This entire pantomime about debt reduction came after the first half of a speech devoted to, yes, new spending. One almost has to admire Obama’s defiance. His 2009 stimulus and budget-busting health-care reform are precisely what stirred the popular revolt that delivered his November shellacking. And yet he’s back for more.
It’s as if Obama is daring the voters – and the Republicans – to prove they really want smaller government. He’s manning the barricades for Obamacare, and he’s here with yet another spending – excuse me, investment – spree. To face down those overachieving Asians, Obama wants to sink yet more monies into yet more road and bridge repair, more federally subsidized teachers – with a bit of high-speed rail tossed in for style. That will show the Chinese…
“We do big things,” Obama declared at the end of an address that was, on the contrary, the finest example of small-ball Clintonian minimalism since the days of school uniforms and midnight basketball.
From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?
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