[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

According to Detbuch we haven't had a conservative president since Coolidge, so I'm afraid I couldn't really say...

I didn't say that. I said "the last fully constitutional President in the way he governed", and I mentioned that he didn't have the current entrenched regulatory state to deal with. There have been Presidents since then that have been called "conservative," but the Federal bureacracy had progressively grown and become "durable" due to the gradual abandonment of the Constitution. American political structure had been constantly transformed from a constitutional republic to a top down administrative "democracy." Various remnants of constitutional governance, especially some of the Bill of Rights, remained, in dwindling fashion, for succeeding "conservatives" to apply in governing, and some, like Reagan, actually tried to abate the regulatory tide, but that tide became tsunami-like and has successfully transformed not only government but the public understanding (such as it is) of American government. It has, as you say, been woven into the fabric of American politics and created out of the whole cloth of "interpretations" a new Constitution. One that, with the SCOTUS decision on the Affordable Care Act, allows the Federal Gvt. even greater power--nearly total sovereignty over the people. What is left of Federalism, of the Republic, are smaller and smaller portions of sovereign power held by States and the People. And the greatest portion of regulatory power over the States and the People is in the hands of unelected "experts." So very little actually exists of the Republic or of Democracy. But we still have the power of the vote so we must not be too harshly dealt with. And at least a simple majority must perceive that they are being "helped."


A big reason the market is up is because the Street is gaining confidence in the broader economic picture.

I'd think Obama must love it, better economy with more people working and more people paying taxes to help us get this deficit down.

-spence

But the sequester was supposed to reverse all that. It must be nice to be able to point to the sequester as the reason if the "economy" falters, but to forget about it (nor give it any credit) if the "economy" gets better.