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The Spectacle Blog
David Brooks’s column this morning is a tribute to the limited-government philosophy behind the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” program.
“Our government shouldn’t try to guarantee results,” this politician said, “but it should guarantee a shot at opportunity for every American who’s willing to work hard.”
That sentence struck me as a pretty good foundation for a political philosophy. It was delivered by President Obama at the University of Michigan commencement last month.
Obama administration policies haven’t always hewed to this limited but energetic approach. But there is one area where they sure have: education.
Almost anyone could endorse the vague political philosophy Obama expresses here. And Race to the Top certainly has its merits, especially in the way that it breaks the usual interest group dynamics that block charter school and voucher reforms, which, as Brooks explains, is a credit to Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Then again, it also has its drawbacks, which RiShawn Biddle discussed in our May issue.
But how can you argue that Obama’s education policy reflects a political philosophy that government should guarantee a shot at opportunity for every American who’s willing to work hard? Is Brooks not aware that Obama and the Democratic Party let the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program expire in order to appease the teachers’ unions? And that this program, as its name suggests, was created to give kids from tough backgrounds real opportunities, while at the same time saving some money for the taxpayers?
Obama’s political philosophy, premised on ensuring opportunity for all, is pretty useless if it doesn’t extend to the people who really do lack opportunities. Yet Obama gets paeans for his stump speeches, while disadvantaged kids in D.C. get robbed of their scholarships for no reason.
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More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/06/04/obamas-limited-limited-governm
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Curly Smith| 6.4.10 @ 1:50PM
I think that they're a couple of problems with the "guarantee". First, hard work doesn't mean anything if you lack the aptitude. The main site has an article by Christopher Orlet, no amount of hard work will make him a mathematician. But aptitude alone isn't enough, you also need passion because the learning doesn't stop when you graduate and it's terribly difficult to be successful if you hate your job.
Second, it's rather unlikely that a Junior High or High School kid knows themselves well enough to pick a career path but that's typically what a lot of the programs require. Then there's the problem that they don't have any realistic idea of what a typical day in their successful career looks like. If they did, they'd run away screaming.
What the 'utes need to learn, and live, is that if you make the right choices then your chances of success are much greater; if you make the wrong choices then your chances of success are much lower. If you make the right choices you have more options, if you make the wrong choices then you not only have fewer options but many options will also be forever closed to you. In other words, actions have consequences.
C.H. Fowler| 6.4.10 @ 2:59PM
One problem is the disconnect between Obama words and deeds. His actions show he favors an unlimited sized government, not a limited one. Actions always, as our mothers used to say, speak louder than words.
Jeff Perren | 6.5.10 @ 1:08AM
The idea that Obama is, in any sense or action, in favor of limited government is laughable on its face. He doesn't even pretend to favor that. That semi-honesty is the only thing virtuous about him. His political philosophy, on the other hand, is undiluted poison.
A_Nonnny_Mouse| 6.5.10 @ 6:33PM
Liberals in general like to "talk pretty" -- what they say they're FOR is the stuff no rational person could be AGAINST. "Social justice", "level paying field", "equal opportunity", "affordable housing", whatever. The labels are always wonderful.
But-- the means required to put these lovely-sounding concepts into practice seem to always infringe on the rights of innocent others.
Liberals NEVER acknowledge that under the "helpful" policies they mandate, government MUST TAKE some good or service from an entity which produces it, and/or MUST DENY some good or service or opportunity to a person who otherwise would have been able to avail himself of it, in order to redirect that same limited good/service/opportunity to a member of the government's preferred "target group".
Once government ceases to see citizens as individuals having equal rights and deserving equal protection under the law; when it instead decides that due to "unique circumstances" it must offer special benefits to some group as recompense for "prior injustice", it opens the door to ever-increasing numbers of victim groups who demand to be mollified (the perfect view of the resulting nanny-state is the little kid's complaint that "Waaah, it's not fair! You always liked Jimmy better! I never get to do what I want!!")
Meanwhile, instead of a citizenry who understands "We're all in this together", we wind up with competing factions jostling for favors before the indulgent parent/government, and all of them are in essence claiming "He got his, now I want MINE!"
Jeff Perren | 6.7.10 @ 11:45AM
Well said. Exactly on the money.