Economy & Trade

Editor’s Note:  America embraced “change” on Election Day, but it remains to be seen just how Barack Obama and the increased majorities on Capitol Hill will actually govern.  One thing we can be sure of is that we’re in for more government.  More taxes, more spending, more regulation. 

Obama and the Democrat leadership have promised more of a whole plethora of programs to “spread the wealth” as the President-elect has said.  More government is the prescribed cure from the new administration for everything from health care and global warming, to education and family debt.  Unprecedented government intervention in the private sector economy is coming like a tsunami with a huge price tag already and no end in sight, with Obama now leading the charge to rescue the auto industry with billions of taxpayer dollars.  Can the airlines be far behind? 

Since the New Deal Era of FDR, government has been on a growth binge. Washington went on steroids during Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society of the 1960s.  For eight decades, the federal government under both Democrat and Republican administrations has repeatedly prescribed “more” of Washington as the medicine for every American ailment.  Surely enough time has passed to answer the obvious question, “How has it worked?”

A Line of Sight contributing editor Rich Sokol has done a masterful job of investigating that very complex question and distilling his findings down into a brief slide-show style presentation.  Not surprisingly, he found that when government gets more, we get less.  The record is now long, conclusive, and ominous with regard to our future as a nation. Sokol’s findings would suggest something needs to change in Washington, alright.  But, it sure isn’t the kind of change that appears to be headed straight for your wallet.