Marathon Pundit: George Will on the Obama administration's "tincture of lawlessness"

Thursday, May 14, 2009

George Will on the Obama administration's "tincture of lawlessness"

There is an air of thuggishness within the Barack Obama administration, which is something that George Will has noticed.

And yes, he brings that powerful government union, SEIU, into the discussion.

Anyone, said T.S. Eliot, could carve a goose, were it not for the bones. And anyone could govern as boldly as their whims decreed, were it not for the skeletal structure that keeps civil society civil – the rule of law. The Obama administration is bold. It also is careless regarding constitutional values and is acquiring a tincture of lawlessness.

In February, California's Democratic-controlled Legislature, faced with a $42 billion budget deficit, trimmed $74 million (1.4 percent) from one of the state's fastest growing programs, which provides care for low-income and incapacitated elderly and cost the state $5.42 billion last year. The Los Angeles Times reports that "loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester."

But the Service Employees International Union collects nearly $5 million a month from 223,000 caregivers who are members. And the Obama administration has told California that unless the $74 million in cuts are rescinded, it will deny the state $6.8 billion in stimulus money.

Such a federal ukase (the word derives from czarist Russia; how appropriate) to a state legislature is a sign of the administration’s dependency agenda – maximizing the number of people and institutions dependent on the federal government. For the first time, neither sales nor property nor income taxes are the largest source of money for state and local governments. The federal government is.