The Obama Effect

People know that something has gone wrong.

I thought the GOP blew their chance about as completely as it's possible to do, last time they had control in Washington. But the Obama-Pelosi-Reid team has left them in the dust and set a new standard altogether.

What's the dynamic that drives this kind of disastrous over-reaching? Maybe it's that when either party gains control, they think that (at last!) they have a mandate for their ideologically-drive wish list, and based on that perception of a mandate they go pedal to metal. They forget that this is a fundamentally centrist nation. When one party wins decisively it's always a matter of public disgust with the other party and the desire to throw those bums out. And that's about all it is. Achieving office because you're the lesser evil carries no mandate.

Since politicians never get any smarter, the only solution is Divided Government, which is merely another application of the idea of the Separation of Powers -- which is the single best idea anyone ever had when it comes to wise government.

Byron


Pew: Trust in government reaching new low

Pew Research has published a new survey of American attitudes towards government and “partisan rancor,” and the results don’t hold much promise for big-government politicians. Instead of finding Hope and Change in the expansion of government, more and more Americans want reform of the federal bureaucracy and its power and authority reduced, not expanded. The number of people who say they trust the government dropped to its lowest point in fifty years:

By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days. A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government — a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.

Rather than an activist government to deal with the nation’s top problems, the public now wants government reformed and growing numbers want its power curtailed. With the exception of greater regulation of major financial institutions, there is less of an appetite for government solutions to the nation’s problems — including more government control over the economy — than there was when Barack Obama first took office.