A Newly Defined Socialistic "Middle Class" Government Ahead? ... Or Is Maybe A Return to Limited Government in the Works?

Tomorrow's Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election will tell us something about the mood of the country concerning public sector unions and their strength today. The public sector is plenty big, so the issue is whether we are going to downsize it or keep it growing.

Whichever way voters choose, it's a significant vote for bigger or smaller government and public sector entitlements.

Along those lines, Notable & Quotable says this about the true significance of another recently enacted big government program and its significance --- ObamaCare:

"From a review of Paul Starr's "Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle Over Health Care Reform" by Harvard's Theda Skocpol in the spring 2012 issue of Dissent:

[Starr] mistakenly thinks that Affordable Care is a very moderate reform effort—because he focuses on Obama's willingness to compromise a bit with private insurance companies and other health care businesses. Many on the left share this preoccupation. But that misses the fiscal and economic redistribution central to Affordable Care. The guts of the new law are the huge expansions of Medicaid and expensive subsidies to make insurance available to people earning incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty line. . . .

Affordable Care, on top of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, could strengthen the bond between middle-class Americans and a national government that supports security for all. If all these programs survive and flourish, as most Democrats would prefer, right-wing Republicans have little future, especially in a society where young people, Latinos, and minorities are gaining ground demographically and find the Democratic Party of the Obama era relatively attractive. What seems like a timid reform to some on the left is well understood as a threat to future Republican prospects by those on the right.

They see 2012 as a last chance to cut off Democratic reforms and preserve an everyone-for-himself economy. . . .

Republicans and right-wingers are right. In health care, as well as in other areas with economic and fiscal impact, the stakes in 2012 are as high as in any pivotal election in U.S. history (except 1860)."

Summing Up

The Harvard professor reminds us that the true political significance of ObamaCare is a further broadening of the government's reach and its effects on strengthening the alliance between government and the broadly defined "middle class." No wonder President Obama is all about "saving" that middle class as newly defined.

The times we're in really are different as we approach a tipping point with respect to government having enough power to get the votes needed to expand the welfare state.

If that happens, there indeed will be a new definition of "middle class."

Oh well, We the People will get our way, whatever way that turns out to be.

And if we don't like that way, we can always choose to change our ways again at a later time.

As long as we're in the game, it's ours to win.

But here's hoping for a We the People rally of sorts on Tuesday and beyond.

Thanks. Bob.