At times--many times, actually--it appears that Right and Left
live in parallel universes. Take Al Hunt, for example, a
long-time Wall Street Journal staffer now at
Bloomberg. He finds fault with Republican criticism of
Barack Obama's drive to turn over not just the American economy
but American society to the government. No surprise
there. Hunt, a thoroughly likable character, long has been
advocating more expansive and expensive government.
However, Hunt's argument is that we are in the economic mess
today because, apparently, we just lived through a horrid period
when Milton Friedman was in charge.
Argued Hunt:
Yet most of the carping is either irresponsible -- a business
news cable network demagogically sought to frighten people --
or the same old stale alternatives: more tax cuts for the
wealthy, smaller government and more deregulation. It's as if
the last eight years have been expunged.
There's a lot of blame for today's economic mess to go around,
but when over the last eight years did we see smaller government
and deregulation? It was a time of unprecedent spending
increases, punctuated by the biggest expansion in the welfare
state in four decades and continued centralization of power in
Washington. Some Lefties even talk about the time of
laissez faire, as if the IRS, SEC, Federal Reserve, FTC, Justice
Department, Treasury Department, OSHA, FCC, FDA, Department of
Labor, Comptroller of the Currency, multitude of other alphabet
federal agencies, and host of state and local bodies didn't
exist.
Indeed, it would be nice if Hunt & Co. would explain how
the worst excesses of government which did so much to create and
exacerbate the housing crisis represented "smaller government and
more deregulation." You know, like the expansive Fed
monetary policy, congressional pressure on banks to lend in
poor neighborhoods irrespective of creditworthiness through the
Community Reinvestment Act, and appallingly irresponsible
financial behavior of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
