Sorry for the radio silence, I had to fly out to Richmond, Kentucky for a debate tonight at EKU. In regard to Jim Manzi’s post about a liberal realignment, I agree with Jim that the emotional and political climate is as conducive to a liberal/activist government agenda as we’ve seen in a long time. But here’s the thing: Who’ll pay for it?

Jim writes:

3. If the current bail-out efforts don’t prevent an economic catastrophe, we will have the precipitating event of an economic crisis. In my view, this would make a liberal realignment all but certain.

Given the debt the government is in, thanks to the events and actions of the last 8 years as well as the long term liabilities enshrined by the last two waves of liberalism (the entitlements of the New Deal and the Great Society), government doesn’t have a lot of money at its disposal. Throw in an economic crisis and it really won’t have a lot of money. Even if Obama abandons his pay-as-you-go rhetoric, which he surely will, how can he pay for a new meaty liberal agenda?

I’ve never really been a huge advocate of the starve-the-beast argument from some on the right, but the beast is starved. Moreover, statist policies will not only starve it further they will produce little to no increases in prosperity or productivity (I know liberals disagree with that, but that’s why they’re liberals). Politically, that is a very difficult climate to build a liberal realignment on. Either liberals will have to abandon their biggest action-items or they will have to get on the wrong side of an electorate that wants prosperity more than a theoretically generous social welfare state. This is what Bill Clinton faced in the early 90s which is why he told his cabinet, “I hope you’re all aware we’re all Eisenhower Republicans now.” He added: “We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market.” The supposedly very liberal president presided over the end of welfare as we knew it and NAFTA. Obama clearly thinks that he doesn’t have to go that route. He can try to be a Reagan of the Left. But if the economy sinks as he tries to socialize medicine, I doubt whatever grassroots momentum there is to send America leftward will long endure.

So cheer up! The worst is yet to come.