Friday, December 21, 2012

Plan B Failure a Disaster? Or What?

The MSM consensus on the failure of Speaker Boehner's "Plan B" last night seems to be that Boehner was humiliated and the Republicans are in disarray.

So now the president and the Democrats can go to the country and crow that Republicans want to increase taxes on the middle class.

Who knows?

The basic correlation of forces is still what it was after the election in November.  The American people have chosen not to go for reform of the welfare state.  Not yet.

The logical result of that is to increase taxes, but not not too much, and keep all the rent-seeking spending going for now.

I was watching a Peter Robinson UncommonKnowledge interview of John O'Sullivan and Jonah Goldberg last night.  Someone said that you only get to curb the spending and the rent-seeking after a military defeat or a civil war.

It's obvious really.  The spending and rent-seeking in the modern administrative welfare state represents the real power balance in the western world.  If you want to change it you have to have the power to move the current power-holders and their supporters off dead center.  Realistically, you can only do that when the current power-holders are off their balance.

Maybe a financial meltdown would have the same effect as a war.

At any rate, if the economy isn't doing too well by the end of the Obama administration then you can expect the American people to be in a nasty mood.

And nobody will remember the details of Boehner's Plan B.

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