Victor Davis Hanson: Obama and ‘Redistributive Change’ - Forget the recession and the “uninsured.”

National Review Online ^ | August 26, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[neverdem]

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August 26, 2009, 4:00 a.m.

Obama and ‘Redistributive Change’
Forget the recession and the “uninsured.” Obama has bigger fish to fry.

By Victor Davis Hanson

The first seven months of the Obama administration seemingly make no sense. Why squander public approval by running up astronomical deficits in a time of pre-existing staggering national debt?

Why polarize opponents after promising bipartisan transcendence?

Why create vast new programs when the efficacy of big government is already seen as dubious?

But that is exactly the wrong way to look at these first seven months of Obamist policy-making.

Take increased federal spending and the growing government absorption of GDP. Given the resiliency of the U.S. economy, it would have been easy to ride out the recession. In that case we would still have had to deal with a burgeoning and unsustainable annual federal deficit that would have approached $1 trillion.

Instead, Obama may nearly double that amount of annual indebtedness with more federal stimuli and bailouts, newly envisioned cap-and-trade legislation, and a variety of fresh entitlements. Was that fiscally irresponsible? Yes, of course.

But I think the key was not so much the spending excess or new entitlements. The point instead was the consequence of the resulting deficits, which will require radically new taxation for generations. If on April 15 the federal and state governments, local entities, the Social Security system, and the new health-care programs can claim 70 percent of the income of the top 5 percent of taxpayers, then that is considered a public good — every bit as valuable as funding new programs, and one worth risking insolvency.

Individual compensation is now seen as arbitrary and, by extension, inherently unfair. A high income is now rationalized as having less to do with market-driven needs, acquired skills, a higher level of education, innate intelligence, inheritance, hard work, or accepting risk. Rather income is seen more as luck-driven, cruelly capricious, unfair — even immoral, in that some are rewarded arbitrarily on the basis of race, class, and gender advantages, others for their overweening greed and ambition, and still more for their quasi-criminality.

“Patriotic” federal healers must then step in to “spread the wealth.” Through redistributive tax rates, they can “treat” the illness that the private sector has caused. After all, there is no intrinsic reason why an auto fabricator makes $60 in hourly wages and benefits, while a young investment banker finagles $500.

Or, in the president’s own language, the government must equalize the circumstances of the “waitress” with those of the “lucky.” It is thus a fitting and proper role of the new federal government to rectify imbalances of compensation — at least for those outside the anointed Guardian class. In a 2001 interview Obama in fact outlined the desirable political circumstances that would lead government to enforce equality of results when he elaborated on what he called an “actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change.”

Still, why would intelligent politicians try to ram through, in mere weeks, a thousand pages of health-care gibberish — its details outsourced to far-left elements in the Congress (and their staffers) — that few in the cabinet had ever read or even knew much about?

Once again, I don’t think health care per se was ever really the issue. When pressed, no one in the administration seemed to know whether illegal aliens were covered. Few cared why young people do not divert some of their entertainment expenditures to a modest investment in private catastrophic coverage.

Warnings that Canadians already have their health care rationed, wait in long lines, and are denied timely and critical procedures also did not seem to matter. And no attention was paid to statistics suggesting that, if we exclude homicides and auto accidents, Americans live as long on average as anyone in the industrial world, and have better chances of surviving longer with heart disease and cancer. That the average American did not wish to radically alter his existing plan, and that he understood that the uninsured really did have access to health care, albeit in a wasteful manner at the emergency room, was likewise of no concern.

The issue again was larger, and involved a vast reinterpretation of how America receives health care.  Whether more or fewer Americans would get better or worse access and cheaper or more expensive care, or whether the government can or cannot afford such new entitlements, oddly seemed largely secondary to the crux of the debate.

Instead, the notion that the state will assume control, in Canada-like fashion, and level the health-care playing field was the real concern. “They” (the few) will now have the same care as “we” (the many). Whether the result is worse or better for everyone involved is extraneous, since sameness is the overarching principle.

We can discern this same mandated egalitarianism beneath many of the administration’s recent policy initiatives. Obama is not a pragmatist, as he insisted, nor even a liberal, as charged.

Rather, he is a statist. The president believes that a select group of affluent, highly educated technocrats — cosmopolitan, noble-minded, and properly progressive — supported by a phalanx of whiz-kids fresh out of blue-chip universities with little or no experience in the marketplace, can direct our lives far better than we can ourselves. By “better” I do not mean in a fashion that, measured by disinterested criteria, makes us necessarily wealthier, happier, more productive, or freer.

Instead, “better” means “fairer,” or more “equal.” We may “make” different amounts of money, but we will end up with more or less similar net incomes. We may know friendly doctors, be aware of the latest procedures, and have the capital to buy blue-chip health insurance, but no matter. Now we will all alike queue up with our government-issued insurance cards to wait our turn at the ubiquitous corner clinic.

None of this equality-of-results thinking is new.

When radical leaders over the last 2,500 years have sought to enforce equality of results, their prescriptions were usually predictable: redistribution of property; cancellation of debts; incentives to bring out the vote and increase political participation among the poor; stigmatizing of the wealthy, whether through the extreme measure of ostracism or the more mundane forced liturgies; use of the court system to even the playing field by targeting the more prominent citizens; radical growth in government and government employment; the use of state employees as defenders of the egalitarian faith; bread-and-circus entitlements; inflation of the currency and greater national debt to lessen the power of accumulated capital; and radical sloganeering about reactionary enemies of the new state.

The modern versions of much of the above already seem to be guiding the Obama administration — evident each time we hear of another proposal to make it easier to renounce personal debt; federal action to curtail property or water rights; efforts to make voter registration and vote casting easier; radically higher taxes on the top 5 percent; takeover of private business; expansion of the federal government and an increase in government employees; or massive inflationary borrowing. The current class-warfare “them/us” rhetoric was predictable.

Usually such ideologies do not take hold in America, given its tradition of liberty, frontier self-reliance, and emphasis on personal freedom rather than mandated fraternity and egalitarianism. At times, however, the stars line up, when a national catastrophe, like war or depression, coincides with the appearance of an unusually gifted, highly polished, and eloquent populist. But the anointed one must be savvy enough to run first as a centrist in order later to govern as a statist.

Given the September 2008 financial meltdown, the unhappiness over the war, the ongoing recession, and Barack Obama’s postracial claims and singular hope-and-change rhetoric, we found ourselves in just such a situation. For one of the rare times in American history, statism could take hold, and the country could be pushed far to the left.

That goal is the touchstone that explains the seemingly inexplicable — and explains also why, when Obama is losing independents, conservative Democrats, and moderate Republicans, his anxious base nevertheless keeps pushing him to become even more partisan, more left-wing, angrier, and more in a hurry to rush things through. They understand the unpopularity of the agenda and the brief shelf life of the president’s charm. One term may be enough to establish lasting institutional change.

Obama and his supporters at times are quite candid about such a radical spread-the-wealth agenda, voiced best by Rahm Emanuel — “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid” — or more casually by Obama himself — “My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

So we move at breakneck speed in order not to miss this rare opportunity when the radical leadership of the Congress and the White House for a brief moment clinch the reins of power. By the time a shell-shocked public wakes up and realizes that the prescribed chemotherapy is far worse than the existing illness, it should be too late to revive the old-style American patient.

— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

[neverdem]

Ping

[RC2]

The big question “Who is instructing the President?” That has to be answered and all programs stopped until that is answered.

[Frank_2001]

Excellent article!

[Jim Scott]

VDH is dead on - again. Well done!

[iopscusa]

Well the weak and scared citizens have now been awakened to a truly black scourge. Thanks should be given to the Republican’s also for running McCain the worst possible candidate in the circumstances of late 2008. Also give a big shout out to GWB who had to destroy the free market to save it!

[Frank_2001]

The big question “Who is instructing the President?”

I say he is a sock-puppet for Soros, Marxists of all stripes, and aging 60’s radicals and “Black Power” types...

[Just another Joe]

Let me win the lottery and I’ll be out of the US so fast it will make Obomba’s whole body spin.

[bergmeid]

Doesn’t that imply also that we wouldn’t see any more free elections? They should know, or at least have some clue, that the American people would not go for this type of “equality”. We would vote the bastards out first chance we’d get. So if they are serious about redesigning this society into a mediocre, equality for all, gray soup, they would ensure the people don’t get to vote anymore.

[alloysteel]

Equality of outcome is not at all the same as equality of opportunity.

[Clioman]

Billy Ayres strikes again...

[DallasDeb]

I think that God must be teaching us a lesson.

[LomanBill]

>>I think that God must be teaching us a lesson.

 

Isa 28:8-13
8 All the tables are covered with vomitand there is not a spot without filth.
9 "Who is it he is trying to teach?To whom is he explaining his message?To children weaned from their milk,to those just taken from the breast?

10 For it is:Do and do, do and do,rule on rule, rule on rule;a little here, a little there."

11 Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tonguesGod will speak to this people,

12 to whom he said,"This is the resting place, let the weary rest";and, "This is the place of repose" — but they would not listen.

13 So then, the word of the Lord to them will become:Do and do, do and do,rule on rule, rule on rule;a little here, a little there —

so that they will go and fall backward,be injured and snared and captured.
NIV

[arthurus]

So it doesn’t really matter what happens to Healthcare, Cap & Trade, Amnesty, etc. The vast increase in spending accomplishes the goal. The government takes a far larger share of GDP permanently.

[RowdyFFC]

Obama admitted in his book he was a communist. He stated it plainly in almost every speech he gave he was going to re-distribute wealth. But then he lied and denied all of his association and participation in communist activities because he knew he could fool Americans, and did.

All we have left is publicly confronting all of his legislation and voting these people supporting him out.

It’s going to be a long 3 years and 4 months. We’ve got to be prepared to stand up and match him issue for issue.

[r9etb]

The big question “Who is instructing the President?” That has to be answered and all programs stopped until that is answered.

That's exactly correct -- and it's a crucial question because Obama is above all an emotional idealist. He's certainly not an executive, in any sense of the word.

His ideals, of course, were formed by his family, who were certainly far to the left. So of course (as per VDH) he's emotionally a "statist," because that's what they were.

However, the available evidence suggests that Obama's thinking is mired back in what he believed when he was 19 or so. He does not show the sort of maturity of views that one normally associates with adult behavior; namely, the rough edges of the young man's ideals tend to be smoothed by contact with real world considerations. We tend to become more practical in our views as we get older; Obama's views, however, are malleable, and not particularly actionable.

Obama's narcissism makes him talk (and talk and talk). But he has never had to "do," and he still does not know how to "do." He's still that young idealist.

Somebody, however, is making all of this stuff happen. "They" know how to appeal to Obama's emotional outlook. Rahm Emmanuel is an obvious candidate, but there are no doubt many others. All we can really surmise is that Obama is content to leave the action up to others.

[JasonC]

They might want to, or a few of them might, but it is simply not in their power. No, see, they think all of this stuff works and they think people voted for it. They are honestly shocked that it isn't popular, and even more befuddled when it flat doesn't work even when they manage to enact it.

To them the entire problem has always been to get the power to do it, it has never occurred to them that it might not work, that people might notice that, and repudiate their goals. To admit that much would upset their entire world-view, which is based on a fairy tale in which they are the valiant champions of the dispossessed, opposing a narrow clique of self interested con artists.

They have remarkably little idea what they are doing. And it is quite unlikely they will succeed in a particle of it. If they did, far from it being "too late" to revive the patient, they would be repudiated instantly by the American people.

The American people were voting against Bush, against economic incompetence evident in the financial smash, and weary of war and of incessant criticism from the left and the media here and abroad. They hoped for a Clinton-Rubin administration of pandering pragmatism. Instead they are being offered socialism and they are saying "um, no thanks".

[loveliberty2]

Neverdem: You should love the words from Madison quoted at the end of this post, for they were originally published in newspapers for upstate New York farmers as explanations of the new Constitution.

When confronted with a decision between individual freedom and slavery, otherwise known as liberty and tyranny, Americans who prefer freedom must be armed with ideas and principles which are "self-evident" and plain. Otherwise, they cannot fend off the onslaught of the "counterfeit ideas" of the Far Left ideologues.

When America's Founders and Framers of their Constitution wanted to convince ordinary farmers and citizens of the merits of a written "People's" Constitution to limit the powers of those to whom they entrust the powers of government, they published and circulated 85 essays, known as THE FEDERALIST.

It's time for citizens, once again, to examine those strong and clear words of Madison Hamilton, and Jay. They are just as clear for today's audience as they were then.

Circulate the following excerpts to your friends. Even the least politically savvy will "get" Madison's meaning, especially in light of the power grab now going on in Washington. After all, THE FEDERALIST was the Framers' authoritative explanation of their Constitution, and directed by the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia in 1825 to be used as the text for its law school in its studies of "the general principles of liberty and the rights of man," and said by Jefferson to "constitute 'the general opinion of those who framed, and of those who accepted the Constitution of the U.S., on questions as to its genuine meaning.'":

"The house of representatives... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the cords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788

"This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788

"The propensity of all single and numerous assemblies (is) to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788

"Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788

Note particularly the following words of wisdom from Federalist No. 63, and take heart. You are doing what you were meant to do when you speak out on intrusions on your liberty.  According to Madison:

"As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?" - Federalist Papers, No. 63, 1788

 

[JasonC]

It might spend a larger share, but it is precisely not taking a larger share. And there is no prospect of anyone approving it doing so. The Dems haven't passed a dime in tax increases to pay for a scrap of it. Maybe they want to make that seem responsible, but it actually won't be popular with anybody. Also, it wouldn't actually raise the revenue needed. Only economic growth can do that, and that not by raising share but by growing the whole pie.

The share of GDP going to the federal government has stayed very close to 20% since WW II, through every variation in the tax code and every sort of economic event. The reason isn't hard to find. You can't pass a tax increase without half of the votes; that rules out any substantial contribution from the lower half of the income scale. You can't get more than half of the upper part of the scale; men will dodge "income" to avoid it. You have to taper the "joined" between them both to get enough votes and to avoid crushing all growth out of the economy. So you get something a bit less than half of half of incomes, and there is no more blood in the stone.

[bvw]

Isaiah Chapter 28

Alternate version: http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1028.htm

8. Whom shall one teach knowledge? And whom shall one make to understand the message? Them that are weaned from the milk, them that are drawn from the breasts?

9. For it is precept by precept, precept by precept, line by line, line by line; here a little, there a little.

11. For with stammering lips and with a strange tongue shall it be spoken to this people;

12. To whom it was said: ‘This is the rest, give ye rest to the weary; and this is the refreshing’; yet they would not hear.

13. And so the word of the LORD is unto them precept by precept, precept by precept, line by line, line by line; here a little, there a little; that they may go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

- - -

The way I read this there is also a suggestion of a farmer planting a precious seed each in its own carefully dug hole, in the row .. This is not a easy verse.