President Obama responded by apologizing, and then he answered an economic question:
"We've still got a long way to go before we hit bottom. I ain't done changin' it yet. A powerful country like the United States, you can't flush it down the toilet overnight. It takes time... Be patient!"
Hold the Champagne
I know, I was kicking up my heels yesterday at our glorious small government victory (small though it was), but there’s a long road ahead. We have just begun to fight, and the specter of hubristic overreach stalks conservative plans.
GOP lawmakers need to proceed with caution. The press is the maidservant of Obama, and they know how to churn out the propaganda. WaPo writer Ruth Marcus would have thrived in Stalin's Soviet Union. See how she artfully employs the republicans as carjacker trope:
One side wanted the car, had a gun and wasn’t afraid — certainly not afraid enough — to use it. The other had a child in the back seat. (WaPo - Ruth Marcus)That's what we're up against, and it's powerful stuff. There really are softheaded people in this country susceptible to such emotional fripperies
Cut too much too fast, and the backlash will be horrific, and rightly so. Even before this deep recession, we had millions of souls dependent on government assistance, more so now. Single mothers struggling to feed their kids, people on medicaid going through cancer treatment, older workers broke and on the cusp of mandatory retirement… Our government has made promises to all of them. We cannot suddenly yank the rug out from under them, or even appear to.
Also, how can you morally justify slashing the federal workforce when the anemic economy holds no employment alternatives for those thrown out of work?
Whoever would destroy the progressive state and remake it for the 21st century must first present a clearly-defined plan and be able to explain it well. It will need to be phased in over time. People have invested money based upon the creaky statist model, and slashing too deep too quickly creates uncertainty that inevitably leads to a bad business climate, which means more unemployment.
It’s like a spider web, all sticky and interconnected. You can’t just rip out one piece without endangering the entire fabric. George Will explains...
During various liberal ascendancies, the federal spider has woven a web of dependencies. The political purpose has been to produce growing constituencies of voters disposed to vote Democratic. This disposition, a.k.a. the entitlement mentality, is triggered by making the constituencies constantly apprehensive about the security of their status as wards of government. (George Will – WaPo)The truth is, we are a long way from a libertarian nation
The nanny state has destroyed self-sufficiency and initiative. What would you cut and how would you do it without hurting the truly vulnerable? Progressive statists will be asking this question, and rightly so. We had better have viable answers.
