Obama & Co., Growing Up Fast

[Geee]

National Review:

Obama & Co., Growing Up Fast
Obama and his EU counterparts are learning that high-minded adolescence makes for bad governance. But it’s an expensive lesson.

Old laws predicated on human nature cannot so easily be discarded — even by utopians who think they have the power to cool the planet and stop the rising seas. Borrowed money really has to be paid back. Governments cannot operate without confidentiality. Nations perish if they cannot protect themselves from existential threats. Watching a therapeutic Barack Obama grow up and learn these tragic lessons is as enlightening as it is sometimes scary.

When they are out of power, modern leftists advocate massive government spending and large deficits. They applaud when Republicans and conservatives sometimes prove as profligate as any big-government liberal. But when invested with the responsibility of governance, they come to understand that Keynesian “stimulus” must eventually cede to the same unhappy logic as the private household’s indebtedness.
Maxing out credit cards does not exempt one from having to pay off the balance. Low or nonexistent interest on debt does not mean the principal vanishes. We are reminded that debt is real with the ongoing meltdown of the European Union, as a bloated public sector from the Atlantic to the Aegean demands that someone, somewhere cover its debts.