Long ago when I came to Washington to change the world, I ran
smack into a brick wall. That wall was called the election of
1964 and if you weren't there, let me tell you about it. A very
liberal Democrat -- Lyndon Johnson -- was elected president in a
landslide (61 percent!) and backed up by two very Democrat houses
of Congress. In the Senate Democrats ruled 68 to 32 and in the
House they outnumbered Republicans 295 to 140. That was the make
up of the famous 89th Congress -- where I worked and saw first
hand what super-majorities can do. That Congress is known for
civil rights legislation, but they did a great deal more. For
example, they produced the utopian Great Society featuring the
audacious War on Poverty. Conservatives were too few to stop the
government-knows-best steamroller, so America spent $5 trillion
and did not end poverty. Instead we eroded social and family
bonds; created a chronically dependent class of Americans; and
built a huge welfare-poverty industry to go with it. And it
wasn't until 1996 that Republicans were able to do anything about
it.
In the 1960s and beyond, the federal government got involved in
every kind of social engineering legislation they could think of.
To wit: public education (now run by unions for unions) --
medical care (Medicare and Medicaid, the precursors of socialized
medicine) -- the Endangered Species Act (land use killer), the
arts and humanities, television and radio and more. Then, as now,
the media acted as the Democrats' cheering section. No
presidential candidate was more criticized than the GOP's '64
candidate, the libertarian, small government, individual freedom
Barry Goldwater. In the end, lots more government and government
dependents were created, and socialism gained ground as federal
policy.
Are we about to do that again? Democrat majorities in the House
and Senate and a president who has declared of himself: "I am
absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to
look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we
began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless;
this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and
our planet began to heal." Wow. This time we're even taking
on the oceans and the planet.
Democrats attach themselves to the legacy of Thomas Jefferson but
they sure don't attach to his warning: "A wise and frugal
government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own
pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the
mouth of labor the bread it has earned -- this is the sum of good
government." With liberal Democrats in charge, the American
vision of limited government and individual self-responsibility
dissolves into collectivism and victimhood for all. The other
guys -- the successful entrepreneurs and job makers -- will be
required to turn over their earnings to the re-distributors and
their utopian causes -- which never work and never end. For me,
this is déjà-vu-all-over-again. Government largess is still
easier to sell than self-responsibility, so some people will
never learn. I hope we are not there again.
topics:
Election 2008, Barack Obama
