This Is Something, Therefore We Must Do It

Obama's basic argument for health care reform and pretty much everything else he wants to do is that opposition to his plan is opposition to making things better. I'm all for making things better, but his plans just don't do that. No matter how bad things are, some changes just make things worse.

"I can assure you," the president said recently in Green Bay, Wisconsin, "the cost of doing nothing is going to be a lot higher in the years to come. Our deficits will be higher. Our premiums will keep going up. Our wages will be lower. Our jobs will be fewer. Our businesses will suffer." Echoed Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a week later: "The cost of doing nothing will render us a second rate nation on into the future." Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), in subsequent House hearings, went still further: "There is not one child, not one worker, not one employer, nor one taxpayer who can further bear the cost of doing nothing."

Hyperbole aside, the urge to have the government do something in the face of a perceived crisis is arguably the most powerful and effective legislative engine known to man. If the crisis is acute enough, backers of state intervention will even admit that content matters less than the mere existence of action itself.

This video needs to become a lot more popular:



Update: Apparently, Obama's economic plans are losing popularity. Let's hope that keeps up.