of big government is not over, as Bill Clinton proclaimed in his
1996 State of the Union address; it has just begun. If either Hillary
Clinton or Barack Obama becomes president, government will grow even larger
and become more intrusive.
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