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The lost center
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In a serious world, New York Times columnist David Brooks would confess he is a conservative Democrat and President Barack Obama would concede that the adoption of his tax, regulatory and spending schemes would, at best, lead to permanently high structural unemployment as in France.
Mr. Brooks, representing the lost center, would push for a thriftier, more efficient version of our nanny state. Our president, weighing his party's left, would offer a detailed defense of how his entitlement spending and government investments would magically avoid the fiscal catastrophe that is Greece.
But we do not live in a serious age. The president's proxies are Sandra Fluke, who wants you to share the cost of her $18-per-month birth-control pills, and Big Bird, who is beak-high in licensing fees but still needs his nest feathered in taxpayer dollars. These are not caricatures; our $16 trillion in national debt wasn't incurred by night fairies.
This is why I'm asking David Brooks to ditch his compassionate Republican routine and make the Democratic Party his new project. It may have a president, but it lacks a governor.
BENJAMIN GROSS
Rosslyn Farms
First Published October 15, 2012 12:00 am
