David Weigel, reporting on YearlyKos, provides this recap of a speech by Sen. Barack Obama:
Policy-wise, lots of spending, not as much “let’s stop government waste.” On health care: “If I had to design a system from scratch I’d design a single payer system.” On Katrina reconstruction: you want money, you got it.
There are (at least) two points to make on this. First, Kip’s Law says that “every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.” I think that applies here since centrally planning health care is exactly what Sen. Obama is trying to do with his “solution”.
More importantly, though, we’re not at scratch with our health care system. We have so many intricacies built in – and many of them are good – that jamming more socialist crap into the system than the government’s already forced is hardly a fool-proof plan for success. That said, if we take him at his thought process without the complicating issue of our existing system and assume he’d design a single-payer system, I’m left to conclude that he’s not particularly bright economically. I’ve already come to that conclusion, but he shouldn’t keep trying to reinforce it.
For example, Weigel reports on a blogger Q&A at YearlyKos:
1:25: Obama on deficits: “This is the most fiscally irresponsible administration in… memory.” (Obama was 8 when LBJ left office.) Would he deficit spend in order to eventually shrink the deficit? “Yes, but the question is, are we investing in the American people instead of in wars that should have never been waged?”
When a politician starts talking about “investing” in the American people, what he means is that he’s looking to take more of the American people’s money and give it back to them in packaged, limited, inefficient choices. I’d rather my representatives focus on the legitimate tasks of government and leave me with my money to invest in myself as I prefer.
Update: I changed the original title because I didn’t like it.