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Obama's Anxiety Reduction Plan for America
Krauthammer well explains Obama's ambitions without snark or rancor. Our new president wants to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
He wants a great leveling and to take the "anxiety" of out life for poor and middle-class people, especially when it comes to healthcare and higher education for their children.
Krauthammer doesn't warn that the costs of alleviating all this "anxiety" will be a huge drag on the economy. And that it will have unintended social consequences. Look at Europe and you see that sclerotic effect of such an approach on families, birth rates, religion and communities. And yet, it has its attractions. Who doesn't want their financial anxieties relieved?
The healthcare system needs improving. But the cost of fixing it will come with trade-offs. There will be more rationing and less innovation. After all, the explosion in health care costs is being driven by innovative new technologies and demand for those new treatments.
College is, unfortunately, considered a social and economic necessity for getting ahead. But what is taught in college is mostly junk and remedial. The cost of it far outweighs its real benefits. It is a racket that truly needs reform from top to bottom but that won't happen any time soon. And in the meantime, middle-class families will continue to nearly bankrupt themselves paying tuitions that hardly prepare their children for fruitful work.
The European vision for America held by leftists like Obama (and make no mistake, Obama is a leftist) is contrasted by the vision of men like Charles Murray, who see American exceptionalism as the last best hope for the future.
Murray, like our founders, is interested in "the pursuit of happiness." (See his piece for what that means.) Imagine if, instead of a right to pursue happiness, our founders attempted to guarantee, "life, liberty and the reduction of anxiety." This would be a very different country.
It is not a bit paranoid to say that the left wants to use the current economic crisis in America to change the social compact between citizens and government. Under their vision government will provide more but it will also command and control more. A lot more.
The price for this proposed anxiety reduction plan is, right now, about $10 trillion. The cost in freedom - of a citizen's right to self determination - is incalculable.
He wants a great leveling and to take the "anxiety" of out life for poor and middle-class people, especially when it comes to healthcare and higher education for their children.
Krauthammer doesn't warn that the costs of alleviating all this "anxiety" will be a huge drag on the economy. And that it will have unintended social consequences. Look at Europe and you see that sclerotic effect of such an approach on families, birth rates, religion and communities. And yet, it has its attractions. Who doesn't want their financial anxieties relieved?
The healthcare system needs improving. But the cost of fixing it will come with trade-offs. There will be more rationing and less innovation. After all, the explosion in health care costs is being driven by innovative new technologies and demand for those new treatments.
College is, unfortunately, considered a social and economic necessity for getting ahead. But what is taught in college is mostly junk and remedial. The cost of it far outweighs its real benefits. It is a racket that truly needs reform from top to bottom but that won't happen any time soon. And in the meantime, middle-class families will continue to nearly bankrupt themselves paying tuitions that hardly prepare their children for fruitful work.
The European vision for America held by leftists like Obama (and make no mistake, Obama is a leftist) is contrasted by the vision of men like Charles Murray, who see American exceptionalism as the last best hope for the future.
Murray, like our founders, is interested in "the pursuit of happiness." (See his piece for what that means.) Imagine if, instead of a right to pursue happiness, our founders attempted to guarantee, "life, liberty and the reduction of anxiety." This would be a very different country.
It is not a bit paranoid to say that the left wants to use the current economic crisis in America to change the social compact between citizens and government. Under their vision government will provide more but it will also command and control more. A lot more.
The price for this proposed anxiety reduction plan is, right now, about $10 trillion. The cost in freedom - of a citizen's right to self determination - is incalculable.
posted by Spencerblog at
8:07 AM
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