OPINION:
Bigger is not always better. Bigger government is nearly always badder. That’s what Americans are saying in a new Gallup Poll about the danger of overweening authority. There’s a near-universal recognition that the institutions erected “in order to form more perfect union” are instead facilitating expensive flapdoodle. Small wonder that a majority say the nation is on the wrong track.
Gallup asked which of three choices would pose the biggest threat to the country in the future, and 69 percent selected “big government.” Big business was chosen by only 25 percent and 9 percent named big labor. The poll, released last week, found that 88 percent of those who feel most threatened by the depredations of officialdom are, no surprise, Republicans. Independents were only fractionally less concerned, at 67 percent. Even 53 percent of Democrats, members of the party of supersized government, say the government is the greatest danger to the American future.
The fear of big government began climbing sharply in 2009 with the presidency of Barack Obama. With the advent of Obamacare and an explosion of social welfare programs, the federal bureaucracy under President Obama has come to bear more than a passing resemblance to George Orwell’s Big Brother.
A mid-December Rasmussen poll found that 66 percent of likely U.S. voters think the nation is heading in the wrong direction; only 26 percent think otherwise. They all see the undeniable truth in Ronald Reagan’s observation that “the nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.”
Speaking such plain wisdom is how the Gipper earned the name of “the great communicator.” Mr. Obama could be called “the great confounder.” With his devotion to federal enterprise the salesman of “hope and change” has only increased the number of Americans disillusioned with government, and he sent his own approval numbers into the cellar. A Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls on the president’s job performance this month put his approval rating at slightly less than 44 percent, disapproval at nearly 52 percent. If it’s true that “from whom much is given, much is expected,” Mr. Obama has been a profound disappointment. With an adjustment of his convictions and with his gifts of eloquence and community organizing, he could have been better.
The president can take comfort, we suppose, in the fact that he’s not a member of Congress. The reputation of congressmen, according to Gallup, ranks only slightly ahead of telemarketers, lobbyists and sad to say, pundits of various stripe. With a little work, members of Congress might catch up to automobile salesmen, stockbrokers and lawyers.
The end of the year brings the opportunity for a new beginning and soon for a new president. It’s abundantly clear that voters are so over Barack Obama. Rather than welcome the change he promised — and delivered — most Americans fear those changes. This election year is widely hailed as the year of the outsider. The Democratic Party offers no candidate unsullied by the status quo, leaving the Grand Old Party with an advantage. Republicans, alas, have a history of blowing advantages. The candidate committed to cutting Leviathan down to size is likely to win the grand prize.
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