Bailing Out Politicians Now? Obama Calls For Taxpayer Rescue Of Political Class
by Pat Buchanan (excerpt)

REAL CLEAR POLITICS

Even lifelong Democratic pol Steny Hoyer, majority leader of the U.S. House, is balking at Barack Obama's latest bailout proposal. "I think there is spending fatigue," said Steny. "It's tough in both houses to get votes." Hoyer was referring to Obama's weekend letter to Capitol Hill calling for a $50 billion bailout of state and city governments, to spare our elected politicians the pain of balancing their budgets with their own tax revenues.

Obama calls it an "emergency" measure to prevent "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters." Yet, none of the 20 million state, county or municipal workers can lose their job unless an elected legislature and a chief executive agree that they should go. Obama is calling for a taxpayer rescue of the political class to which he belongs, to spare it the painful duty tens of thousands of business executives have had to perform. Private employees -- 25 million of whom are out of work, underemployed or have given up looking for jobs -- may be expendable, but government workers are not.

For the U.S. government to bail these states out again, as Obama did with his $800 billion stimulus, would only be to postpone the inevitable day of reckoning, to deepen the federal fiscal crisis and to raise the odds further that America herself will one day have to default. In the recession of 1981, Ronald Reagan, with his across-the board tax cuts of 25 percent, bet the ranch on the private sector -- and won his gamble. Obama, with his $800 billion stimulus, bet it all on the public sector. It appears not to have worked. Now Obama wants to double-down. Congress should give him no more chips.