During America’s first-ever national lockdown, thousands of unelected bureaucrats, as well as federal and state governments, assumed enormous powers not usually accorded to them.
They picked and chose which businesses could stay open without much rationale. They sent the infected into nursing homes occupied by the weak and vulnerable.
Their rules for prosecuting those who violated social distancing, sheltering in place, mask wearing or violent protesting often hinged on political grounds. Their spending measures on “infrastructure” and “health care” were excuses to lard up redistributive entitlements.
Conservatives moaned that left-wing agendas were at work beneath the pretenses of saving us from the pandemic. And the giddy left bragged that it was true.
After the 2008 financial meltdown, Barack Obama spoke of “fundamentally transforming” the country.
Now he’s back, weighing in on the panic-driven, multitrillion-dollar spending that has pushed America’s debt to nearly $30 trillion.
“There’s a teachable moment about maybe this whole deficit hawk thing of the federal government,” Obama said in a recent interview with Ezra Klein of The New York Times.
“Just being nervous about our debt 30 years from now, while millions of people are suffering — maybe that’s not a smart way to think about our economics.”