We’re nearly speechless at the grotesque $3.6 trillion budget
A $3.6 trillion budget with deficits not seen since WWII is called “A New Era of Responsibility.” Some estimate that the budget could wind up costing each taxpayer over $25,000. Micromanagement of corporate America now includes the mandating of “automatic pensions,” and this in a time of cutbacks and layoffs. And of course no amount of soaking the rich can possibly foot the bill. We’re left nearly speechless at the audacity of it all. We’re also a little tempted to mock these over-the-top moves as the teenagers taking the keys to the car — but these matters are far too serious, and it seems clear that, as a politician who’s had astounding, unparalleled success over the last year, Obama is playing for keeps.
The number and scope of Obama’s moves on these matters contrasts dramatically with the hesitancy and fecklessness of the government’s policy on ensuring the healthy functioning of the banking system — easily the single most important factor in enabling an economic recovery. We now believe that the reason for the contradictory and confused policy statements was at least partly ideological, that the administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming towards a sensible outcome over a punitive one. And a sensible outcome is still not a done deal.
Great forces have been mobilized and put in play by Obama. (Do we have any right to be surprised, given his past grandiosity?) The Post’s David Broder writes of “the unbelievable stakes he has placed on the table in his first month in office.” No one can know how this will all play out, but we’ve got a feeling that zeal, ideology, and inexperience are going to lead us into some very bad neighborhoods over the next four years.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:43 am
How much of this can be un-done in four years? Or two, if some sense of sanity sweeps the country in time for the next election? It will happen, because at some point, nobody will give us oil or goods for a hollow promise to pay when it is obvious that we cannot repay, even if we sold the entire nation and enslaved ourselves and our children in perpetuity.
I would expect to never hear the words “Reagan deficits” or “Bush deficits” or “Republican deficits” again in my lifetime.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:58 am
The number and scope of Obama’s moves on these matters contrasts dramatically with the hesitancy and fecklessness of the government’s policy on ensuring the healthy functioning of the banking system…
The Administration is terrific at issuing sweeping rhetorical mandates to the rest of the polity, i.e. Congress, the private sector and the public. It doesn’t seem to feel much urgency about its own responsibilities.
Ouch. I switched my vote to Obama because McCain acted nuts when the crisis hit. Unfortunately, people who are crazy in a tempered systematic way, who give you an understanding condescending smile and a pat on the head when you express concerns, are much more dangerous than individual loose cannons. (On the other hand, recall that McCain and other Republicans are apparently open to bank nationalization.)
The Broder link:
Maybe it’s Broder who has become superannuated and naive. The Congress now routinely passes thousand-page pieces of legislation that no Member bothers to read in its entirety: legislation into which sweeping unrelated provisions are deliberately smuggled. It is left to the courts and the bureaucracy to make sense of the hash. Obama expects to control both.