Posted by
The CL Project on Thursday, May 07, 2009 2:17:20 PM
Previously we discussed Rule No. 1 of the Obama administration: Never allow a crisis to go to waste.
Now as the NYT points out, the tumultuous economy that Obama and the Democratic Congress helped shape remains the fulcrum for the legislative battle only now starting in earnest.
Team Obama casts his initiatives on health care, energy, education and the auto and financial industries as responses to the economic crisis. Meanwhile the GOP continue to call the recession merely an excuse for big-government ambitions that liberals have failed to achieve for decades.
But the tides are turning. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in February showed that 51 percent of Americans wanted government to do more to solve problems. Last week, the same 
survey showed that a 52 percent majority said Mr. Obama had taken on “too many other issues” besides the economy.
But the politics of distraction are already taking a massive toll on the American economy, and we are paying the price.
The New York Times
reports today:
As the Obama administration racks up an unprecedented spending bill for bank bailouts, Detroit rescues, health care overhauls and stimulus plans, the bond market is starting to push up the cost of trillions of dollars in borrowing for the government.
Already, in the first six months of this fiscal year, the federal deficit is running at $956.8 billion, or nearly one seventh of gross domestic product — levels not seen since World War II … Debt held by the public is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to rise from 41 percent of gross domestic product in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009 and to a peak of around 54 percent in 2011.
As the DC Examiner laid out, the Obama strategy has consistently been to use the current economic crisis as justification for his radical agenda. And when bureaucrats and politicians take advantage of a crisis, the result is always less personal and economic liberty.
The bottom line is this: By promoting an "economic crisis" to advance his policies, Obama's prediction of long-term economic crisis will be self-fulfilling.