Has Barack Obama realized that he won the election? I know he told Republicans in the House that “I won” as a means to shut down actual negotiations over the stimulus package and try to get them to vote on a bill in which they had zero input. But in reading Obama’s column in today’s Washington Post, all I see is empty sloganeering and cheap fear-mongering instead of substantive cases for the myriad of spending projects in his stimulus bill:
This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it’s a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.
In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.
The last two examples refer to the 2007 St. Anthony Bridge collapse in Minneapolis and the New Orleans disaster with Hurricane Katrina, but they’re odd examples to use for government intervention. Both were public projects when built, and both had serious flaws from the beginning. The bridge collapsed not from a lack of maintenance, but because its original design seriously underestimated the thickness of supporting plates in the structure and a decision by designers (and approved by Minnesota) not to build redundant support. The levees weren’t built to their original specifications, a problem at which the government kept throwing money for decades to no great effect.
Jim Geraghty reports on Barack Obama’s statement on the sanctity of human life during today’s National Prayer Breakfast:
“We know there is no God who condones the killing of an innocent human being.”
Well, great! Perhaps then President Obama would also agree that we know no God who condones the negligent killing of innocent human beings who survive abortions. Of course, Obama would have to acknowledge now that his position has changed since his days in the Illinois state legislature, when he helped protect abortionists by blocking legislation that would have required a second doctor to act on behalf of infants born alive after an abortion. God knows that those children were and are innocents, alive at birth, and left to die in abortion mills.
