Steyn: Regulation, globally speaking, Crisis used to put Government in the Driver's Seat

Mark Steyn has written a very powerful commentary on how Obama and the Democrat Congress have used the economic crises to shift control of the private sector into the hands of government. Obama has written in the Chicago Tribune "But I also know that we need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy. That is a false choice which will not serve our people or any people." Steyn replies to this itself is a false choice, that Obama has made oppressive government the only game in town.

He points out that federal spending is to increase to 28.5% of GDP this year. This is higher than ever before in our history, except in WWII. Obama plans to double our national debt in the next 6 years and to triple it in the next 10 years. Steyn says that the government is annexing our economy and in the process our very lives. Every business, no matter how small, will face the burden of more permits, more paperwork, and more bureaucracy.

And, he says do not think you can move out from under the jurisdiction of this overweening government. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, our favorite tax evader, is calling for global regulation at the G20 summit in London this week. He does not want people and companies to be able to look for new locations with fewer regulations and lower taxes. Steyn replies

Just as a matter of interest -- why not? If you don't want to be subject to punitive "oversight" of economically illiterate, demagogic legislators-for-life like Rep. Barney Frank, Massachussetts Democrat, why shouldn't you be "allowed" to move your business to some jurisdiction with a lighter regulatory touch?

Steyn points out that even Bono, the global do-gooder, has moved much of his business from low tax Ireland to the Netherlands, where taxes are even lower for him. Of course, Geithner himself does not have a history of paying his taxes.

If you listen to the principal spokesmen for U.S. economic policy -- Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner -- they grow daily ever more explicitly hostile to the private sector and ever more comfortable with the language of micromanaged, government-approved capitalism. That, of course, isn't capitalism at all. They'll have an easier time getting away with it in a world of "global oversight" where there's nowhere to move to.

But then he adds:

Think about it: It takes extraordinary skill to create and manage a billion-dollar company; there are very few human beings on Earth who can do it. Now look at Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner, the two men currently "managing" more money than any individuals in human history -- not billions, but trillions of dollars.

He then discusses the Bolsheviks inability to manage even the simple agricultural society in their tragic experiment of the last century. He points out how much more daunting managing the American economy with its much greater complexity, extent, and international ties and dependencies would be. Can Geithner, who cannot do his own taxes, be expected to do this? Well, no! Emphatically no!

He then describes Obama as uninterested in economics. Obama is a social engineer, a community organizer. Period. His plan to remove the tax deduction for charitable giving for the wealthy was born of nothing more than a desire to put the government and only the government in control of all charity. His plans for socialized health care, a green economy, and universal college education are likewise only about extending the control of government.

But this all costs money and the government does not have it. Last week, the similarly pressed British government, could not sell its "gilt-edged" 40-year bonds at auction. Germany has had two such bond auctions fail. The U.S. could not sell $34 billion of 5-year bonds until it increased the interest rate. There simply is no source of funding large enough to buy the bonds which must be issued to cover our projected debts. The Chinese and the Saudis cannot do it at these levels.

Steyn concludes:

In their first two months, Mr. Obama and Mr. Geithner have done nothing but vaporize your wealth and your children's future. What began as an economic crisis is now principally a political usurpation. And, to return to the president's "false choice", that "chaotic and unforgiving capitalism" is exactly what we need right now. It's the quickest, cheapest, fairest, most efficient route to economic stabilization and renewal. A regimented and eternally forgiving global command economy with no moral hazard will destroy us all.

How many times have I made this same point? But, it is good to have Steyn on the same page with me. I think that younger Americans are going to learn a very important lesson on the superiority of Capitalism, lessons their state-managed educations have withheld from them. Unfortunately, they will be paying dearly for this lesson the rest of their lives. Their idol Obama has proven, as it was clear he would to any rational observer with some knowledge of history, that he is nothing but a craven idol.