The Return of Big Government
A weak majority brought on the kind of social welfare state law discredited decades ago. The Republicans will find their revenge at the ballot box.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Folks, the era of Big Government is back. At least until November.
The image of the day was Nancy Pelosi, arm-in-arm with John Lewis (not that harnessing the sideshow of a single racist health-care demonstrator builds narrative momentum) or that bee-lining through a crowd of protesters carrying a gavel sized as big as half her body mass symbolizes a fight. It’s the metaphor of a speaker who trounces American opinion—all the polls indicated the majority of Americans were against the passing of this health-care legislation— because she knows what’s best for us.
Conservatives and individualists support policies that favor more freedom for individuals. The mandates in this bill, mandates that candidate Obama opposed, equal diminished freedom.
Where are the cost-control measures? The inevitable increase in health-care premiums means less economic power. Less money in your wallet equals less economic freedom.
Again they’ve irrevocably expanded the federal government. After all, who in their right mind will run against the now-closed Medicare doughnut hole? I’m sorry Mrs. Smith, but I’m running for office because I don’t think you deserve extra money for your prescription drugs.Three Democrats made the difference. This isn’t 1935, when 77 Republicans voted for Social Security. It’s not 1965 when 66 Republicans supported Medicare.
In 2010, the excesses of the social welfare state are well known and understood to all Americans except the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which controls Congress. After muscling the largest federal expansion through Congress in 40 years by only three votes, despite having a 75-member majority, Republicans have just lost a battle, but we might be winning the war.