So you mean "not a very enthusiastic endorsement of McCain"? I'd agree with that. The blog post wasn't enthusiastic about McCain. I wouldn't characterize the blog post as limp because of that, but perhaps that's just semantics.
While the endorsement of McCain is "limp", I think the post is pretty strong. The point about divided government likely restraining many of McCain's worst ideas is probably correct, but the main point for me was
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"If Obama wins, he will have a strong Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to work with. This state of affairs is likely to lead to a significant expansion of government even in the best of times. However, now is clearly not the best of times. It is a time of economic crisis. And economic crises are also excellent opportunities to expand the powers of government - opportunities that politicians rarely let slip.
Obama's ideological orientation also plays a role in my thinking. While I believe that his foremost objective is to get elected and reelected, I think he's also an ideological big government liberal. His record in Congress and in Illinois reflect that. Obama might be willing to set aside ideology for the sake of political self-interest if the two conflict. But if he takes office at a time of crisis with large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, there won't be any such conflict between political self-interest and his big government instincts. The two will in fact be mutually reinforcing.
Once enacted, extensions of government power are very difficult to reverse, even long after the crisis that allegedly justified them has passed. For example, we are still saddled with the perverse system of farm subsidies and price cartels established by the Depression-era Agricultural Adjustment Act.
The combination of united government, economic crisis, and a president with big government instincts is likely to produce a major, permanent expansion of federal power."
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volokh.com
I posted it to you because its close to the opposite of an earlier statement you made about the prospect of Obama with strong Democratic majorities.
"I think it's less an issue since the financial crisis arose. It would be a lot harder for the Dems to produce the sort of outlandish entitlement programs that concern me given that the budget is in such terrible shape and the economy will require a lot of everyone's attention. It's still a risk but not as vital as before, seems to me."
Message 25044836
High deficits will probably have some effect on reducing new programs or a general expansion of government, but the perception of crisis, combined with the Democrats being so strong, and with the problems presented as "a failure of the free market", will likely be a bigger issue. To the extent deficits start to get in the way, you'll just get calls for more "tax increases on the wealthy". |
