Health Care in a Free Society
PAUL RYAN is in his sixth term as a member of Congress, representing Wisconsin's First Congressional District. He is the ranking member of the House Budget Committee and a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. A graduate of Miami University in Ohio, he and his wife Janna have three children and live in Janesville, Wisconsin.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered on January 13, 2010, in Washington, D.C., at an event sponsored by Hillsdale College's Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship.
SOMEONE once said that before there was the New Deal, there was the Wisconsin Deal. In my home state, the University of Wisconsin was an early hotbed of progressivism, whose goal was to reorder society along lines other than those of the Constitution. The best known Wisconsin progressive in American politics was Robert LaFollette. “Fighting Bob,” as he was called, was a Republican—as was Theodore Roosevelt, another early progressive. Today we tend to associate progressivism mostly with Democrats, and trace it back to Woodrow Wilson. But it had its roots in both parties.
The social and political programs of the progressives came in on two great waves: the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the 1960s. Today, President Obama often invokes progressivism and hopes to generate its third great wave of public policy. In thinking about what this would mean, we need look no farther than the health care reform program he is promoting along with the leadership in Congress.more
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I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be free or maintain the lifestyles to which we've become accustomed.
ReplyDeleteEurope is delighted with Obama because, as Al Sharpton said a few days ago, he's a socialist and his policies for America will result in less investment in this country which will level the playing field for Europeans.
When Mitterand, a socialist, became president of France, he nationalized many sectors of French businesses moving France toward his socialized vision.
French investment capital fled to Margaret Thatchr's England and Ronald Reagan's America where free markets and lower taxes predominated.
France went into a 1 year depression and Mitterand reprivatized most of the companies the government had taken over.
European leftists learned a lesson: It's impossible to launch socialism in one country when there are competing models nearby. So they began focusing on integrating all the continents economies into the EU and moving it toward socialism.
But one problem remained: The United States was not on board. The US benefited from investment capital fleeing the EU.
Now that Obama is bringing US tax policy, regulatory policies and socialist programs to the US, we're more in sync with the EU and the socialists are euphoric. Their problem is solved. They can go ahead building their continental utopia without having to trim their sails for fear of competition from the US.
Source: Book Catastrophe
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