In today’s Wall Street Journal, Alan Reynolds takes a careful look at Obama’s tax and spending plans. The spending will boost the federal budget enormously and coming up with the necessary revenues will scoop out a lot of pockets. Read his piece here.

As I’ve been saying for a long time, this is the same stuff of the British Labor Party, ca. 1975 — big social program ideas to be paid for with hefty tax increases on “rich people who can afford it.” The economic consequences were grim: rampant inflation and falling output.

Now, there is a faction of the Democratic party that wants that outcome. The greens desire economic contraction and there are some William Ayers types who think that with enough economic turmoil the US might finally see the light and jettison the last vestiges of capitalism.