He finally did it. Mr Obama has achieved his career ambition of passing the first installment of the U.S. Government takeover of the entire American economy. In an effort that began with the nationalization of General Motors and Chrysler and the bailouts of financial institutions that should have been allowed to fail, Mr. Obama can now claim to have his hands on another huge sector of the world's dominant economy: the one sixth of the economy that comprises the health care industry.
While democrats guzzle champagne and munch brie in celebration of their victory “for American families,” we now have to brace ourselves for the imposition of this massive extra-constitutional usurpation of power by the federal government. Thousands of new IRS agents will be hired to enforce the new “Health Care” legislation. They will be thousands of additional agents who will have more authority to intrude into our lives than ever before. Would any of those new agents be democrats? And would any of those new agents have a political impetus to the performance of their duties?
We can be sure that would never happen. No presidential administration would ever take advantage of government power to advance a political agenda, would it? Except maybe the Roosevelt Administration when it tried to pack the Supreme Court in the 1930’s. Oh, and also the Nixon Administration’s extra-legal activities during Watergate era? An enemies list? Does Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck have anything to fear from those new IRS agents? Hardly, the chances of a president abusing his authority for political purposes are too insignificant to consider. Or are they?That sort of thing just doesn’t happen here, does it?
But even if they do not abuse their new-found power, and manage their new duties with fairness and justice paramount in their thinking, what is the probability that the administration of health care in this country will improve as a result of Mr Obama’s victory? Perhaps we could look at the performance of some other federal programs and shed some light on that probability.
What about that old Department of Energy? A quick peek at the DoE reveals an agency that was established by the failing Carter Administration in 1977 to end U.S. dependence on foreign petroleum products following the mid-east oil embargo of earlier in that decade. At its inception, in August 1977, US oil imports totaled 2.4billion barrels per year. Now, 33 years later, the Department of Energy will spend $29 billion this year while not producing a single drop of oil. And for that $29 billion, the nation will still import 3.5 billion barrels of oil, an increase of 45% over the 1977 figure. Hmmm, that’s not working so well.
Well, maybe the War on Poverty is doing better. The program, begun by President Johnson in 1964, had resulted in a poverty rate of 11.1% after its first ten years. Now, 45 years later and after continuing to transfer trillions of US dollars from producers to the indigent, the poverty rate has fallen to 12.6%. Wait a second! We have spent trillions of dollars in the War on Poverty and have more of it now than we did in 1964. We’re losing the War on Poverty. Any good democrat should be calling for the government to cut and run from this war, like they do for all other wars.
Then there is the Postal Service and AMTRAK and Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mac, all of which continue to consume taxpayer money at enormous rates while providing marginal service to the American people.
Even a democrat should be able to look at history and determine that government solutions to social problems do not ever solve the problems they are intended to address. They do, however, inspire the mindless support of millions of beneficiaries of government largess, which is the real motive for Obama Care. The reality is that we have just bought a huge new federal Health Care beaurocracy that, like the energy produced by the Department of Energy, will produce zero health care but will cost trillions of dollars that we do not have.
The trouble is they are quickly killing the golden goose. As Lady Margaret Thatcher once brilliantly uttered, “The trouble with socialism is that pretty soon you run out of other people’s money.”
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