The (George) Will of the People (Part II)

Usually, George Will offers his conservative viewpoints with a bit of evidence to back them up. Unfortunately, today's column offered no evidence.

First of all, in the politics of fear, this column was quite two-faced. Will accuses Obama of trolling out fearmongering, and then Will concludes his article by comparing the nation to Napoleon's troops at Waterloo. Nothing more calming than a comparison to Waterloo. Let's mention Little Bighorn while we're at it.

The seeming failure of bipartisanship (as if the first 100 days of a new presidency are the only times where a government can demonstrate bipartisanship) was caused by a failure of the losing side to offer up anything new to the table. Tax cuts are said to be stimulative -- in 1981, 2001, etc. What proponents of tax cuts forget is the recessions that soon followed (Black Monday, anyone?). What proponents of tax cuts also forget is that massive deficit spending has been proven to recover a failing ecomony. And no, I'm not talking about the New Deal.

The debate about how effective the New Deal was to pulling us out of the Great Depression continues, but all can agree that it was World War II that got us out of it completely. And what happened? Massive borrowing, massive deficit spending, raised taxes, businesses in support of government jobs, full employment, a draft, and food and materiel rationing. It was government intervention at such a grand scale, and this intervention pulled us out of the Depression. And New Deal opponents seem to forget that it was the same president who presided over the New Deal as who presided over World War II.

And afterwards, what did we do? We experienced the biggest economic boom of the time with the most massive public works project in the 20th century outside of the war effort: the building of our nation's interstate system.

The role of government to secure the rights that all men (who are created equal) are inalienably endowed with is considered one of the self-evident truths of the Founding Fathers. And when it doesn't work, we have to alter or abolish it. That's what voters did in 2006 and 2008.