President Obama is on a roll. The successful passage of health care reform, a delayed victory after so many early triumphs (stimulus, auto takeover, banks bailout), has emboldened him in new directions.
A second, albeit much smaller, “jobs” stimulus package was rushed through without much fanfare.
Now the first star shots have been fired in the direction of a Value Added Tax to help pay for all these triumphs.
Education reform is underway.
The President will be nominating a new Supreme Court justice over the next few weeks (look for a liberal to replace a retiring liberal).
He has authorized limited off-shore oil exploration (which, truth be told, is not really an advance, but a further delimiting of previous Congressional approval).
And we can expect cap-and-trade (which will affect even how sale-worthy your home might be) and who knows what else over the next few weeks and months.
This is a lot of new government presence and pressure on the American people. But, so far, the people, Tea Party activists excepted, seem OK with all the new intrusions of government into areas formerly reserved for personal or corporate responsibility. If, as the President promises, immediate benefits of the health care reform package are beginning to reach the public by November, then the revolution Republicans are promising might never occur. The people will snap up the hors d’oeuvres of this biggest ever government pig fest, and they’ll be smacking their lips for the main courses.
Let’s hope, even if November provides merely a continuation of the political status quo, that, over the next few years, the people will get too much of government junk food in too short a time, and become sick from their own over-eating. Like the quails God gave to Israel in the desert, we can hope that too much government junk food too all-at-once will make the people sick to their political stomachs, and they’ll re-examine their cravings – whether freedom or serfdom is the better diet for the long term.
T. M. Moore
