The American Spectator : Government Giveth and Taketh Away

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The Current Crisis

Government Giveth and Taketh Away

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 12.10.09 @ 6:08AM

Our president knows we're out of money -- a perfect time, in his view, to tax and spend without end.

WASHINGTON -- Do my eyes deceive me? Did I really see President Barack Obama this week calling for a vast increase in government spending? He now is promising to "spend our way out of this recession." He plans to build highways and bridges. There will be tax cuts for small businesses. There will be tax incentives for making our homes more energy-efficient. Economic stimulus will be extended for unemployment insurance. Checks for $250 will be sent to senior citizens and veterans. More money will be sent to state and local governments so they will not have to lay off teachers, firefighters, and police. It is estimated that the president's eruption of generosity will cost an additional $170 billion, perhaps more.

He has made this promise despite the fact that fear is spreading throughout the country that our government deficits are unsustainable. The so-called Independents have forsaken him owing to their fear that he is bankrupting the country. For that matter, he has expressed the same fear...half a year ago.

Yes, this generosity comes from the same president who told a C-Span interviewer last spring that "We are out of money." That grim revelation came from President Obama in response to the interviewer's observation, "You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?" The president's response was, "Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits."

About the time the president announced that this nation, which is "out of money," is now going to "spend our way out of this recession" the Gallup Poll spoke. According to it, the president's approval rating is lower than that of any of his predecessors at this point in their presidencies, and few came in with President Obama's high favorable ratings. Today he polls at 47%, down from 53% last month. A wit at the Los Angeles Times notes that the pulchritudinous former governor Sarah Palin is now within a point of the president in popularity.

What is going on here? I suspect that the citizenry is coming to the realization that the Democrats who have been in charge of the country since January are not doing so well. The average American is telling the pollsters that, "the country is going in the wrong direction." One of the ways the country is going in the wrong direction is not simply with huge government spending but with huge government period. Ordinary Americans are uneasy about trusting their fate to huge government. They know that government services are inefficient, expensive, and occasionally repressive and subject to corruption. More than that, huge government is unreliable.

The healthcare debate has got to be reminding ordinary Americans of their unease over government promises. Think about it. The same big government Democrats who are promising government-secured healthcare are promising "healthcare savings" that are clearly the denial of Medicare services to the elderly. That is to say, Medicare services that were once promised to seniors by Medicare's advocates are being taken from them under the false claim that they are savings. Face the facts: the Democrats' healthcare savings are actually healthcare denials to those who have been counting on those services for years.

Government does not keep its promises. Yet government is the Democrats' solution to practically all our current problems. Many Americans who have followed the healthcare debate are increasingly aware of this. The longer the healthcare debate continues, the more aware Americans will be that they are about to be cheated out of the healthcare that they now have.

When Medicare was first passed, it was understood that government would stand aside from the relations that a patient has with a doctor. Supposedly, these relations would always be a private matter between the doctor and the patient, free of government interference. Yet on page 146 of the Senate version of healthcare reform, it is clearly written that once the bill is passed insurance plans certified by the government can only pay the fees of a doctor who "implements such mechanisms to improve healthcare quality as the Secretary [of Health and Human Services] may by regulation require." In plain English, henceforth government not only will intervene between doctors and patients, but it will control that relationship.

Once again government cannot be trusted. What government gives to us, government can take away. So maybe the president will not be spending that additional $170 billion.

topics:
Health Care, Federal Budget, Deficits

About the Author

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of the forthcoming The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (45) | Leave a comment

Appleby| 12.10.09 @ 7:04AM

There is only one answer to this dilemma. You know what it is.

Meanwhile, remember that nobody can prove you are not able to continue and you do not know how to carry out their orders ...

Klabautermann| 12.10.09 @ 9:37AM

Very disappointing article. It concludes with: "Once again government cannot be trusted." Bob, don't you know that this government is being run by ivy league educated experts who have the best interests of the American people at heart. You believe that "government deficits are unsustainable." You obviously don't know how much money is left in "Obama's stash." Financial experts from North Korea and Zimbabwe have demonstrated that there are simple solutions to the debt "crisis." You claim that the Democrats have been in charge of the country since January. Our nomenklatura has been in charge for generations. Organizations like Acorn will not be "defunded" until the entire system comes to a halt. Forget Saul Alinsky. Remember Sergei Nechayev.

Melvin| 12.10.09 @ 7:55AM

To coin a line uttered by Jack Nicholson from the movie Batman as he rose out of the chemical ooze.

"What this Country needs right now is an enema!"

Mattled| 12.10.09 @ 8:40AM

Mr. Tyrrell,

Long time fan.

Thanks for keeping us informed, but it seems the Republicans (not Conservatives) still don't have a message or a media plan.

We have to defeat the media. Defeat the media, defeat Obama and the Democrats.

The networks have not, or barely covered the Global Warming criminals. This is criminal unto itself.

Like someone wrote in the comments section on another blog:

In two weeks the media found eleven Tiger Woods mistresses. In two years they can't find one (1) document on Obama. Yet close associates of his (Rezko and Blago) are headed to jail.

Put up a million dollar reward. Watch the info flow. I'm sure we can find a million people who will put up a buck.

Northern Rebel| 12.10.09 @ 9:33AM

I've got a swell Idea! let's lower medicare age to 55, and cut 500 billion dollars from it's funding, thereby insuring that anybody that remembered what made The United States of America great, perishes forthwith, as fast as possible!

Then we can institute cap and trade, and dumb down our economy, much like we have dumbed down our educational system.

Then nobody will remember why America was the place everybody risked their lives to come to, and the rest of the world will like us more ......maybe.

Treason is not too strong a word.

I am pissed at God for making Mr. Cheney's heart too frail, thus preventing him from being our President.

God bless America, and in his own Reverend's words, "God Damn Barack Obama!

worriedtoo| 12.10.09 @ 9:46AM

I ask in all seriousness. Is there anyone with enough spine and loyalty to our country, to go in and usher out all the progressives, that are tearing down our country and our right to our land of opportunity?

Ken (Old Texican)| 12.10.09 @ 11:31AM

Worried too,
You betcha! Just about everybody here is making a contribution to precisely that!
Welcome to our conversations.
Some of us are members of TEAM America. You can check us out at http://judgeroy.wordpress.com

If you read good sense there in your mind, you can go from there to our main website:
www.myteamusa.org

JIM WHITTAKER, Hemet, CA| 12.10.09 @ 9:46AM

The only way - the ONLY way... - out of this
mess is to make sure the GOP is voted a
veto-proof congress in 2010. Then, and ONLY
then can they begin to rescend and reverse this
Socialist agenda the Dems are shoving down our
throats.

Inthecountry101| 12.10.09 @ 12:36PM

While I have hope the GOP might have seen the light. I won't settle for socialism light wich they have been serving up for the last 10 years.

Margie| 12.10.09 @ 5:44PM

Mr. Whittaker you are absolutely right. Short of physically going in and removing them, it is the only way.

When will the "Independents" and conservatives who are sick of all this wake up and realize that unless we elect back Republicans beginning with the 2010 elections, they will be giving us more of the same?

hunter| 12.10.09 @ 9:50AM

How could anyone do to their birth country what this president has done to the USA?

Don| 12.10.09 @ 9:59AM

In the Army I had a Section Chief who would volunteer for every crappy detail that came along. This was to impress our superiors with how much misery he could put us through while maintaining high moral, which he demonstrated by jocularly controling every observed conversation.

Who's the Commander in Chief trying to impress?

Al Adab| 12.10.09 @ 10:42AM

We are become wards of a government which has promised much, delivered less and cost more than anyone ever dreamed. "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" That is exactly where we find ourselves. The more we ask and expect from others the more dependant on them we become untill, at last, they are the masters and we the slaves.

How can we ever apologize to our grnadchildren if this is the world we leave to them?

TARP Queen | 12.10.09 @ 10:44AM

Didn't TARP put us in the hole for billions? Why is Nancy Pelosi, Obama or whoever even debating what to do with repaid/leftover TARP funds??? Cancel the darn thing! I ain't no economist but how dumb do they think we are? Does anyone outside of San Francisco LIKE this woman? Would you buy a house from Barney Frank? Or Chris Dodd?

Liberal Reader| 12.10.09 @ 2:12PM

Queen --

Actually, the tax payer is either going to break even or earn some on TARP. The institutions are paying it back more quickly than was expected, with interest.

Perez Hilton| 12.10.09 @ 2:25PM

Liberal Reader, you're a DUMB BITCH, OKAY!

Ken (Old Texican)| 12.10.09 @ 11:42AM

You Guys are going to enjoy this article.

http://www.americanthinker.com.....psest.html

Al Adab| 12.10.09 @ 11:59AM

Thanks for the link Ken,
That is an interesting take on GOP and Conservative affairs. I'm not certain Palin is "the man on the white horse" but she certainly has a role to play.

Scott Martin| 12.10.09 @ 12:33PM

Interesting article. But Sarah cannot run everything herself. Obama has surrounded himself with Marxists and morons who are doing the dirty work for him. If Sarah should decide to run, but surrounds herself with typical Republican advisers who are not conservatives, her influence and electibility will be minimized. I hope she is smart enough not to do that. If she is, then she'll get my money and my vote.

Al Adab| 12.10.09 @ 11:56AM

A poem by Sultan Mustaffa III, 1774
(Ottoman ruler)

"The world is in decay, do not think it will be right with us,
The state has declined into meanness and vulgarity,
Everyone at the court is concerned with pleasure,
Nothing remains for us but divine mercy."

Tony in Central PA| 12.10.09 @ 12:53PM

They used to say Reagan's Presidency had a protective covering of Teflon that protected his popularity from the sometimes fickle tides of public opinion. This President has something more like a Green Fog that apparently makes people unable to remember anything he said previously. It also renders them unable to recall history or remember what we were just talking about.

PolishKnight| 12.10.09 @ 1:44PM

Hate to break it to you (and I for that matter), but from what I can tell Sarah Palin is a conservative similar to GW: Anti-abortion and religious, but on a fiscal and general social level, she's a moderate leftist.

She cheers Title IX which discriminated against male athletes in favor of women. She uses the term "feminist" to describe herself and seems to mean it.

Ken (old Texican)| 12.10.09 @ 2:51PM

He4y, Polish Joke!
You have not read her book yet, have you?
C'mon fess up! You don't know diddly about where this woman comes from.
I hoped better from a Polish ...person who wanted to break the stereotype of ...DUMB POLAK!

Liberal Reader| 12.10.09 @ 2:09PM

Mr. Tyrrell,

Clearly Obama intends to raise taxes in 2011. Democrats will indeed continue to be the "tax and spend" party.

But as many of your colleagues -- your colleagues! -- point out, this is infinitely preferable to what the Republicans were when they controlled the White House and Congress: the borrow and spend party.

Indeed, Democrats have put their spending on the books. Obviously, there's still a great deal of borrowing, but the spending is being factored in to the budget -- a clear, certain improvement over the fiscal irresponsibility demonstrated by Republicans when they had the helm.

Republicans REFUSED to account for Iraq (about 1 trillion dollars); the Bush tax cuts (about 1 trillion dollars); and Medicare Part D (hundreds of billions in corporate give-aways).

So -- your criticism, given your political philosophy, are well warranted, and as usual, made well. But as the "tax and spend" party the Democrats at least adhere to THEIR political philosophy too, unlike the last crop of Republicans.

Tony in Central PA| 12.10.09 @ 2:20PM

You know, that post makes me fell soooo much better about that $787 billion Stimulus bill. Thank you sir, may I have another !

Al Adab| 12.10.09 @ 3:47PM

The fact that both parties are culpable in no way excuses one from making the same mistakes as the other. The confusion comes from those who equate the GOP with Conservatives. The Cons are a minority within the GOP albeit a once and future successful one. Only a return to fiscal discipline and the abandonment of payoffs to support groups by both sides can return us to a Constitutional government.

Liberal Reader| 12.10.09 @ 5:30PM

The "culpability" is different. Democrats simply embrace spending. That might be "culpable" in your view, but it's not in theirs.

Republicans *claim* to be opposed to spending (whatever that means) but they do so anyway and with much more disregard for the consequences.

Al Adab| 12.10.09 @ 6:19PM

Sadly friend moral relativism is no defense. If the problem is spending (overly broad but helpful in the debate) both are culpable whether from Faith as you cite or from misguided attempts to placate. The Republican error. Whether either believes themselves culpable, the fact remains they are.

Again do not equate Conservative with Republican as that is a false premise. I might debate with you the "diregard for consequences" comment as on a matter of scale the recent Left debt/deficit explosion far surpases anything an accomodationist Republican might have attempted. Yes, Bush should have gone whole hog and sold war bonds and didn't although many Conservatives suggested it.

Enough. Enjoy your evening.

ds80| 12.10.09 @ 11:02PM

Take your sniffy "nuanced" "sophisticated" reasoning and stuff it where the sun don't shine. It might be more useful there.

Northern Rebel| 12.10.09 @ 2:32PM

Liberal Reader:

Stop me from laughing. even if we broke even, or made a profit, which is ludicrous on it's own merits, "president" Anti-Christ already told us, he is keeping the money!

The only reason these institutions are paying back the money, is to get out from under the gummint control, they foolishly allowed themselves to be put under.

Add that fact to this one:
The federal government is actively preventing these institutions from paying back the money, because they don't want to cede power back to them, because they abhor capitalism, and want communize our nation.

Get your facts straight L.R. we aint bumpkins, yall!

Curtis Rasmussen| 12.10.09 @ 3:26PM

I agree with you, NR.

My sister works for a financial institution that did not get involved in the subprime mess. Their books were sound, but they still took stimulus funds under threat that the government would not help them if they needed it later.

They held on to the funds and came forth some time later to pay it back. The Govmint would not take it, exposing their national socialist desire to control big business.

Rmm| 12.10.09 @ 3:58PM

When this period in time is over and in the history books, I can only hope there are enough pieces left to put our country back together again.
Obama is an aberration, the likes of which, if we are fortunate enough, we'll never see again.
What happens in the next few months will determine if he is a one termer. The Senate should reject healthcare as written, and go back to the drawing board. This would certainly take some wind out of O's sail.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Winston Smith| 12.10.09 @ 4:04PM

Soon all of you will love Big Brother. Just as I did.

Margie| 12.10.09 @ 5:57PM

Mr. Tyrell,
Your average Democrat follower doesn't seem to have a clue as to what is going on with the Medicare fiasco. I don't think most of them read here or anywhere that would inform them of the facts. They live with their faces glued to CNN. That's where they get their information. When you approach them to try and explain a thing or two~~ like how they are actually being lied to, they accuse you of being a hateful Communist.
As far as they're concerned, Obama can do whatever he wants. They trust him. He wouldn't, couldn't do anything that would hurt them. (Just view Liberal Reader's "knowledgeable" comments.)
The only answer I can possibly see, along with deep, sincere prayer, is all the "Independents" and conservatives to wake up and start helping to get Republicans nominated and elected, and now, for 2010.

Blacque Jacques Shellacque| 12.10.09 @ 6:18PM

...is all the "Independents" and conservatives to wake up and start helping to get Republicans nominated and elected, and now, for 2010.

It would be best to make sure those Republicans that are to be nominated and elected are conservative Republicans, and not RINOs.

Al Adab| 12.10.09 @ 6:47PM

BJS,
Correct, witness NY-23. A Republican victory would have meant nothing. The Conservatives brought the GOP sccess in 1980 and 1994. That the party rejected Conservative premises following is our disgrace and an error we must not repeat.

dcd| 12.10.09 @ 8:46PM

independents and moderates have no interest in and do not benefit from "conservative" republicans or "liberal" democrats getting elected. Independents have there own myriad agendas which "conservatives" and "liberals" vocally despise.
So the question is why should independants support "conseravative" republicans?

Margie| 12.10.09 @ 8:30PM

I have an idea. Anyone who wants to can run with it: Start a website called "Name Your State." It would be a place for everyone to go to and it would name all conservatives that are looking to run in the Republican party. It would be a place for the ones wanting to run, to be seen, and the ones running, to be backed. Broken down state by state! Good idea?

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Tenn Slim| 12.13.09 @ 8:36AM

Opine.
If you or I were determined to be Socialistic, Lefties, Radicals, Community Organizers of the Saul Alinsky mode, and generally not too well thought of, what would we do to regain the popularity, love and votes that sustain our egos?
Why of Course, send a present, send a dollar, here there and over there. Not out of our pockets of course, but filched from yours.
end
Semper Fi

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