Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 3:57pm

Obama Administration as the Most Compelling Argument Against Big Government

 

 

 

As a conservative I do appreciate one thing about the Obama administration:  it makes the argument as to the evils of big government far more effectively than ten thousand free market sermons.  Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics takes a look at the Obamacare roll out, and the unbelievable level of incompetence it betokens:

 

 

Sebelius’ department had 3½ years to prepare to implement the Affordable Care  Act. No one ever suggested that commandeering one-sixth of the American economy  would be an easy task. (Many Republicans suggested the opposite and were  dismissed as killjoys for their efforts.) But after the debacle of the last two  weeks, liberals and Democrats—not conservatives or Republicans—should be calling  for Sebelius’s head.

The administration’s handling of the implementation of Obamacare over the  past three years has been a slow-moving train wreck: a mixture of embarrassing  delays, hard-to-justify waivers, and assorted bad news about the unintended  consequences of the law. Some of this was Sebelius’s fault, some of it was  not.

The crowning blunder came 10 days ago with the rollout of healthcare.gov website, the centerpiece of the administration’s effort to sign individuals up  for coverage through the government-run health care exchanges that are at the  heart of the legislation. To say this was vitally important to the overall  success of the law is an understatement. It is the aspect of Obamacare that the  president himself has said is utterly essential—and backed up those words by  letting the federal government shut down rather that give in to Republican  demands to gut it. Nonetheless, its premiere was a giant flop – and Kathleen  Sebelius is responsible.

The government’s website apparently cost more than $500  million to build—and counting. This is more than LinkedIn, Facebook,  Twitter, Instagram or Spotify, and yet it has been a disaster from the get-go,  freezing, crashing, and locking people out.

The administration’s line is that the website was overwhelmed by surprisingly  strong demand, which they cast as a good thing. Programmers who peeked under the  hood of the website scoffed at that assertion, saying that the site was so  poorly constructed, so full of glitches and buggy code that it could never have  supported even the most modest traffic levels. Some of that code was actually  caused by spelling errors in Javascript.

Go here to read the damning rest.  Big government thrives on the illusion that people need a nanny state to take care of them, to smooth out the rough edges of life.  As the Obamacare rollout debacle indicates, this is so much Wizard of Oz flim flammery.  In exchange for tax dollars, government, at best, tends to be expensive, inefficient and clumsy.  At worst, complete incompetence is the order of the day, and even a competent computer system for health care exchanges is simply beyond the fools currently in power in Washington, even when half a billion dollars is poured down the rathole for the web design.  The truth is that with government we have a level of incompetence we rarely find in the private sector, because such enterprises tend to quickly go out of business.  The nanny state is bad for any of number of reasons, but what will ultimately destroy it is sheer mind boggling incompetence.

 

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Frederick Kreuziger
Friday, October 11, AD 2013 3:47pm

So, I understand you to be saying you have no better, more effective, argument against big government than our government, of which President Obama is the elected executive. I would ask you simply to witness to that deficiency by keeping quiet. On the other hand, speak and prove your point!

Ivan
Ivan
Friday, October 11, AD 2013 8:47pm

There is money in incompetence if you know who to bill. Much of the shrillness of the Democratic banshees, is attributable to their grim will to protect their own rice bowls.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, October 12, AD 2013 3:50am

Ivan

Of course, democratic government is always a contest between the friends of corruption and the friends of sedition; those who profit from existing abuses and those who look to profit from the disaffection that corruption naturally produces.

Paul D
Paul D
Saturday, October 12, AD 2013 11:15am

As the world around us goes to hell faster than you can say “twerk”, barbed humor may be one way to cope with secular machine and its surrounding chaos. Great video.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Saturday, October 12, AD 2013 12:43pm

How does our faux constitutional professor in chief get around the Equal Protection Clause when he grants exemptions to persons of certain classes or categories? While the language thereof applies to the states, it says, ” No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This appears to apply to state exchanges established under Obamacare. I am not a lawyer, just merely Irish. Nonetheless I see a constitutional issue here.

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