Two very different views about the current state of the relationship between the government and the governed. Here's Michael Barone:
"A 2008 election widely regarded as heralding a shift toward the more government-friendly public sentiment of the New Deal and Great Society eras seems to have yielded just the reverse."So writes William Galston, Brookings Institution scholar and deputy domestic adviser in the Clinton White House, in the New Republic. Galston, one of the smartest political and policy analysts around, has strong evidence for this conclusion.
He cites a recent Gallup poll showing that while 82 percent of Americans think it's extremely or very important to "grow and expand the economy" and 70 percent say it's similarly important to "increase equality of opportunity for people to get ahead," only 46 percent say it's important to "reduce the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor" and 54 percent say this is only somewhat or not important.
And John Stossel:
As 2011 draws to a close, I wonder: Is freedom winning? Did America become freer this year? Less free? How about the rest of the world?
I'm a pessimist. I fear Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, "the natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
That's what's happened. Bush and Obama doubled spending and increased regulation. Government's intrusiveness is always more, never less. The state grows, and freedom declines.
