Spokane7
65°
September 21, 2010 in Opinion
A wake-up call to the wallet
As a social conservative who has written extensively about abortion, stem cell research, family structure, failing schools, the degradation of popular culture and abstinence education, I submit, without fear of misinterpretation, that the next two elections are not going to be about those issues.
That isn’t to suggest that social issues are unimportant. They are critically important. And, of course, social patterns affect politics. There is, for example, no question that unwed childbearing contributes far more to poverty in America than the recession has. Abortion is immoral – and a majority of Americans now see that. And ineffective schools affect our economic productivity and competitiveness. We must reverse some of these trends if we hope to have sustained prosperity and political and social vitality in the long run.
But the short run needs attention more urgently. In the short run, the elections will be about the scope of government. They will be referenda on what the Democrats have done with their power.
The liberal Democrats had been waiting for 44 years for this moment. Though two Democrats were elected president with majorities in Congress in the last four decades, neither Jimmy Carter nor Bill Clinton campaigned as a liberal or achieved a large electoral majority. Carter was defeated after one term, and Clinton was obliged to trim sails and declare that the “era of big government” was over.
But Barack Obama did campaign as a liberal and, unlike his two Democratic predecessors, assumed office with a comfortable margin of victory (Obama’s share of the popular vote was 52.9, compared with 50.1 for Carter and 43 for Clinton). Democrats were delirious. The image that best captured the ambitions of the victorious party was the Nov. 24, 2008, cover of Time magazine in which Obama was pictured as FDR – cigarette holder between his teeth, broad smile, jaunty air – in short, a liberal Democratic fantasy fulfillment.
Even taking into account the bloat of government under Republican leadership, President Obama and the Democrats have more than justified that Time cover. In fact, Obama’s Democrats will outspend (pre-war) FDR by a considerable margin. During the Depression, federal spending averaged 12 percent of GDP. According to projections from the Office of Management and Budget, federal spending during the Obama administration will average 24.13 percent of GDP. In his first year alone, Obama increased federal spending by 22 percent.
The federal government will borrow an estimated $3.7 trillion by 2011. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “That is more than the entire accumulated national debt for the first 225 years of U.S. history. By 2019, the interest payments on this debt will be larger than the budget for education, roads and all other nondefense discretionary spending.”
When you consider the Obama ascendancy as a case of pent-up liberal Democratic demand, things come into better focus. How else to explain why a Democratic government would push through a new trillion-dollar health care entitlement when large majorities of the electorate have signaled near panic over growing government debt? How else to explain the $800 billion stimulus (whose funds went largely to public-sector union workers) and the obese budgets? “This is our time,” candidate Obama intoned in 2008. “This is our moment.”
But their moment came too late. If this had been 1980 or 1990 or even 2000, the Democrats might not have suffered the backlash they are now enduring from the electorate. But they chose to indulge their spending spree just when Americans were sobering up about past overspending in their private lives. The recession was a smack across the head reminding people that those jumbo mortgages and home equity loans were mistakes – that eventually the bills come due.
The Obama moment was further undermined by reports from state capitals. Big-spending states like New Jersey and California are verging toward bankruptcy, while more modest state governments like those in Texas and Virginia remain sound. If that weren’t enough, examples from abroad painted bold letters on the wall. Greece and France were paralyzed by strikes and even riots by public employees protesting any reduction in their sinecures. Nevertheless, Germany, France, and Great Britain have begun to back away from the precipice by reducing spending. Even Cuba has decided that its government is too big.
That’s what the next two elections will be about. Liberal Democrats might want to frame that Time magazine cover featuring Obama as FDR – that was their high watermark.
Mona Charen is a columnist for Creators Syndicate.
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JBlim on September 21 at 6:56 a.m.
Mona asks “..How else to explain why a Democratic government would push through a new trillion-dollar health care entitlement when large majorities of the electorate have signaled near panic over growing government debt?..”
Nobody panicked when Reagan tripled the National Debt. People did panic after Bush doubled the national debt (or put another way, after George W Bush spent more than the entire accumulated national debt for all prior U.S. history.) But the people weren’t panicking about the debt, more it was the stock market crash, the collapse of the housing market and banking industry. The public’s sudden fixation with the debt was a result of a deliberate decision by Fox News and right-wing hate radio to drum up fears of the debt. They couldn’t stand to see Democrats “waste” money on average Americans. The conveniently ultra-dense “main stream media” played along. Mona knows all this of course. The Democrats got health care legislation passed because the system that under-regulated private industry brought us was a miserable failure in every category except extracting a dependable and increasing flow of cash from its customers. So what we need is a wake-up call to political outfits pretending to give “fair and balanced” reporting of the news. Let’s wise up to the coordinated distortion of political news by those whose only chance at political survival is to trick people into voting against their own interests.
misjustice on September 21 at 7:13 a.m.
What Moaner always forgets, in her rush to bash and blame President Obama, is that it was her beloved “fiscal conservatives”, with their reckless borrow and spend policies, that left the mess for the Ds to clean up. Moaner suffers from selective memory, conveniently.
She also suffers from a lack of understanding about the Republican’t play book. So I’ll explain it. When Rs are in power deficits don’t matter. When they lose power they stand on the sidelines and piss/moan about the very deficits that they ran up; demanding, like petulant children, that the Ds fix the mess they left behind in their wake.
And Faux Noose along with Rush Limpballs are right there, willing to broadcast the Republican’t talking points and do the hard work of misinforming the unwashed masses; it’s hard work but someone has to do it.
misjustice on September 21 at 7:43 a.m.
Geez, flaky, simmer down. I said that they broadcast the talking points; I didn’t say they caused the problems.
Everyone knows it was your boy George that wrecked the country. You need to practice your critical reading skills; I know, it’s not as easy as listening to Faux and being told what to think.
Ninch on September 21 at 7:56 a.m.
…”misinforming the unwashed masses”…. Huh? Why the continuous disparaging remarks about people who do not follow in lockstep with Obama, Pelosi, Reid with their incredulous misinformation campaign?
BTW… the federal debt has been an ongoing issue for as long as I can remember. There has always been Americans with a debt consciousness, and that is why Clinton is remembered in good terms within the economic context. Notably Clinton and Gore also put forward an initiative called “Reinventing Government” which was very successful in streamlining (reducing) the size of government. Obama keeps promising to do the same but has done NOTHING in this realm. Obama’s budgets are also way over the top and reveal NO FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY. Blaming Bush (and the GOP) is not working for Dems anymore although highly effective in 2008. Also remember that the Dems have been in control of Congress since 2006.
misjustice on September 21 at 8:06 a.m.
And remember, while Dems contolled Congress, it took the executive branch to sign the bills they passed.
“As of December 2008, President George W. Bush had vetoed only 12 bills since taking office in January 2001. Only one Presidential veto occurred before Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007. This is the fewest Presidential vetoes of any modern President; in March 2006 Bush set a 200-year veto record.”
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/electionissues/tp/Bush-Vetos.htm
Click on the link to read just what glorious George vetoed ( the post is too long to include all 12 bills here ).
When Rs rage about how the Ds had control of Congress since 2007 what they forget is that glorious George had the power to veto any/all bills that they put forward. Congress doesn’t act alone; no matter what the “spin zone” tells you.
Ninch on September 21 at 8:10 a.m.
Maybe misjustice is actually the one displaying the “Limpballs” (quoted from his/her post above) because of the inability to respond to other posters without denigrating their intelligence.
BTW: Not everyone against the Dems’ spending priorities are Bush fans or GOP. This small black-and-white worldview that disagreeing with the party in power (or watching FOX news) is akin to blind loyalty to the opposite party is an example of lack of critical thinking…. as are the lame ‘blame GOP” responses to this Opinion article… which illustrate lack critical reading skills.
Ninch on September 21 at 8:13 a.m.
Just more BLAME BUSH from misjustice… who is so YESTERDAY!
misjustice on September 21 at 8:21 a.m.
Well, had it been a person with a D by their name when the nation was flushed, I’m sure there would be no end to the blame game. Sorta like when glorious George took office and blamed Clinton for everything, including 9-11!
misjustice on September 21 at 8:29 a.m.
I can’t help but notice, ninch, that you declined to comment on glorious George’s dubious veto record. Any thoughts on that?
Congress is only half of the law making process; the executive is the other. And while Ds controlled Congress in 2007, they could not have passed bills without glorious George signing them into law.
misjustice on September 21 at 9:43 a.m.
I’m not surprised at the lack of reply regarding the two branches of government that construct and pass our laws.
It’s easy to cry “Dems have had control of Congress since 2006!”, (isn’t that a cheer on Faux?) as a way to blame Congress, specifically Demoncrats, for our woes. It’s more difficult to discuss how it took the executive branch of government to make bills law; they don’t go into that on Faux, I know.
As for the blame game being exclusive to Demoncrats (when are you going to stop blaming Bush?), google George W Bush blames Clinton. You’ll get over 64 MILLION hits.
Oh, and as for when am I going to stop blaming Bush? My answer is never. I will continue to blame him for allowing 9/11, for cherry picking Intel in order to start a war, for politicizing the DOJ, for endorsing/formulating the legal wiggle room required to torture, for practicing rendition, for his assault on civil liberties, for 161 signing statements that essentially negated over 1,000 laws, for outing a CIA agent, for borrowing money from China to fund 2 wars off budget (through special appropriations), for having a no-bid process for war contracts which is nothing more than license to steal, for stretching our military forces (the soldiers) to the breaking point, for presiding over the largest economic collapse since the Great Depression, for building the largest embassy in the world in Iraq, for destroying Iraq and destabilizing the region thereby increasing Iran’s power, for borrowing money from China in order to pay for his tax cuts to his base (the haves and the have mores) and for his Medicare Prescription program, for forming the Office of Faith Based Initiatives and lodging it in the Executive, for being a snarky nit wit swaggering cowboy on the world stage, and for so many other reasons that space, here, limits my expression. But I do believe that I’ve conveyed enough reasons to support why I’ll NEVER stop blaming Bush! As the blame is fully justified.
JBlim on September 21 at 9:50 a.m.
Fox “News” has been blatantly lying about their impartiality for years. They have a definite ultra conservative political agenda. Fox “News” recently donated $1,000,000 to Republicans governors political campaigns.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/17-3
This should remove any doubt of their partisan agenda for all those “critical thinkers” out there. Fox “News” is not news, it’s where ultra-right wingers go to find people who agree with them, tell them what they want to hear and get riled up. But it doesn’t have anything to do with unbiased truth.
mikeln on September 21 at 11:20 a.m.
I agree with Misjustice, as long as the money is going to the good old boys it is allright to run up the deficit, but try to use the money for schools, the infrustucture, or health care for the masses, the republicans cry foul. I, however, do not think our government, republican or democrat, has any interest in helping the common american. The health care plan that has been passed is crap, our schools are in the crapper and another part of our ageing infrustucture just went boom, killing people, and has already gone from the “news”. We are no longer profitable for the capitalist and this puts us in harms way more than any so called terrorist threat.
Arch_Druid on September 21 at 11:42 p.m.
Ninch, if you have an issue about those who “exploit the unwashed masses,” suggest you read David Brock’s “Republican Noise Machine.” The GOP themselves denigrated the “unwashed masses.” The very people the GOP wanted to support them.
As for Mona Charen; how is it that Texas is more economically stable? Because oil refineries aren’t typically outsourced?
How is it that New Jersey is near bankruptcy? Because industries there could be outsourced?
Ed Byrnes on September 22 at 10:22 p.m.
misjustice on September 21 at 9:43 a.m. pretty much nailed it. The current congress and administration has done remarkably given the mess it was handed.
The late Hunter S. Thompson, in 2003, put the GWB legacy so succinctly: “In two disastrous years he has brought us from being a prosperous country at peace to a broke country at war.”
Keep fighting the good fight misjustice!