Stephen, your article does an excellent job detailing how the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency is an exercise in pure paternalism, taking away people’s freedom and telling them it’s for their own good. But of course this is part of a larger pattern of the Left’s talking a big game about social mobility for the poor, while simultaneously supporting policies that destroy meaningful opportunities for them. The heavy hand of the CFPA will make credit more expensive and less available for those who need it most to invest in themselves. The effect will be the same as the burden of higher taxes and regulations that the Left is always pushing: It will dramatically increase barriers to entry and severely diminish the prospects of amibitous and talented newcomers, who are always and forever starving for a chance to unlock their native talents and maximize their productive capacities.
Under the theme of the Obama program, these people are supposed to rely on “public investment” to jump-start their lives. What this means in practice is that they are supposed to stagnate as wards of the state, waiting meekly for a government handout in an amount and at a time of some bureaucrat’s choosing. And the amount will always fall short. This is the vision of ossification that is the logical endpoint of the sprawling welfare state, which has been given renewed license to sprawl by the Obama administration. It is also a reminder of how profoundly illiberal today’s liberals have become. Quite simply, they have rejected our nation’s founding assumption, that individual liberty and responsibility are the cornerstones of a healthy society.