Time For an Election!What this country needs is ... an election! Didn't we just have one? Yes. Can't we see through the windshield a follow-up election just down the road? Yes. None of which obviates the present point: Never in recent memory has confusion over the course of public affairs been so dense, so impenetrable. A vast number of things need clearing up so that normal politics, if there's such a thing any more, can proceed. While voters labor to digest what Congress and the White House have done to their health care system, the same players are cooking up more in the kitchen — financial reform, immigration reform, energy reform. The shiny-smooth word "reform" should be handled with caution. Reform generally connotes constructive change. On the basis of what happened with health care, ideological overhaul looks like the main motive in Democratic-controlled Washington, D.C. We seem to have voted in a presidential team determined to have its way in all things, while portraying the hesitant as selfish, greedy, overpaid, overfed obstacles to the Divine Plan. It's hard to recall a president as bent as Barack Obama on defaming the opposition, defined as Republicans, bankers, health insurance companies, "Big Oil," big this, big that. On Rahm Emanuel's plausible theory that you don't waste a crisis, Democrats seem determined over the next few months to put their indelible stamp on American life. The latest brainstorm: a tax on consumption — the famous value-added tax, or VAT — to pay for the spending that Congress and the administration think we need. This, while taxes on income and investments capital rise. Oh — and there's the federal Institute of Medicine, which is urging government to start policing consumer intake of salt. Polls show 22.5 percent of Americans — a record low since polling began — trust Congress. Does that surprise? The jobless rate remains just below 10 percent. Meanwhile, we see that the "change" for which Americans voted only a year and a half ago carries a price tag larger — in terms of freedom, along with money — than most could have suspected in '08. We need an election.
What we need, obviously, in the run-up to an election is some kind of intelligent debate on the premises behind the federal power grab. We need it explained to us, for instance, how "climate change" is such a vast priority that we have to rush through ameliorative legislation, not next year — now, right now. We know why when we look closely enough. The Democrats fear losing the House and a big chunk of Senate seats. Might one ask why they fear it? It's due to all the things they've done in spite of voter opposition, with ObamaCare at the top of the list. There's also the matter of what they haven't done, e.g., encourage rather than discourage business folk to get out there and start making money again so they can put Americans back to work. Pride goeth before a fall. Or fall elections, as the case may be. The prideful-fearful leadership team in Washington, D.C., may be the oddest political team we've seen lately — bossy, hardheaded, tone-deaf and semi-blind to what goes on around the country. The election we need so desperately is coming. There's an intermediate need as well: namely, to balk or slow down the administration's initiatives until the debate — if there ever is a debate — can commence and the people, knowing what they now know, can say how they truly would like things to be. The establishment, if this happens, will prate about "obstructionism." Fine. We're traveling about 150 miles an hour right now as we weave down the political superhighway. Flashing red and blue lights behind us would be a sight for sore eyes. William Murchison is the author of "Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity." To find out more about William Murchison and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
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