Here is an insightful piecewritten by Emory University professor Paul Rubin, arguing that an Obama presidency would be another New Deal, but even worse.
Rubin writes, “if the coming wave of new regulation from an Obama administration is harmful to the economy, Mr. Obama will take a page from FDR’s playbook. He’ll blame Republicans for having caused the market crash in the first place, and so escape blame for the consequences of his policies.” That’s just the way FDR and the Democrats did it: they ran against Hoover over and over. And that was in the days when the media was far more balanced than it now is. High inflation? High unemployment? Poor President Obama is struggling mightily to overcome the wreckage of those awful laissez-faire Republicans, the New York Times will say.
Bill Clinton used to talk the talk of leftist anti-capitalist resentment, but he seemed to grasp that public policy can ruin the environment for production. In Obama, however, the socialists have the real thing. On occasion, he’ll talk the talk of concern about jobs and business, but it’s just cover for deep hostility to capitalism. The sort of hostility one finds on most American campuses among professors who have never had any experience with the world of business.
Several years ago, George McGovern wrote a piece in which he lamented how difficult government regulations made it to run a small business. A leftist mugged by reality. I wouldn’t expect Obama to look to McGovern for economic advice.
