United Liberty

For quite some time now, the nation has been subject to the news from the long campaign to see which Republican will face off against President Obama in the November election. Every policy position, every gaffe and misstep, every utterance is analyzed under the microscope of public opinion and the bloviations of the paid and unpaid punditry alike, looking for some morsel of insight or some new angle from which to attack.

One may wonder if this has always been the case, and if not, why is it so now? The answer is that the importance of the office of the presidency has magnified exponentially over the last century due to the fact that we have seen a steady erosion in the philosophy and doctrine of federalism (restricting government power overall, and allocating decision-making to the most local level possible so as to be always answerable to the people), and a steady increase in the size and scope of government in our lives. Therefore, the decision as to who will be president has taken on an enormous importance because the office has become so powerful that the decisions made by the president have a ripple effect that can at times feel like a tsunami.

Under the ObamaCare bill, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has enormous power in dictating how a fifth of the U.S. economy will be directed. That is not an elected position answerable to the voters and taxpayers (unfortunately, the two are not synonymous), but a position appointed by the president, with the advise and consent of the Senate (theoretically at least, as evidenced by the new Obama precedent in which he feels he can now be the sole determiner of when the Senate is actually in session). Likewise, the IPAB (Independent Patient Advisory Board), alias “death panel”, is an appointed board which will determine how much and what type of medical care you may receive and at what price point you will be cut off from further treatment.