Tag: Congress

It’s Time For ObamaCare To Face A Death Panel

The Supreme Court is currently conducting a marathon three-day session of oral arguments on the challenges to ObamaCare, an almost unprecedented amount of time for the Court to consider any case. But the ObamaCare issue isn’t just another case, or even just another case involving weighty constitutional issues. If the Court upholds ObamaCare’s individual mandate, it will put the final nail in the coffin of the federal government being a government of limited, enumerated powers. If the federal government can force everyone to buy health insurance, there’s not much holding the federal government back from forcing us to buy certain foods, drive certain cars, or engage in any other activity that the federal government deems (in its infinite wisdom) to be for the “common good.”

ObamaCare supporters argue that health care is somehow different from everything else: because we will all use the health care system at some point in our lives, the government has a higher interest in regulating it and making sure that costs are allocated “fairly.” There’s a huge flaw in that argument: it’s a license for unlimited government power. As the example goes, why couldn’t the government make everyone buy broccoli? After all, you must participate in the market for food. Even those wraith-thin supermodels have to eat at one point or another. And broccoli is good for you, which would reduce health care costs. So why can’t Michelle Obama make everyone eat broccoli, or choose to pay a “penalty?”

For that matter, since the Chevy Volt is a massive taxpayer-financed boondoggle, why not mandate that everyone must buy a Chevy Volt or pay a “penalty?” After all, everyone must somehow participate in the “transportation market,” even those people whose only interaction with the market is when they buy their motorized wheelchair to carry their beached-whale bodies to the local buffet. So why not just mandate that everyone buy a Chevy Volt or pay a fine?

In fact, since Disney is taking a bath on John Carter, why shouldn’t they lobby Congress to make everyone in the country see the movie or pay a fine? After all, everyone participates in the “entertainment market” too.

And that’s the major constitutional problem with ObamaCare: a broccoli mandate, a Chevy Volt mandate, a John Carter mandate, they’re all separated from the individual insurance mandate by degree, not by principle.

The individual mandate is the most sweeping power grab of our generation—in terms of real-world impact it makes the PATRIOT Act look timid. And yet there’s been nowhere near the outcry about ObamaCare as they has been about the PATRIOT Act.

The Tax Man (Doesn’t) Cometh

The government has argued that the individual mandate’s penalty really is a tax. The reason why the government makes this argument is because of a federal law called the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act is a federal law that prevents people from challenging taxes in courts as a way of getting out of paying taxes. In other words, if the Court bought this argument, the challenges to ObamaCare would fail.

The government’s argument that the ObamaCare penalty really is a “tax” doesn’t save them. For one, it’s an argument that goes against the facts: nothing in the health care law makes the penalty into a tax other than the fact that it was shoved into the Internal Revenue Code. The President and Congressional Democrats were adamant that it was not really a tax, otherwise they would be accused of breaking their promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. Nor is the tax But when it became legally convenient to say that the “penalty” really was a tax, the government is now making that argument. But the penalty isn’t a tax in either form or substance, so that argument is unlikely to go anywhere. And, based on the Court’s skeptical questions in today’s arguments, it looks like the tax argument isn’t likely to carry much weight.

Kill (the) Bill

The problems with ObamaCare are legion, not only is it bad policy, but it sets a precedent that wipes away the system of checks and balances that keep our system of government functioning. The Supreme Court has this opportunity to stand up for the established constitutional order and strike down the individual mandate as a violation of both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. If they do not, the costs could be grave. There’s not only the risk of eroding freedoms, but there’s a much more concrete risk as well: ObamaCare is bad law. It won’t make health care cheaper, it won’t make it easier for people to see a doctor, it won’t save lives. It will create a system where medical care is artificially limited by the government (both directly and indirectly). If that sounds a bit like a “death panel” concept, it should. Because that’s what has to happen: the government has no magic fairy wand that they can waive over our healthcare system to make health care cost less. The only way to reduce costs is to ration, and that’s exactly what would have to be done in order to make ObamaCare work.

But the Supreme Court isn’t concerned with health care policy, at least not directly. Their concern is with the question of whether ObamaCare is consistent with our constitutional order. It is not. The individual mandate in ObamaCare is no less unconstitutional than a broccoli mandate, a Chevy Volt mandate, or a mandate to see John Carter. The Commerce Clause isn’t a blank check for the government to take effective control of an entire sector of the American economy. The Supreme Court should serve as ObamaCare’s “death panel.”

Obama’s War

The Washington Examiner has an interesting article on how President Obama used parliamentary trickery to talk Congress into approving a Libyan no-fly zone. It’s as though we have traveled into some bizarre parallel universe: President Obama, the peace candidate, has now fully embraced the the doctrine of preemptive military action. President Obama, who in 2007 said that “the President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation” has unilaterally authorized a military attack on a nation that posed no imminent threat to this country.

President Obama speaks in Cairo

President Obama speaks in Cairo

Not to mention the fact that President Obama has now endorsed military tribunals at Guantanamo for al-Qaeda detainees…

Exactly what is the difference between President Obama’s military policy and President Bush’s?

If You Strike At The King…

Of course, Obama’s supporters will argue that the difference between Obama’s wars and Bush’s is that Obama is supposedly more competent as a Commander in Chief. But the evidence suggests otherwise. What is our goal for military action in Libya? Are we trying to bring the rebels into power—without knowing who they really are? That hardly seems like a smart strategy. Is it to overturn Qaddafi? If that’s the goal, then why is President Obama denying any intention to assassinate the dictator? There is no clear goal, and the President’s desire to fight only a limited, bloodless war… or “kinetic military action” is in contradiction to the reality of war.

If our goal is to get rid of the Qaddafi regime, then the goal should be to blown Mohammar Qaddafi straight to hell. No questions asked. If we want to support the rebels, we should be doing what we did in Afghanistan—sending CIA teams to work directly with them in getting rid of the regime. (Which, admittedly, may already be happening.) We should not be fighting a war with half measures.

And worse of all, we may not be winning. We have committed to this fight, and once this nation commits to a fight, we should see it through. What message would Qaddafi’s continued rule over Libya send to the rest of the world. Al-Qaeda has always played off the Arab psychology of the “strong horse” versus the “weak horse,” and if Qaddafi hangs on, America (and the rest of its allies) will undoubtedly look weak.

Following In Bush’s Footsteps

So what should President Obama do? It’s clear that he faces a skeptical public and a restive Congress. (George W. Bush must be feeling at least some schadenfreude at this turn of events.) Plus, time may be running out. The Libyan rebellion cannot hold out forever, unless they are resupplied and rearmed from outside.

The President needs to admit that Qaddafi’s regime must be destroyed. We have committed to that end, and we have to see the task through. That means more than just engaging in limited and sporadic military action. That means decapitating Qaddafi’s military, cutting their supply lines, and killing them before they can kill civilians or the rebels. It is messy, it is bloody, and for all our technological advancement, it can’t be done effectively from 30,000 feet in the air.

But in the end, President Obama is right about one thing—even if inadvertently. For too long we have tolerated Arab dictators who have systematically oppressed their people, and the result has been the growth of groups like al-Qaeda. These dictators have systematically tried to suppress the normal civil society of a functioning state and replace it with cults of personality, pan-Arab nationalism, or sectarian intimidation. But what has happened is to create a situation in which the only groups that dare speak out, that give the people some escape valve, have been the religious fanatics.

President Bush seemed to instinctively understand this. President Obama does not, except in a deeply attenuated way. But ultimately, President Obama has stumbled into following the path of his predecessor. He has embraced everything that Candidate Obama railed against just a few short years ago: preemptive war, indefinite detention, all the sins of the Bush Administration. Next thing you know, he’ll be mispronouncing “nuclear.”

But the problem is that if President Obama is going to follow this path, he should do it boldly. If President Obama wants to be a champion of democracy in the Arab world, he should do so consistently. But sadly, this does not seem likely. Instead, President Obama is only taking action in Libya because the rest of the world has endorsed it. There is no “Obama Doctrine,” no grand strategy other than the hope that Qaddafi will fall and everything will be alright. Just as the Bush Administration (and some of its supporters) naively hoped that the fall of Saddam would lead to a flourishing of Iraqi democracy.

What is sad about this state of affairs is that not only is President Obama emulating many of President Bush’s strategies, he is emulating many of President Bush’s mistakes.

Yes, Virginia, Congresscritters Should Care About The Constitution

Newsweek has a stereotypical hit piece on the recent Republican Pledge to America. Ramesh Ponnuru notes a curious passage from the piece:

Not so harmless, however, is the promise to require every bill to be certified as constitutional before it is voted on. We have a mechanism for assessing the constitutionality of legislation, which is the independent judiciary. An extraconstitutional attempt to limit the powers of Congress is dangerous even as a mere suggestion, and it constitutes an encroachment on the judiciary.

Now, one shouldn’t expect too much from Newsweek—a magazine that quite literally isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. But Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick, who should know something about the Constitution given that she’s a legal correspondent also thinks there’s something weird about Congresscritters actually reading the Constitution.

Of course, that view is completely bonkers.

A Little Constitutional Law 101

Here’s why Congresscritters should care about the constitutionality of the bills they vote on: because they swore an oath to do that. Every member of Congress must take an oath of office. The oath states:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

How can a Congresscritter “support and defend the Constitution” without the ability to interpret what the Constitution means? It’s rather difficult to argue that someone is supporting and defending a document when they are purposefully ignoring it.

This oath is required by Article VI of the Constitution, which requires all federal and state officeholders to support the Constitution. That means that Congresscritters have the power to interpret the Constitution. That means that the President has the power to interpret the Constitution. That means that state governors have the power to interpret the Constitution. In order to support the Constitution, you have to know what you’re supporting.

Not only that, but there’s nothing in the Constitution that gives the judiciary the sole right to interpret the Constitution. In fact, there’s nothing in the text of the Constitution that gives the judiciary the right to interpret the Constitution at all. The ability for the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional (what we lawyers call “judicial review”) isn’t in Article III of the Constitution, or anywhere else. So where does it come from?

If you remember Marbury v. Madison from your high school civics class, good for you. That is considered the first time that the Supreme Court said that it had the power to strike down a federal statute for violating the Constitution. Marbury wasn’t decided until 1803, years after the Constitution was ratified. Now, what you learned in high school civics class isn’t entirely true—the Supreme Court was always intended to have the power of judicial review, and Marbury just made that practice explicit. (Oh, and another thing about Marbury: it may have been wrong. Marbury struck down parts of the Judiciary Act of 1789 as violating the Constitution on a debatable legal theory. But don’t try making that argument in court…)

The Supreme Court even recognizes that it isn’t the final and only arbiter of what’s constitutional and what’s not. The Supreme Court won’t decide certain kinds of cases that may implicate a constitutional issue under what’s called the political question doctrine. The Supreme Court won’t, and can’t, decide a hypothetical question about the Constitution. In order for the Supreme Court to be able to make a decision, there must be a “case or controversy” under Article III of the Constitution. The Supreme Court simply will not hear cases, no matter how important the Constitutional issue, unless there’s something actually at stake for real live parties.

That’s why the idea that the Supreme Court, and only the Supreme Court, has the right to interpret the Constitution is so screwy. The Supreme Court can’t determine whether a pending bill in Congress is constitutional or not. Congress can’t ask the Supreme Court to do that job for them. So what would Lithwick and the editors at Newsweek have Congress do—pass a bill they suspect is unconstitutional and then wait for the Supreme Court to strike it down? That’s just silly, and it would be a violation of the Oath of Office that every Congresscritter takes.

That theory is an example of two things: first, that some people who should know better don’t know much at all about the Constitution, even those who supposedly write about the courts for a livings. Secondly, it exposes the fetishization of the judiciary on the part of some on the left. Yes, the judiciary has an important function in society. I’m a lawyer, so without it, I’d have to do something that actually adds value to society. But the judiciary is part of three co-equal branches of government. The judiciary isn’t a super-legislature. It can’t make executive decisions. Its primary purpose is to provide a check on the other two branches. Many on the left don’t understand why the judiciary was supposed to be the “least dangerous branch” of government. They don’t understand the concept that the role of a judge is a limited one, and is sharply and absolutely proscribed by constitutional limits. They see the courts as instruments of social change, and that’s not the way the courts are intended to function.

The Pledge to America is right: not only does Congress have the power to interpret the Constitution, they have the obligation to do so. If they could not interpret the Constitution, they would be unable to protect or defend it. If Congress stops caring about the constitutionality of the statutes they pass, then our system of government is in a great deal of trouble.

Cash For A Clunker Of A Policy

Law prof Richard A. Epstein has a withering look at the “Cash for Clunkers” program that gave car buyers a $4500 check to trade in an old car for a new one. As with any government program, the intentions of the program and the reality of the program were not quite at odds with each other:

Yet exactly what does the American people get for this expenditure? On the bright side, the beleaguered automotive industry gets yet another shot in the arm. But that cheery argument repeats the common mistake that I addressed two weeks ago: Using tax dollars to stimulate one industry necessarily impairs the recovery prospects of everyone else. To make matters worse, some stimulus payments are just outright gifts, because lots of last week’s eager sellers might have traded in their clunker in the near future anyhow. And no one has a clue as to how many miles would be put on these clunkers anyhow.

The problem with the “Cash for Clunkers” program is that it won’t provide much stimulus, but it will burn through billions in in taxpayer dollars. Is the possible increase in overall gasoline efficiency worth the $1 billion now spent and the billions more that may be spend reviving the program? It’s doubtful we’ll know, because the actual results don’t matter. Congress is essentially buying support by raiding the public fisc under dubious pretenses.

Two thousand years ago, the called it panem et circenses—but “Cash for Clunkers” seems to have much more consonance, even if the concept remains essentially the same.

Capping Prosperity, Trading It For Poverty

As the media fixates on the death of Michael Jackson, Congress stands ready to enact the largest and most regressive tax hike in history in the guise of “cap-and-trade.” Jim Lindgren explains why this bill is so dangerous:

The cap-and-trade bill, if passed by the Senate and actually implemented over the next few decades, would do more damage to the country than any economic legislation passed in at least 100 years. It would eventually send most American manufacturing jobs overseas, reduce American competitiveness, and make Americans much poorer than they would have been without it.

The cap-and-trade bill will have little, if any, positive effect on the environment — in part because the countries that would take jobs from US industries tend to be bigger polluters. By making the US — and the world — poorer, it would probably reduce the world’s ability to develop technologies that might solve its environmental problems in the future.

Cap-and-trade is a joke—it is a policy that has already failed in Europe and in virtually guaranteed to fail here in the United States. By giving in to the demands of radical environmentalists, Congress is preparing to take our current recession and plunge it into depression.

As the media focuses once again on celebrity, the advent of the next Great Depression comes closer. Cap-and-trade is terrible policy enacted for foolish reasons, and we will all pay the price for it if we allow it to pass.

Atlas Is Shrugging

The U.S. economy shed 598,000 jobs in January, the worst job loss since 1974. There is no doubt that the U.S. economy is in a state of crisis. Our government is only making it worse.

It is more than mere coincidence that this huge job loss occurred in the same month that President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law. The Ledbetter Act basically means that employers can be sued for “paycheck discrimination” years after the events occurred. In Ms. Ledbetter’s case, the alleged discrimination happened so far ago that the supervisor involved had not only left the company, but died. This Act, instead of making things “fairer” for employees, puts a massive burden on employers who now have to worry about lawsuits stemming from events decades old.

This is what the business environment will be like under the Obama Administration. There will be more regulations and those regulations will be written by representatives of big industries and radical special interests. There will be higher taxes on everything from corporate income taxes to personal income taxes to the estate tax, and there is a strong possibility of a carbon tax that will raise prices on every single good that needs shipping. The web of regulations, higher taxes, and the way society is treating the very idea of entrepreneurialism is making American business falter.

The result: more lost American jobs.

This “stimulus” bill will not help. It will give hundreds of billions to political contributors, and barely anything to American small business. Big business, the ones with the lawyers and lobbyists, have already gamed the system. The Democratic Party has no room for the interests of American small business, even though their employees are half of the American workforce. The situation for American small business will be dire: not only will there be more taxes, more regulation, and more self-righteous condemnation from Washington, but the credit markets are still tight. Unless you’re in a field that will be the recipient of government spending, like health care or road construction, forget hiring employees, you have to cut expenses to the bone right now.

American jobs are being lost because we are punishing the people who create them.

President Obama and the irresponsible Congressional Democrats are pushing this recession into a depression. Their wrong-headed pro-government economic policy is turning America into a banana republic. It is crucial that they be stopped.

Atlas is shrugging, and the world is at the brink of tumbling right off.

‘Shovel Ready’ BS

Popular Mechanics has a great piece on the myth of “shovel ready” infrastructure projects:

The programs that would meet the bill’s 90-day restriction are, for the most part, an unappealing mix of projects that were either shelved after being fully designed and engineered, and have since become outmoded or irrelevant, or projects with limited scope and ambition. No one’s building a smart electric grid or revamping a water system on 90 days notice. The best example of a shovel-ready project, and what engineers believe could become the biggest recipient of the transportation-related portion of the bill’s funding, is road resurfacing—important maintenance work, but not a meaningful way to rein in a national infrastructure crisis. “In developing countries, there are roads that are so bad, they create congestion, because drivers are constantly forced to slow down,” says David Levinson, an associate professor in the University of Minnesota’s civil engineering department. “That’s not the case here. If the road’s a little bit rougher, drivers will feel it, but that’s not going to cause you to go any slower. So the economic benefit of those projects is pretty low.”

That might be acceptable to people focused purely on fostering rapid job growth‹but, ironically, such stimulus spending could fall short on that measure, as well. “In the 1930s, when you were literally building with shovels, that might have made sense. That was largely unskilled labor. Today, it’s blue collar, but it’s not unskilled,” Levinson says. “The guy brushing the asphalt back and forth is unskilled, but the guy operating the steamroller isn’t. And there’s an assumption out there that construction workers are interchangeable between residential and highway projects. But a carpenter isn’t a whole lot of help in building a road.”

It’s ironic given the I-35W bridge collapse being used as a symbol of America’s “failing infrastructure”—that collapse was the result of a design flaw that should have been spotted in the design phase. And what is our reaction to such problems? Push through a bunch of projects in a hurry rather than perform the sort of painstaking design that needs to be done before a project is truly “shovel ready.”

There is some wisdom to spending on infrastructure, but let us be honest. It won’t make a dent in the unemployment rate unless you believe that you can take a stockbroker and put her into a bulldozer and call that good enough. It won’t stimulate the economy because the money will go to government contractors who are the least affected by the economic slowdown. And what stimulus it does produce won’t be likely to come about until well after the slowdown is past. Justifying this sort of spending on the grounds of economic stimulus isn’t realistic.

If we want to spend money on infrastructure, we should do it right. That means assessing our needs in a realistic manner, spending only on projects that will make a real difference, having a realistic plan to build these projects, building them right the first time, and having a competitive bidding process to make sure that money isn’t being funneled to campaign contributors.

This bill is not about stimulus. It’s about the Democratic Party looting the future to pay off their political supporters. It is nearly 100% pure pork that will saddle the future with at least another $1,000,000,000,000 in debt—not counting interest. Even the Congressional Budget Office finds that the “stimulus” bill will just shift the costs to future generations. We can’t rob Peter to pay Paul and expect to get away with it. Recent history should demonstrate all too well why such ideas don’t work.

We need a real stimulus package, not an act of wanton irresponsibility. If President Obama were to demonstrate real leadership, he would tell Reid and Pelosi to stop playing childish partisan games and send him a bill that is nothing but stimulus and no pork—and if they refuse, he should veto it. We need real infrastructure repair, not political cronyism. The only shovel that’s ready to go is the shovel needed to clear out all the B.S. surrounding this bill.

Congress To Illinois: Get Rid Of Blago Or No Cash

Jim Geraghty notes a curious provision in the stimulus bill directed at the State of Illinois:

None of the funds provided by this Act may be made available to the State of Illinois, or any agency of the State, unless (1) the use of such funds by the State is approved in legislation enacted by the State after the date of the enactment of this Act, or (2) Rod R. Blagojevich no longer holds the office of Governor of the State of Illinois.The preceding sentence shall not apply to any funds provided directly to a unit of local government (1) by a Federal department or agency, or (2) by an established formula from the State.

It seems to me that this move is unconstitutional. The federal government may condition receipt of federal funds on doing certain things. For example, the Supreme Court upheld the federal government only allowing for highway funding to the states if they raised the drinking age to 21. South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987). However, that case only allowed the government to do so for reasons related to the “general welfare”. Helvering v. Davis, 301 U. S. 619, 640–41 (1937).

The question is whether Illinois getting rid of Gov. Blagojevich is related to the “general welfare.” Say what you will of the corrupt and profane Illinois governor, he has not yet been convicted of any crime. This probably isn’t an illegal bill of attainder since it’s punishing Illinois rather than Blagojevich himself, but it’s still a gross violation of the principle of federalism. The “general welfare” isn’t a way for Congress to advance narrow issues or play political hardball. It would be blatantly unconstitutional for Congress to condition federal funding on a state electing a Republican governor or electing a female governor. So why should it be constitutional for the federal government to withhold funds from Illinois because they refuse to impeach Blagojevich on Congress’ timetable.

Even though the courts generally defer to Congress on what is defined as being in the national interest, this seems to be a rather clear case of Congress overstepping their constitutional limits.

Powell’s Flimsy Case For Obama

Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama, although not unforeseen, is the big political story of the day. The Editors of National Review have a well reasoned response to the Powell endorsement that is well worth reading.

Contrary to Gen. Powell, Obama will be another divisive and polarizing political figure…

The problem with Powell’s endorsement of Obama is the same problem with the vast majority of endorsements of Obama: they’re all built on unsound logical ground. Even taking it for granted that the Bush years have been bad for the country (although not because Bush has been a radical conservative—he has not) and that some kind of “change” is needed, I’ve yet to see a coherent case for why Obama’s policies are the right direction.

Oh yes, I’ve seen plenty of ink spilled on why Obama’s personal qualities are so wonderful: everyone says that he’s intelligent, articulate, and vibrant. None of those mean a great deal in the long run. Many very intelligent men and women believe some very idiotic things: visit a college or university campus and ask members of the faculty about basic economic questions and you’ll get some profoundly unserious and utterly misinformed answers. Intelligence alone does not qualify one to be President: Nixon was a very astute thinker, but a lousy President.

Being able to use the bully pulpit of the American Presidency is critically important—look at what Bush’s failure to do so has done to his Presidency. But again, it is not nearly enough to make up for poor policies. Everything Obama stands for, from taxes to the Supreme Court to foreign policy is ill-conceived and often dangerous to the future of this great nation. Crafting lofty speeches will not make it less so. Being a good salesmen does not make the product any more safe.

Would Obama would be a “uniting” force—a “post-racial” President? There’s some good reason to believe that is so. But that is neither assured, nor is it enough. Obama has a history of being a political radical, a member of a virulently racial church, and surrounds himself with members of the extreme left. He has scant little in his record to suggest that he will govern as anything less than a doctrinaire across-the-board leftist—in a country that remains conservative. When Obama has to actually enact his policies, he will do so over the objections of a plurality of Americans who are increasingly seeing themselves as divorced from a left-wing elite. Obama will have to reach across party lines if he wants to avoid being another Clinton or George W. Bush. There is little in his record that suggests that he will do so.

In the end, Powell’s rationales are as superficial as the rest. Obama is a compelling figure, but the messianic nature of his campaign and his virtual coronation by a lickspittle media only makes it that much harder for Obama to govern with anything but a sense of institutional arrogance. Make no mistake about it, contrary to Gen. Powell, Obama will be another divisive and polarizing political figure. We do not need more of that kind of political division.

Sen. McCain, in contrast, has a long record of bipartisan accomplishment, including doing things that have put him against his own party. He stood his ground on campaign finance reform, on immigration reform, on torture, and especially on Iraq and each and every time his stand was based almost entirely on putting principle above politics. McCain can and will reach across the aisle—he’ll have no choice but to do so. Divided government would be healthy for the economy. A government totally controlled by the Democrats would lead to even greater political division than we have now. If an Obama-Pelosi-Reid government passes card check legislation, renews the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” to muzzle criticism of their rule, and enacts legislation repealing the ban on partial-birth abortions, will that heal the nation’s political wounds, or will it make things even worse? The answer should be obvious.

Our Republic is a house divided, and Obama will only expand those divisions. He will not be the figure of “hope” and “change” and the great transformational leader that Gen. Powell would hope him to be. Instead, he will do what he has always done: act as a radical leftist in concert with a radical Congress and arrogantly impose a radical agenda on a divided nation.

That is not the change we need, it is the change that will tear us apart.

Black Monday

The financial services bailout bill just failed to pass the House with a bipartisan rejection

The bailout bill was a turd sandwich, but it was a necessary one to keep the markets from going into an absolute freefall. Which, coincidentally, is what’s going to happen now that the bailout is unlikely to happen.

I can understand the class warfare motives for the rejection, but when companies can’t get the money they need to make payroll, the people who were demanding Congress do nothing will face the consequences.

We are looking at a quadruple-digit drop in the Dow and a major credit contraction./p pHow bad could this get? I get the sinking feeling that we will soon find out.

UPDATE: The Dow plummeted 778 points today, the worst single-day drop in history. Yes, people don’t like the idea of bailing out large corporations. If that’s their position, then they should not be surprised when those large corporations can’t afford to pay them their payrolls.

I don’t much like economic hyperbole, but this time it’s true: we could be staring into the maw of a crippling economic depression. It won’t necessarily be like the Great Depression, but it could be the worse downturn in most of our memories. If Obama gets elected and follows his policy instincts, it will probably get worse.