Shocked into seriousness

Charles Hurt of the New York Post is a conceited columnist whose every column consists of little more than airy, censorious put-downs, usually of Republicans, sometimes of Democrats, but who never puts forth any basis for the put-downs, any point of view of his own, beyond a vaguely left-of-center slant. With his combination of superiority and vacuity, he’s the John Kerry of political commentators. I have often wondered what his bosses at the Post see in him to give him a daily column in which to pontificate.

Hurt’s column in the January 30 Post is a marked departure in tone and substance from anything I’ve seen by him before. Instead of his usual superior, above-it-all, attitude, he’s genuinely indignant and alarmed about something—the “stimulus” bill (or the “porkulus” bill, as a wag at Lucianne.com has called it) that was passed by the House last week. Instead of taking easy pot-shots, he makes an argument.

The “stimulus” package is so horrible it stirs even shallow egotists out of their egotism.

Here is the column:

CHANGE FOR THE WORSE
By CHARLES HURT—INSIDE WASHINGTON

January 30, 2009—

WASHINGTON—Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms.

The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap on the amount of federal cash that can be sent to states each year for welfare payments.

But, thanks to the simple phrase slipped into the legislation, the new “stimulus” bill abolishes the limits on the amount of federal money for the so-called Emergency Fund, which ships welfare cash to states.

“Out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary for payment to the Emergency Fund,” Democrats wrote in Section 2101 on Page 354 of the $819 billion bill. In other words, the only limit on welfare payments would be the Treasury itself.

“This re-establishes the welfare state and creates dependency all over the place,” said one startled budget analyst after reading the line.

In addition to reopening the floodgates of dependency on federal welfare programs, the change once again deepens the dependency of state governments on the federal government.

President Obama won on promises of changing the way Washington works.

Gripped by perhaps the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Americans of every political stripe opted for “change.”

Sick of reckless government, sleazy lobbyists, wild spending and deep borrowing that has scuttled America’s great economic engine, voters embraced Obama’s promise to be “post-partisan” and usher into the government a new era of responsibility and common sense.

But his presidency isn’t two weeks old, and already warning flags have gone up.

Obama is wallpapering his administration with lobbyists, installed a tax cheat to run the Treasury Department and is pushing Congress to pass a massive, wildly unaffordable “stimulus” bill loaded with pork and reckless spending that plunges Americans even deeper into debt.

Even worse, the bill every day looks more like 15 years of pent-up big-government liberalism than an economic “stimulus” plan.

Ever since his election, many Americans have wondered which Barack Obama would show up at the White House: the most liberal member of the Senate or the post-partisan bearer of change we could all believe in.

One thing is clear: His “stimulus” bill is not change we can believe in. It’s a return to big-government welfare that we will choke on.

churt@nypost.com

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 02, 2009 09:57 AM | Send