Timothy P. Carney‘s latest Washington Examiner column compares the words President Obama used in his latest State of the Union address with the truth underlying his administration’s policies.
When President Obama promised “no more bailouts, no more handouts” in his State of the Union address, and declared “it’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom,” he was either prescribing a total reversal of his current industrial policy, or he was once again using words to mean something they’ve never meant before.
The rest of Obama’s speech suggests the latter: He plans to continue his pattern of subsidizing, regulating, mandating and picking winners and losers, all the while calling it “fairness” and “a level playing-field.”
When liberals speak of “fairness,” conservatives tend to hear “redistribution” and “welfare,” but Obama’s fairness talk is not just code for liberal class warfare. He’s also trying to tap into a broad sense that right now, the game is rigged — that the insiders get special treatment and regular folks get short shrift. This is a real problem, and it’s prudent to tap into this dissatisfaction. It’s too bad all his policies just rig the game even more.
