The New Obama 5-Year Plan
We really couldn't be more screwed when it is up to an NPR reporter to make the argument for free enterprise:
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told NPR's Michelle Norris yesterday: "The President has said, and I couldn't agree more, that what this country needs is a one single national road map that tells automakers who are trying to become solvent again what kind of car it is they need to be designing and building for the American people." Norris then asked: "Is that the role of Government though? That doesn't sound like free enterprise." Jackson responded: "Well it is free enterprise in a way."
via Maggies Farm.
Update: Q&O has a great post deconstructing Obama's view of government as health care planner. Very frightening.
Me:
Sigh. You know, Coyote, I could never understood how a rational liberal type like you could support the apparently irrational, religious, big-invasive-government and screw-personal-freedom Republicans I experienced under the Bush administration (my first 8 years in America). Seeing what a Democratic administration can do, I now am beginning to understand.
April 30, 2009, 8:44 amJohn Anderson:
What great news, especially along with Arlen Spector switching sides. Now with a practically filibuster-proof Congress, Obama is going to make our health care system match Britain's, our tax laws match Canada, and our industries match Soviet-era Russia. What a cosmopolitan kinda guy!
April 30, 2009, 8:46 amElamBend:
A friend of mine is an environmental lawyer who is generally sympathetic to that cause, though he gets more cynical by the day. He specializes in helping businesses comply with regulation and even profit off the rules. He has a particular client who is upset with they way things are going, but wants to be best placed to take advantage (or just survive). He told me his client grumbled, referring to the current administration and its EPA and said, "It's like giving a gun to a f------ child."
No idea for the true consequences and costs of their actions.
April 30, 2009, 10:26 amJames H:
“Well it is free enterprise in a way.â€
Yeah, like being free to buy whatever color car you want as long as it's black. What way does she mean?
April 30, 2009, 11:32 amDKH:
Regarding the comment of "Me.":
I don't think you should get the impression that coyote ever supported Republicans as a group (which has made me frustrated with his posts at times). His actual stances in the past election are here, and some other commentary on this sort of subject by him is here and here. So while it's clear Obama did not make him happy, I don't think he lent much "support" to McCain or Republicans in general either.
I am glad that Libertarians often ally themselves with Republicans, as I am on the edge of conservative and libertarian in thought. Overall, I think freedom in the market matters more than anything, and I have a tough time getting worked up over the frenzied cries of Republican limitations on freedom. This rampant interventionism in the market by our new liberal administration bothers me much more (although it's hard to know how much, if at all, the Republicans would have been better).
April 30, 2009, 4:50 pm