A Downgrade Awakening

The Wall Street Journal editorializes on the hope and change politics that brought us, the US, a downgrade from S&P with the promise of more to come.

Let's recall how we arrived at this crossroads. A credit mania of several years that no one wanted to end suddenly turned into a financial panic in 2008. In their anxiety, and with Republicans holding the White House but having no explanation, the voters turned to the candidate who seemed coolest under fire. Though relatively unknown, Barack Obama was at least promising "hope and change." 

Upon taking office, Mr. Obama proceeded to unleash the entire liberal economic and social policy arsenal in the name of ending the panic. Whether or not these were his own convictions, the President allowed the Pelosi Congress to use that rare political opening—and 60 Senate Democrats—to pursue a 40-year wish list. 

And pursue it Democrats did. To an economy recovering from excessive private leverage, they poured on trillions in new public spending and debt. Amid a financial system suffering from a nervous breakdown, they castigated bankers for causing the panic and then added 2,000 pages of new rules. They spent nearly two years redesigning one-sixth of the economy to realize their ambitions for national health care. They unleashed regulators to rewrite the nation's energy and labor laws.

And that's not all folks.  In short, Democrats had their way--all and exclusively their way--for two years of hegemonic excess the likes of which America hadn't witnessed since the New Deal.  But, unlike then, the country had ample proof and reason in 2008 to not repeat the policies that kept America in the throes of depression throughout the 1930s.

Since the tea party eruption last election, Democrats haven't stopped.  They've merely gone underground to achieve by regulatory means (as this Op-ed entitled "Obama's New Gifts to Organized Labor" illustrates) what they couldn't by legislative ones, even when they had the votes.  The editorial concludes with the following:

The downgrade uproar and even the market turmoil are signs that Americans aren't about to accept economic decline gracefully. To adapt a famous phrase, a debt crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Lest you miss the reference, Noman suggests that you do a YouTube search on "Emanuel and opportunity," and then surf around for Hilary Clinton and other Democratic luminaries who viewed the crisis as their opportunity to actualize a 40-year wish list.  We have reaped what they sowed.