Not surprisingly, one line is that what they did over the last two years was just too complicated for the typical American to understand. The brilliant, far-seeing politicians talked over the heads of the yokels.
Don Boudreaux offers his rebuttal to that absurd notion:
Editor, USA Today
Dear Editor:
Ross Baker blames yesterday’s trouncing of the Democrats to “an enduring
Democratic blunder: talking over the heads of the American people” (“Why the Democrats were hammered,” Nov. 3).
Ummm. No.
The “enduring Democratic blunder” (often repeated by the GOP) is to enact
indecipherably complex and intricate statutes aimed at achieving impossible
outcomes. It’s the ludicrous convolution of such legislation that is “over the
heads of the American people.” And it’s over their heads not because the
American people are dumb but because no one – not even the geniuses on the Hill – can possibly absorb the full meaning of the words in the statutes, much less anticipate the millions of unforeseen consequences, large and tiny, that are unleashed by the social engineering for which too many politicians have a fetish.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
