Bad Policy, Bigger Government

Excellent article from Charles Krauthammer (click the title of this post). The correlation between crisis and bad policy is close to 1, as is the correlation between crisis and bigger government.

"The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society. Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core."

This will go down as one of history's great bait-and-switches. In the way that Mr. Bush used the catastrophe of 9/11 as a means by which to pursue an unbridled expansion of government involvement into American life, it is clear that Mr. Obama intends to use the financial catastrophe to pursue more of the same. 12 (or 16) consecutive years of the federal Leviathan growing larger and larger will be ruinous to the financial and cultural health of our nation. God save us all.