Calling President Obama “the real radical” in his column yesterday, George Will compares the incumbent to the three previous “transformative progressive” presidents, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, contending that this year, Americans don’t share their vision of a large, intrusive state. They don’t share Obama’s vision of “fundamentally transforming” America.
Instead, the pundit contends:
In 2012, Americans want from government not such flights of fancy but sobriety; not ecstatic evocations of dreamlike tomorrows but a tolerably functioning today; not fantasies about a world without scarcities and therefore without choices among our desires and appetites but a mature understanding of the limits to government’s proper scope and actual competence. Tonight’s speech is Obama’s last chance to take a first step toward accommodation with a country increasingly concerned about his unmasked determination to “transform” what the Founders considered “fundamentals.”
The Democrats continue to tout Bill Clinton’s speech, yet that Democrat famously declared that the age of big government was over. But, as Mr. Will suggests, he does have one last chance to change course. . . .
At the risk of waxing theological, that final paragraph was epiphanous. Especially “without choices among our desires and appetites”. Think about that. We should have whatever we want. That’s an astonishing stance to take. Is what we desire always good? It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the modern Democrat party basically, without necessarily realizing it, is demonic. That’s not to say the Republicans are on the side of heaven. But there’s a difference between slowly drifting down the river to chaos and death on the one hand, and heading there in a speedboat on full throttle.
What we would like is to fundamentally transform Washington DC: End the cronyism, cut the size of Government to a level that’s affordable, and limit the intrusion of Government into our lives.
If downsizing government is transforming then I´m all for it. There is so much to be done. Reducing was part of Newt Gingrich´s Contract with America and yet he only skimmed a few agencies. According to an op ed piece in Fortune (May?) 1998 by Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, discretionary spending increased 34% or 23 billion over 1997. At the end of that year there remained 342 programs devoted to economic development, 163 to job training, 131 to helping juveniles in various ways. Useless holdovers from FDR the Rural Utility Service, and more recently the Department of Energy, Homeland Security, and a litany of czars. Consolidating and eliminating agencies will reduce spending. Let the government unions howl, if that will make them feel good but they have to accept that a bloated government caused the deficit. Another sacred cow that a Republican legislature must do is eliminate the IRS and enact the Fair Tax. Billions can saved on this alone. That is just on the domestic front.
Then we have foreign aid. Why we send multimillions of dollars to Arab countries, for what? They make a fortune selling their petroleum at prices their cartel manipulates by how much they pump. Moreover we´ve wasted so much money on Afganistan, while cocaine has become one of their principal commodities. We have been training their military to defend their country but lately their trainees have become our assassins. When there was a situation that effected some of their people President Hamid Karzai, demanded an apologyfrom the U,S., but he has yet to apologize to the families of American military victims. If he has done so, it must have been made very quietly. Pakistan is another two faced country, that has been taking our money while knifing us in the back. Others take our money but almost never support us in the UN. President Bush (W) must have been myopic when he looked into Vladimir Putin´s eyes. Senator McCain didn´t see the same thing, and he was right. He has been enabling Iran and proping up Syria´s oppressive government. Big savings here. I hope that President Romney will be very tight on dispersing funds overseas. It should be based on need that will produce verifiable results, not line the pockets of potentates, and a show of friendship by voting with us tin the U.N. Maybe we should consider withdrawing from it. We contribute 20% of their budget and get insults for it. Think of what we could save by leaving and issuing an evacuation order within 90 days. The property could be sold to Donald Trump who could convert it into tax payng commercial real estate.
I’d like to think the Tea Party wants to fundamentally restore the government to its small government functions.