I don’t have an answer to that. But I guess I’m too worried by the immediate problems before us to begrudge Obama’s efforts to find a clever way out of these superficial political problems. It now sounds like there will be a jobs bill before the spending freeze, and that the spending freeze will barely amount to anything anyway. If it splits the opposition and gains back some political capital, I think I’m for it. But I agree that it’s pretty frustrating.

Common wisdom says the government should tighten its belt during a recession. However, all reasonable economic consensus indicates that deficit spending is an effective tool to stimulate an economy, and is one of the few available to the administration at this time. Economic consensus predicts that following common wisdom and cutting government spending carries a high risk of stalling any economic and job growth, and possibly even deepening the recession.

So faced with what is possibly the clearest possible situation of common wisdom being at odds with reality, what does Barack Obama plan to do? Will he follow the responsible course of action and try to educate the american people despite the potential for personal loss? No. Will he take the arguably cowardly course of action and try to avoid the subject or pass the buck onto another branch of government? No. Instead Obama looks to profit in the short term by giving the American people exactly what they want, even though he knows that the proposed course of action carries unreasonable risk over the long term.

It seems like the mantra of “first, do no harm” should apply equally to those operating the levers of power as those operating with scalpels, and in this case Barack Obama is proposing a plan that he must know is likely to do harm. I’m fairly certain that “I just did what the patient asked for” is not a valid defense in a medical malpractice lawsuit, and similarly should not be able to be used in justifying legislation or public policy.

In summary, the American people are demanding an unnecessary treatment with severe long-term health risks, and it is Barack Obama’s professional responsibility as the primary physician to not carry out the operation. Doing so would be a breach of his oath, ethical obligations, and the expectations of voters like myself.

Primum non nocere.