Whether due to arrogance or stupidity \u2013 or a combination of both operating simultaneously in the same haughty and mind-numbing individual (Nancy Pelosi comes to mind as the perfect archetype) \u2013 it\u2019s rare for politicians to admit failure and fix what they\u2019ve messed up.<\/p>\n
One of those rare occurrences of self-correction happened on July 2 when the Obama administration announced it had decided to delay the scheduled implementation of ObamaCare\u2019s employer mandate for a year, until 2015.<\/p>\n
The mandate requires all firms with 50 or more employees \u2013 regardless of the company\u2019s profitability or ability to pay \u2013 to provide health coverage or pay steep fines.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t take a Ph.D in economics to see how this mandate delivers a clear disincentive for job creation among firms with fewer than 50 employees \u2013 exactly the wrong prescription for recovery in an economy with doggedly high levels of unemployment and low levels of economic growth.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, Nancy Pelosi, displaying not even a smidgen of political smarts or common sense, declared at the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties that good things were coming our way, even if most of the population was too dumb to see it, once the feds started calling the shots in the nation\u2019s health system, one-sixth of the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n
Just trust that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid supercilious crew knew what they were doing and join them in the feverish push for a fast-track enactment of ObamaCare, Pelosi told the delegates, even if no politician had read the bill\u2019s thousands of pages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,\u201d she explained, \u201caway from the fog of controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still in a fog last month and seemingly unaware that the White House was ready to announce a roll back of ObamaCare\u2019s employer mandate, Pelosi declared that Americans should celebrate Independence Day this year by also celebrating their new-found \u201chealth independence,\u201d courtesy of ObamaCare.<\/p>\n
The federal takeover of health care \u201ccaptures the spirit of our Founders, the spirit they wrote in the Declaration of Independence \u2013 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,\u201d Pelosi proclaimed.<\/p>\n
ObamaCare might not be delivering on the key goals of \u201cbending down the cost curve,\u201d allowing people to \u201ckeep their own doctor,\u201d or helping businesses to control costs and create jobs, but a pumped-up Pelosi for July 4 gleefully pronounced that the new health law, new mandates, and new fines on noncompliant employees and employers gives Americans \u201cthe liberty to pursue a person\u2019s happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similarly in May, Pelosi joined the craziness on MSNBC and explained how ObamaCare \u201chonors the vows of our Founders\u201d by creating more liberty for people to jump out of boring jobs and become essayists, camerapersons, and small-business owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to be a cameraman, a writer, if you want to be self-employed, start a business, change jobs, whatever you want to do, you can do that,\u201d she said, because of ObamaCare.<\/p>\n
Her pie-in-the-sky analysis painted a picture that overlooked the employees who had already been cut from full-time to part-time, or not hired at all, as companies tried to keep below the 50-employee mandate level.<\/p>\n
And Pelosi\u2019s view of the Founders? She might want to do a bit of brushing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined,\u201d explained James Madison.<\/p>\n
Or from Thomas Paine: \u201cGovernment, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics and the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.<\/em><\/p>\n