Are Obama’s financial reforms too much?

In addition to reaction from the commercial and investment bankers, insurers and money managers who are affected by…

In addition to reaction from the commercial and investment bankers, insurers and money managers who are affected by President Obama’s comprehensive financial reform plan, we’re sure to hear opinions from the full range of the political spectrum.
From the middle and far left, which typically calls itself “progressive” to euphemize its statist preferences, we’re likely to hear that Obama’s plan doesn’t go far enough. Banks are big and bad, and should be brought under stricter government controls, the leftists are bound to say.
On the other end of the political dial, where radio talk-show hosts deliver righteous indignation non-stop, we’re going to hear that Obama is Lenin without the goatee.
In Congress, the hacks of both parties will blather inanities about how they are laboring mightily to get America moving again. The Democrats will line up behind the president, although they’ll work to make sure that the financial companies funding their campaigns don’t get gored. Many Republicans, who really can’t talk about prudent spending with a straight face, will vote against the plan because there’s no downside to doing so.
For the most part, what’s missing in the responses to the President’s ambitious plan to reform finance — and health care, energy, energy and a dozen other issues — is some sort of middle-of-the-road common sense. Since I’m temperamentally a middle-of-the-road kind of guy (or a wuss, if you want to be nasty about it), I’m going to offer just an old-fashioned/center Republican/moderate Democrat/Main Street libertarian critique.
Essentially, the non-nut portion of the population doesn’t seem to care quite as much as it should about the growing size and scope of the federal government. The broad acceptance of the idea that big solutions can only come from Washington is a bit scary.
Yes, the right complains about this, but why do their complaints so frequently veer off from thoughtful Buckley-like debate into screaming, angry, nativist tirades?
I don’t doubt that Obama’s minions are brilliant and have good intentions. It’s just that they — or any other elite group — can’t outsmart us. Yes, people and markets do dumb things from time to time, and we sometimes need a helping hand. We just don’t need someone else making decisions for us.
The mainstream press and many others buy into this assumption that a government driven by brilliance and good intentions can accomplish anything. It isn’t so much a leftist ideological bias, as the angry right contends, as it is class-based prejudice. After all, if the best and the brightest are coming up with the solutions, won’t those solutions be better than if the great unwashed made their own ignorant choices? I think not.
The steady accretion of power by the state, whether led by someone from the left or the right, is what frightens me. When the ruler is beloved by everyone and reflects the popular will, the power of the ruler’s steel fist is concealed in a velvet glove. Let’s all remember, however, that the glove can come off all too easily.