Carpe Crisis
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 28th, 2009 4:40 am by HL
Carpe Crisis
WASHINGTON — On Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008, Rahm Emanuel, now the White House chief of staff, famously described the future Obama administration’s philosophy for governing: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” “O-Team” sycophants in the so-called mainstream media chuckled. Conservatives were alarmed. We now know we had reason to be. At the time Emanuel made his comment — five days after the election — we thought he was referring to the ongoing economic crisis to justify life-altering legislation on new government spending, social entitlements, higher taxes and massive debt. A quick glance at the Obama budget proves we were right. However, it turns out we grossly underestimated the willingness of the O-Team to apply its carpe crisis maxim to every situation — foreign or domestic.
Big Bedfellows: Big Government, Big Business
Maybe we have it all backwards. Here’s the basic story President Obama wants to tell. The last eight years were an economic disaster because President Bush and the Republicans ignored necessary government regulations and “investments.” The economic crisis has discredited “market fundamentalism,” as some liberals call it. Now, thanks to Bush’s hands-off approach to the economy, Obama has no choice but to get government much more involved. “To kick these problems down the road for another four years or eight years,” Obama sighs, “would be to continue the same irresponsibility that led us to this point.”
