The making of the biggest government in history
Writes Robert L. Samuelson:
They’ve left the impression that somehow magical technological breakthroughs will produce clean energy that is also cheap. Perhaps that will happen; it hasn’t yet. They’ve talked so often about the need to control wasteful health spending that they’ve implied they’ve actually found a way of doing so. Perhaps they will, but they haven’t yet.
Jennifer Rubin comments:
The result is a return to a style of government that was popularized decades ago: large federal bureaucracies, volumes of regulations and ever higher taxes to pay for all of it. It isn’t very “modern,” as we have come to think of the 21st century. If the trend in everything from entertainment to media is decentralized, personalized, and competitive then the Obama government seems rather old-fashioned. When one thinks of creating, monitoring, and enforcing healthcare policy for 300 million Americans and regulating control carbon-output for thousands of businesses you come to appreciate how large and complex the government must be. Do we really think any government can pull this off?
No it cannot. That is also the problem with trying to develop a national health care plan. Europeans often say that the American government should do what most of their governments have done: find a way to ensure every single citizen has health insurance. They forget, however, that European countries are much smaller than the U.S. Instead of comparing individual European states to the U.S. they should compare the E.U. to the U.S. When they do, they often suddenly realize just how big America is, and how difficult it is for a central government to insure its inhabitants.
On the other hand, conservatives are wrong to advocate maintaining the status quo as well. Instead, they have to find a way to empower states. This problem should be solved on a state level, the federal government can coordinate the effort(s).
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
Actually, to take a tract of empowering States would be redundant when it comes to the US Constitution. It is the States that empower the Federal Gov’t.
All that is needed is to roll back Federal laws granting itself powers.