For The Love Of Big Government

Jennifer Rubin, writing at the Washington Post, has an interesting take on last Friday's Presidential press conference.

The president’s news conference belly-flop Friday was a killer on two levels. Obviously, the private sector is not doing fine, as Obama admitted later in the day when he tried to walk back the remark. (But if it’s not doing fine is he to blame? No! That’s 2E and 2F.) But the rest of his message — that it’s good to keep growing the public sector — won’t be walked back. That is what he believes and why his comments, coupled with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s victory in last week’s recall election, spell big trouble for him.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board explained:

    GDP growth in the first quarter was a measly 1.9%, revised down from an initial 2.2%. The President’s response is to say as his first policy priority that the federal government should borrow or tax more so it can then finance more hiring by state and local governments. Spur the economy by growing the size of government.

    It’s true that government spending is part of GDP, and spending more can boost reported GDP for a time. But the lesson of the stimulus — which spent hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to the states — is that this boost is temporary and fades when the spending ends.

President Obama seems unaware that we need the private sector to generate wealth (you know, make things, sell things, etc.) or that we face in the near future a fiscal crisis when we can no longer off-load our debt. Where does he think the money to pay for an ever-expanding public employee workforce comes from? (“The fair if depressing takeaway from Mr. Obama’s press conference is that he continues to believe, despite three and a half years of failure, that more government spending is the key to faster growth and that government really doesn’t need to reform. This is how you get a jobless rate above 8% for 40 months and the weakest economic recovery in 60 years.”)

The one point I would argue is that the President and his advisors don't WANT to generate wealth in the private sector.  They truly believe that private sector wealth is evil.  Oh and where do they think the money for expanding government comes from?  Why from the Fed's printing presses of course.

The lesson in Wisconsin was entirely lost on the president. There, the taxpayers figured out that paying for (with rising taxes) the cushy salaries and lavish benefits of government employees is not the way to put the state’s fiscal house in order. If you want to lure business, increase economic activity and return prosperity you cannot keeping growing government — all that borrowing, spending and taxing eventually catches up with you.

Honestly, it is simpler than that.  Most taxpayers are private sector employees.  They DON'T HAVE the cushy salaries and lavish benefits PERIOD.  They are barely able to put food on the table for their families and so the idea of them taking food out of their kids mouths to pay for someone else's lavish benefits is an anathema.  They demand that the public sector employees pay "their fair share" of the sacrifice.  Most private sector employees that still have jobs have been forced to take 5-10% pay CUTS in order to keep their jobs and they are losing their benefits (especially health care) thanks to this administrations policies.  They want the public sector to "share" the sacrifice.

The president has learned nothing in the past four years. In his book we haven’t enlarged government enough, borrowed enough, hired enough civil servants and taxed wealth-creators enough. If the entire electorate thought like Paul Krugman, this philosophy would be hailed. But in the real world, Americans simply don’t buy this.

Unless you are....

The left blogosphere has predictably pulled out from the excuse matrix two defenses for Obama’s Friday meltdown: “It is a communications problem” (Obama didn’t say what he meant), and “The voters don’t care.” But are they going to defend the preposterous notion that what is holding us back is too few government workers? The president is sinking, but the entire Democratic Party and liberal punditocracy need not go down with the ship. For now, however, the lefty blogosphere seems determined to do precisely that.

What Ms. Rubin doesn't get here is that the left blogosphere is made up almost exclusively of the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party.  In their eyes this President isn't progressive ENOUGH.  They WANT him to do more of the same and they don't care if they take the party and the country down to do it.  They truly  believe that their ideals will work, if you throw enough money at it.  What they don't get is that there is not enough money in the world.  They have enacted their ideals for decades in Europe and it is falling apart at the seams.  And still they bitterly cling to the ideal that more government will save the world.

Jennifer Rubin brings up a lot of good points, but she also misses the main point - that the far left will not easily give up on their idea of achieving utopia.  The problem with that childish thought is that utopia on earth will NEVER EVER happen - because human nature will always get in the way.  Ms. Rubin also does not understand that the progressive left will do ANYTHING to get their way.  It's what happens when you are fighting for your ideals.

Thankfully, the rest of the American people are out there fighting for THEIR ideals as well - and they are the REAL 99%.  And as we saw in Wisconsin, they are waking up and taking notice and they are NOT happy with the direction this country is going in.