All the change in your pocket please

Obama speaks of change and if you examine his stump speech you discover that the change he favors is bigger government, much bigger government.

Here’s a checklist of new spending programs or new regulatory power he favors:

*universal health care
*higher fuel standards
*ending “tax giveaways to companies that ship out jobs overseas” (whatever that means)
*annual increase in the minimum wage
*federally-funded early childhood “education” (he means schooling)
*recruiting an “army of new teachers and paying them ‘better'” (better would be less in my view but that’s not what he means)
*a cap on carbon emissions (except from the mouths of politicians)
*corporate welfare for “renewable fuels”

He also promises to “finish the fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.” Another ten years?

After that specific checklist, the rhetoric resumes:

“I will lead the world against the common threats of the 21st century – nuclear weapons and terrorism; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease. That’s what Democrats must stand for, and that’s what America must stand for. And I’ll be a President who finally sends a message to the black, white, and brown faces beyond our shores; from the halls of power to the huts of Africa that says, ‘You matter to America. Your future is our future. And our moment is now.’”

It’s not clear what any of that means but you can bet your inflated bottom dollar that it will cost you dearly.

Coming after the biggest-spending administration in history, Obama’s “change” will be making it much bigger.

Yawn. That’s why Ron Paul is getting the support of those who favor real change.

After 110 years of Hamiltonian rule, isn’t it time for a change?

Obama’s vaunted rhetoric is phony and shallow.

He talks of the need for “clear, consistent principles” but those are hard to find elucidated in his speech. I mean, I know what they are. They are stock big government liberalism: the solution to all problems (except for Iraq) is more federal government power and more federal government spending and less individual freedom because they be smart and we be dumb.

But why doesn’t this courageous politician just say that?

His talk about how his brand of “leadership” will “bring the country together” is particularly annoying. How does the failed liberal bag of tricks promise to bring us together when at least half of the country is sick to death of such nonsense? Those ideas and policies have been failing for about one hundred years now. This guy is stuck in the 1960’s, the blind and naive faith of the Great Society years. He is not the voice of the future but the voice of the failed past that we want to move beyond.

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1:25 am on January 6, 2008