That seems to be the Obama game plan:
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel gave the game away back in November with his observation that:
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before. This is an opportunity…And this crisis provides the opportunity for us, as I would say, the opportunity to do things that you could not do before.”
Emanuel even helpfully specified the issues where the opportunity would be most helpful to the new administration – “health care area, energy area, education area, fiscal area, tax area, regulatory reform area – things that we had postponed for too long that were long-term are now immediate and must be dealt with.”
Initially, Emanuel’s disturbing words were dismissable as just his own, but the president himself and most recently Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have since repeated variations on the theme. So it is clearly the Obama strategy to use the current economic crisis as justification for his radical agenda.
Call it policy-making by perpetual crisis.
This is a not a new phenomena in the political world, of course. One need look no further than North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” with his constant invocation of the illusory threat of U.S. military invasion to keep his suffering people in their chains.
Kim Jong il is not unique, only the most bald-faced about using real or manufactured threats to justify his dictatorial policies. Other examples from history quickly come to mind, including communist titans like Stalin and Mao continually warning of “imperialist aggressors” from the capitalist West.
What is different now is that we’ve never before seen an American president so explicitly invoke this strategy of using a domestic crisis to achieve long-term domestic policy goals.
Well, I’m not sure it’s unprecedented, but it is extremely dismaying.
Carl Pham proposed an interesting thought experiment yesterday in comments, that complements mine, in which I asked what the administration would be doing differently if they were deliberately trying to tank the economy:
I bet if the entire Obama Administration and Democratic Congressional Leadership were sentenced to hang on December 1, 2009, if the stock market were not above 9000 and unemployment were not below 7%, they would become raging tax-cutting pro-business libertarians overnight.
That is, I don’t believe they are so stupid and deluded as to believe their own hogwash right down to their core. They know very well they’re hanging a millstone around the economy’s neck, costing jobs and punishing capital markets. But they don’t care. They have ambitions — more government power for themselves, better status and pay for their supporters — and they actually don’t care that a bunch of plumbers and HVAC men are going to pay for it with their jobs, 401k’s, life savings invested in the new house. Can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs, y’know.
I think it’s a good bet. Unfortunately, we won’t get to find out. Also unfortunately, the electoral consequences are far more uncertain.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Instapundit has an appropriate quote from Milton:
Chaos Umpire sits, And by decision more imbroils the fray. By which he Reigns.
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
[Update at noon]
As Mr. Henninger points out, this is no ordinary budget: it is a morality play in which “fairness” (note the scare quotes)is pitted against “wealth.”
…So here we are then. Our prince has come. The dragon, Wealth, has been put to the sword, and everyone is gathered downstage to await the finale. It turns out, though, that many who bought tickets thought this entertainment was a species of Romance or Comedy that had a happy ending. Others of us knew that wasn’t what was advertised and said so. I suspect this particular drama is going to have a very limited run.
I hope so. I fear that it won’t.
I don’t know if these guys can helps themselves.
Tax cuts, and especially the Bush tax cuts or any kind of tax cuts to encourage investment are poison to these people. Try suggesting “how about extending the tax cuts so we can get some recovery out of the stock market” and listen to the dog howl of “Oh the Humanity! whine whine The Deficit! blah The Last Eight Years! blah blah Greed, those Idiots on Wall Street!!!”
If I am playing one note on the piano in support of the tax cuts (the Paul Milenkovic Economic Recovery Plan: extend the tax cuts, roll back the “Mark to Market” rule, repeal Sarbanes Oxley, greenlight the construction of every coal-fired and nuclear power plant anyone wants to build (the Europeans are doing this)), I am sure Jim can come along and right my incorrect thinking.
But suppose, just suppose, that extending the tax cuts would be the one thing to turn the economy around. These guys could not bring themselves around to do it.
Yeah, yeah, Clinton raised taxes and the economy prospered. Yes, but reductions in tax on investment income, and one time poisonous to George Mitchell, got passed by a Republican Congress. Clinton’s Health Care quickly ran off the rails and was not a factor for the remaining 7 years, the Big Green Reform of the BTU tax got nowhere and got watered down into a minor increase in gas taxes, and spending did not explode anything like this.
At this point, I would welcome back the Clinton economic plan, but the Charlie Foxtrot going on right now is nothing like the Clinton economic plan.
It seems the dems are perfectly happy with damning themselves with faint praise by proclaiming themselves to be at least doing better than George Bush — the.worst.president.evar! Already we can see that the bar is set pretty low for themselves in their mind. As much as they praise Clinton, how about we set them to that standard? Then, they can call us when Obama somehow manages to perform to the Clinton level at least. Till then, he’s Mr. President-FAIL!
“I bet if the entire Obama Administration and Democratic Congressional Leadership were sentenced to hang on December 1, 2009, if the stock market were not above 9000 and unemployment were not below 7%, they would become raging tax-cutting pro-business libertarians overnight.”
And if not, the gene pool would experience some useful cleansing.
It must be a meme now, that Obama cannot function without the impulsion of crisis. This is the latest in a handful of several op-eds or posts articulating that.
I somewhat immodestly take credit for plowing that road with my essay of last week, “Crisis is the health of the state.”
Here is my take:
1. Obama is an Illinois politician – so he is owned by organized crime.
2. Obama is elected President, so he has vast power to make bad stuff happen.
3. Organized crime invests their assembled cash in shorting the market
4. Obama then does everything possible to destroy the market, driving it down to unheard of levels.
5. Organized crime then switches the investment position to long.
6. Obama changes his mind, and the markets recover.
This can have lots of variations – but essentially I think 9/11 showed that a lot of money could be made very easily by knowing the timing of a destructive influence on the market… and since destroying is always easier than building, that knowledge is being applied.
I think you can make a comparison to computer strategy likes the Civilization series for instance in which you are the supreme ruler. Would anyone want to play these games if you get your country and your role is just to watch it grow by itself? No, you’d be too bored. Its much more fun to tell every city and town exactly what they should build and do and spend their money on. I feel like a little villager in Obama’s Civilization.
Naomi Klein accused Bush of pretty much the same thing in “The Shock Doctrine”.
Seems to be an emerging pattern of the Left accusing the Right of some nefarious abuse of power, then once the Left gets power, doing it themselves twice as bad.
Aaron said:
I feel like a little villager in Obama’s Civilization.
I love that game, but now…chilling. Thanks.
Those of us in buy-and-hold mode are waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the market to come back up. We are waiting. Waiting.
Carl Pham: if you write a blog, I promise to read it often.
How about we stop bickering about how bad thing are, or could get and concentrate on how to make “the entire Obama Administration and Democratic Congressional Leadership sentenced to hang on December 1, 2009 if the stock market were not above 9000 and unemployment were not below 7%…”
That way we can see if they would become raging tax-cutting pro-business libertarians overnight.
The caveat of course is that we should carry out this experiment according to the law and as non-violently as possible.
“the entire Obama Administration and Democratic Congressional Leadership sentenced to hang on December 1, 2009 if the stock market were not above 9000 and unemployment were not below 7%…”
Not necessarily. They’d just count government make-work jobs as employment and start the inflation sooner.
Joshua,
I assume that “start the inflation sooner” means that with inflation, the stock market will go up. With Carter, that wasn’t true. Among other factors, stock prices are based on present dividends, future growth in dividends, and potential asset buyout / merger. Most companies do not prosper during inflation, so inflation wouldn’t guarantee 9000 here.
The caveat of course is that we should carry out this experiment according to the law and as non-violently as possible.
Yeah? Why? Bermie Madoff is looking at 150 years in prison for defrauding people of far less money, and at least he was given the money with which to experiment in novel forms of wealth creation voluntarily, by his clients, who should’ve read the prospectus more carefully. My money, with which Team Obama and the Democrats are going to experiment, is taken from me by force.
I don’t see why Madoff, Ken Lay, and Nigerian scammers should be personally liable for the damage they do by fraud, but the con men in Congress should not. I mean, I understand why it’s set up that way in practise — because Congress wrote the rules. If I wrote the rules, I’d certainly write in total immunity for anything I did, ha ha. But if there’s an ethical and moral difference between being swindled by Bernie Madoff and being swindled by Barack Obama, I don’t see it.
Don’t give me any crap about Obama having won the election, either. Just because we voluntarily sign up for a service doesn’t mean the service provider should be totally immune to personal liability for shoddy or fraudulent work. Just ask any doctor or engineer. It’s just that we’ve let politicians write the liability rules for politicians, and, not surprisingly, they’ve said that politicians, unlike every other career professional, can never be held personally liable for their professional screwups.
I should point out that the Ur-text on this is Robert Higgs’s Crisis and Leviathan which gives a fairly thorough survey of how US governments in the past have used “crises” to lock in expansions of state power.
“I bet if the entire Obama Administration and Democratic Congressional Leadership were sentenced to hang on December 1, 2009…”
Finally, some one has come up with a solution that WOULD ACTUALLY WORK.
It merits serious consideration. This is one area where the French might be able to help us.
google this phrase:
“Cloward-Piven Strategy”