Liberalism Made Into Policy

09 Aug, 2011 by Kathleen McKinley

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While Rush Limbaugh keeps insisting that Obama is purposely trying to destroy America, a position I still do not buy, WSJ lays out exactly why we are staring at the worst economy we have had since the great depression. When liberal vision becomes reality, this is what we are left with:

Upon taking office, Mr. Obama proceeded to unleash the entire liberal economic and social policy arsenal in the name of ending the panic. Whether or not these were his own convictions, the President allowed the Pelosi Congress to use that rare political opening–and 60 Senate Democrats–to pursue a 40-year wish list.

And pursue it Democrats did. To an economy recovering from excessive private leverage, they poured on trillions in new public spending and debt. Amid a financial system suffering from a nervous breakdown, they castigated bankers for causing the panic and then added 2,000 pages of new rules. They spent nearly two years redesigning one-sixth of the economy to realize their ambitions for national health care. They unleashed regulators to rewrite the nation’s energy and labor laws.

Remember when Pres. Obama said that he carries with him at all a times a list of all the things that he wishes to accomplish as President? He said he had accomplished 70% of it. God help us if he accomplishes the next 30%.

The clamor and tumult of the last year are the sound of Americans slowly figuring out what has happened to them. The country and financial markets are concluding that the policy solutions imposed on them for three years haven’t worked. This is inevitably a painful awakening.

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As his remarks last week and yesterday showed, his economic agenda is more of the same, only less: more jobless benefits in the name of spurring job creation; an extension of the temporary payroll tax cut that has coincided with rising unemployment. Trade bills that he could have, and should have, passed two years ago. Tax increases or no bipartisan debt bargain.

While claiming to stand for a “balanced” debt deal, he allows only tinkering around the edges of Social Security and Medicare, and he refuses even to discuss ObamaCare, which is more unpopular than on the day it passed. For millions of Americans, Mr. Obama’s cool has begun to look like ideological stubbornness and political detachment.

I hope the lesson we learn from the Obama Presidency is that liberalism made into policy does not work. It always sounds good in theory, but it weakens us. Even with all the evidence around him, Obama still pursues his liberal agenda. He is surrounded by those who know no other way. Bill Clinton had many faults, as we all know, but he was never wedded to liberalism. He listened to those who knew what they were doing in the real world outside of Washington. I remember the anger from the left when Clinton signed the welfare reform bill. Peter Edelman, a Clinton appointee, resigned in protest over welfare reform, a reform pushed for years by the GOP, and finally signed into law by Clinton. Edelman wrote a blistering article at the time saying Clinton was gong to harm “millions of poor children.” Now, God forbid I should praise Clinton for anything, but this he did right. He refused to be swayed by the bleating of the left. He saw clearly that this would begin to clean up the welfare mess we had created in this country. He turned away from political ideology, and did the right thing. And it was hugely successful. But even success can’t stop those mired in ideology from killing that success. Sadly, Obama had eradicated most of that reform.

Clinton, as a politician, and as President, was able to govern from the middle when he saw that was best for the country. Obama doesn’t seem to be able to do that. Not being able to do that is dangerous. Because he refuses to see the true picture, even as everything falls down around him.

I just hope we can survive Obama until 2012.