The Democrats Versus Obama

One measure of how much political trouble President Obama is in is the way that Democrats have taken to differing with him openly. Yesterday it was Missouri's Robin Carnahan saying she was disappointed in Mr. Obama's budget. Today it's Congresswoman Shelley Berkley and Senator Harry Reid telling Mr. Obama to stop bashing Las Vegas, and Senator Dodd warning that by repeatedly issuing new proposals, the president risked undermining efforts to get a banking overhaul law passed. And, according to the Financial Times, another Democrat, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, reacting to the president's budget by saying, "I see additional tax and regulatory burdens being placed on small businesses and the self-employed." Ms. Lincoln, the FT says, said "she could not understand the economic vision and neither could voters from her state." The New York Times's account of Mr. Dodd's hearing on the banking regulations includes a report of an exchange between Senator Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the banking committee, and Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who is advising the Obama administration. Mr. Shelby "asked how regulators would discern 'excessive growth' in a bank's share of market liabilities. 'Well, I think — the only answer I can give there is like pornography: You know when you see it,' Mr. Volcker said, paraphrasing the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. Many in the room laughed." It won't be a laughing matter when that much discretion over privately owned businesses gets placed into the hands of clueless yet powerful government bureaucrats.