WASHINGTON -- Gulliver's travels took him to the Academy of Lagado, where "professors contrive new rules and methods" for everything: "One man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last forever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundredfold more than they do at present." There was, however, the "inconvenience" that "none of these projects" had yet come to fruition and "the whole country lies miserably waste." But "instead of being discouraged," people were "fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes," which included "extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers."
At the Academy of Obama, professors and others devise plans for extracting a new and improved automobile industry from a semi-sort-of-bankruptcy arrangement that -- if it survives judicial scrutiny; that is not certain -- will give the United Auto Workers 39 percent of General Motors, with the government owning 50 percent. During future contract negotiations, will the union's adversary be an administration that the union helped to put in power?
The Utopians have the reins but will grow increasingly angry and agitated when reality fails to comply with their mandates. Wishes are not actions. Republicans can get back to power the second they even stop endorsing such platitudes since they sound nice. There are problems and pains in life. No government program can change that. Some children will be left behind. Some people will not be able to make full use of their potential due to having to simply survive life. Finally people will have to take the consequences of their own actions and stop expecting the government to absorb the "damages" to make them whole again. You have a kid when you are 15 and you aren't owed a college degree. You aren't owed a husband via the government. You drink and party and don't attend to your health, you aren't owed a quadruple bypass or a hip replacement to lengthen or improve the quality of your life.
These things are wonderful thoughts, but they have costs and no one can hide that fact anymore.
