My thought is that Obama can’t accomplish anything by himself. True the domestic economy is in shambles and the national debt is unsustainable. But this process has been in place for the last 100 years. History shows that the last thing progressives want us to understand is the “slippery slope”.  The gradual transformation from a county of laws to government administered by judges and regulatory agencies began in earnest with FDR, after a slow start by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

            Cloward & Piven wrote The Nation in 1966, long after the rise of socialist philosophy infected the US government.  The indisputable fact is that through agencies like the IRS and EPA the federal government has been empowered by a liberal Supreme Court to control a substantial slice of the economy.  In the 40’s the Supreme Court gave congress plenary powers over every form of commerce.  Whereas the framers envisioned that Congress would control commerce between the states, the Supreme Court expanded the role of Congress by permitting Federal control over virtually every commercial transaction between individuals, corporations, and the States.

            The only thing we can say about the Democrats is that  the rise of the socialist state has been more rapid during periods of Democrat control of Congress. The reason Democrats are so critical of Reagan is that he tried to carried out his promise to reduce the size of government.  But even Reagan could not eliminate much of the bureaucracy.

            As long as voters continue to demand benefits from government, politicians will continue to supply them, until the money runs out and it’s about to do that in the near future.  The U.S. economy is not producing wealth and has been sustained by accumulating debt. Voters should have known what was happening but as long as money was easy to borrow, there were little or no complaints.

            So it’s not all about Obama, it’s about a fundamental defect in the republic form of government. An electorate that is uninformed or misinformed cannot possibly elect officials who will act in the long term interests of the country. To gain or stay in office, a politician will always appeal to the basic instincts of survival of the poorest and least educated members of society. Intellectuals who believe in the equality of man in terms of physical possessions will always choose a socialist agenda, especially when they ignore the advice of experts who say that the liberal agenda will destroy the domestic economy. On the other hand, intellectuals like Obama see the world as an economic unit and are content to bring the U.S. economy into parity with the other industrialized nations of the world.