Big Government, Debt Ceilings, and Barbecues

[Geee]

Weekly Standard:

We worry as we prepare to fire up our barbeques, head for the beaches and ballparks, and otherwise celebrate our hard won independence from British despotism. That’s the good news, because it reflects a realization that a policy shift can no longer be postponed. By 44 to 34 percent, we have told Bloomberg pollsters we are worse off than we were last year (the balance say their situation is unchanged). Over half of those polled – 55 percent – expect their children’s standard of living to be lower than their own, while only 23 percent are expecting their children to live better than they have. Two out of every three Americans polled believe the nation is on the wrong track.


Top of the list: worries about jobs. You probably read about how upset we are with gasoline prices, which encourages the Obama team to believe that as prices come down, the president’s approval rating will go up. Well, only 4 percent of those polled rate gasoline prices their biggest problem; 42 percent say unemployment and jobs are the most important issue facing the country, four times as many as worry primarily about health care.

The better news is that Americans have come to realize that the fault, dear reader, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, knowing that we are underlings, to borrow from Cassius. So millions of usually passive citizens have become activist voters, no longer willing to tolerate the errors of policymakers or allow trade unions, which account for less than 7 percent of the work force, to dominate the electoral process.