The Daily Hatch

SAMUEL GREGG
There is always something surreal about a Chicago politician talking about “fairness” and “playing by the rules.” There is something even more bizarre about a president talking about the need to expand energy production after his administration has generally undermined significant progress in facilitating energy development for three years in the middle of a recession. And who would describe Detroit as “on the way back”? A stroll down the ghost town otherwise known as downtown Detroit — which is teetering on the edge of being put into administration — would suggest the opposite. It’s not often that I agree with very much said by the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd, but this State of the Union speech illustrated that the lady was dead right in describing the Obama presidency as a bubble within a bubble.

Who, after all, would use the slogan of a bailed-out car company — “built to last” — as a cornerstone theme of an address ostensibly about rebuilding the American economy? Government bailouts are, incidentally, a classic example of breaking the rules: i.e., that an insolvent business should be wound down rather than propped up by the federal government (which itself is wallowing in debt). “It’s time,’ the president said, “to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.” That sounds like the rhetoric of the Tea Party. But would anyone say that this has been the practice of the Obama administration? Solyndra, anyone?

A mixture of hot air, populism, contradictory promises, a disturbing stress upon yet more executive orders, an unseemly hectoring of the legislature by the executive branch — it must be election time.

— Samuel Gregg is research director at the Acton Institute. He is the author of several books including On Ordered Liberty, his prize-winning The Commercial Society, Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy, and his forthcoming Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and America’s Future,

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your committment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com