Old Paths

“[O]ur federal government, from the White House through Congress, and so many state and local governments, seems to be demonstrating every day that they cannot make things better. They are not offering a new path, they are only offering old paths — spend more, regulate more, tax more in an attempt to make us more healthy locally and nationally. And in the long term everyone — well, not those in government, but most everyone else — seems to know that won’t work. It’s not a way out. It’s not a path through. … When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax — health care, cap and trade, etc. — I think: Why aren’t they worried about the impact of what they’re doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse? … We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists — they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.” –columnist Peggy Noonan