From Peggy Noonan at WSJ.com...Suddenly it was obvious: The president doesn't want to cut spending, he wants to increase it. He wants to raise taxes on the wealthy, as he defines them. He does not want the government to be smaller but bigger, or, as he'd probably put it, as big as it has to be.
His actions aren't only about politics—"crush the foe." He's happy to crush the foe, and would see the long-term political benefit in it, but it's not his primary motive. And its not about economics per se—he knows raising taxes on the rich will not solve our fiscal problems. He's seen, as he likes to say, the math.
What is motivating him primarily is ideology. And an ideological opening. He doesn't like the malefactors of great wealth. He wants to "spread the wealth around," as he told "Joe the Plumber" in Ohio in 2008. His ideological and political affinities are with those he defines as the needy, and his answer to them is to see they are the focus of greater public spending. Period.
His language is bland because his stand is not. He doesn't want to startle people with clarity. When he was clear with Joe the Plumber, it got him in trouble because a lot of voters didn't really want what they called redistributionism, which sounds to them like endless high taxing, high spending and no way out.
Read it all here ...
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