I saw the following in the Cato Institute’s coverage of the State of the Union address by President Obama this evening and found it rather fitting. I am regularly asked “why are you running for congress?” Read this and it may help you understand:
Gene Healy says that “When all eyes turn to the president, demanding he cure whatever ails us, the result is a dangerous concentration of federal power.” Tonight this dangerous concentration of federal power was on full display for an electorate that – thankfully — appears to be growing leery of the president’s ambition to exert further federal control over our lives.
There is a lesson to be learned this evening, and one that the burgeoning Tea Party movement in particular should heed. President Obama didn’t suddenly wake up last January with the awesome power to shape every facet of our lives: how we educate our children, get medical care, or purchase a car or house. It was the actions of his Democratic and Republican predecessors that enable him to wield such power today.
The preceding Bush administration illustrates how power exercised by one administration is inherited by the next. In particular, the massive increase in federal spending, deficits, and debt that President Obama is rightly being criticized for are a continuation of the Bush legacy. Sure they differ on the details and some of the issues, but at the end of the day both men have demonstrated through their actions that they believe our individual liberties should be subjugated to the almighty state.
Let’s take that last sentence one more time with a little modification and emphasis:
Sure [President Obama and President Bush] differ on the details and some of the issues, but at the end of the day both men have demonstrated through their actions that they believe our individual liberties should be subjugated to the almighty state.
Semper Fi,
– Stuart