A Stitch in Haste

To review: There was recently a meme, hopefully a stillborn flash in the pan, suggesting that Barack Obama was a libertarian, or at least that he believed in some ill-defined mutant hybrid called "left-libertarianism."

Armed with that, I challenge anyone to find anything "libertarian" in this:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama proposed a $75 billion economic stimulus plan on Sunday that includes worker tax credits, a one-time pension supplement and help to homeowners facing foreclosure.

The plan would include an immediate $250 tax credit to workers that could double if the economy worsens, a one-time $250 supplement to Social Security payments, a $10 billion fund to help homeowners facing foreclosure and a $10 billion fund to bolster states facing budget shortfalls amid lower tax revenues.

Take each boondoggle separately:

--Tax cuts are not "per se libertarian." Indeed, targeted tax cuts to politically favored subgroups (notice that Obama uses the Democrat code word "worker" rather than "taxpayer") are about as un-libertarian an economic policy as can be imagined. It's merely the reciprocal of pork and earmarks. Meanwhile, making an obscenely progressive tax code even more progressive is also not a pillar of libertarian fiscal policy. (Again, "workers" and not "taxpayers" get help -- so do you think the overall tax distribution would become more or less progressive under this plan?)

--The entitlement elderly, who are already crippling the federal budget, get even more under Obamanomics. This is new thinking (i.e., "orthogonal to the traditional liberal-conservative axis") by a Democratic politician -- how?

--The housing bailout is merely another expensive program that rewards the "correct" people (homeowners) and the "correct" industry (housing). The fact that almost all these "correct" homeowners were, contrary to the histrionics of malcontents, not the victims of any "fraud" or "predation" (and many were in fact the perpetrators of fraud against their lenders) is overlooked. I see lots of "left-" and not much "libertarianism" here.

--Block grants to states, whatever the structure and whatever the excuse, are insolent violations of fiscal federalism and are per se anti-libertarian abominations. Nothing more need be said there.

As I summarized previously:

The only way one can call oneself (or anyone else) a "left-libertarian" is by using an illegitimate definition of "left" or "libertarian" (or both).

Obama's flaccid mish-mosh of tired Keynesianism and typical liberal faction-pandering is a perfect example. To call this "left-libertarianism" is to obliterate the concept of libertarianism altogether.

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Once again, I accept the premise that Clinton could be worse. That is not the point. The point is merely that it is patently absurd to call Obama a libertarian, "left-" or otherwise.