The Obama Revolution [View All]

If President Obama has his way on the budget, or most of it, history will write of three political revolutions in this
country in a little less than a century -- Roosevelt's, Reagan's and Obama's.

Unlike the New Deal, which for all the freneticism of the First Hundred Days, actually unfolded in stages, with Social Security
waiting until Roosevelt’s third year, Barack Obama moved last week on every front... Obama is not only unwinding
Reagan’s policies, he is offering a Rooseveltian paradigm that justifies big government pragmatically—by arguing
that what matters is not the size of government, but how it works.

In advancing that project... the President’s advisers won’t rule out overcoming the 60-vote barrier in the Senate by
reverting to so-called “reconciliation” legislation, which isn’t subject to filibuster. It’s out of the ordinary and the
Republicans will scream—but Reagan did it. It is possible for Obama to make his revolution with a majority in the House
and just 50 votes plus Biden, the constitutional tie-breaker, in the Senate.

And it is a revolution. Beyond the headlines about trillions of dollars, record deficits, and the emergence of Rush Limbaugh
as de facto leader of the Republican Party, there is the sweeping scope of the Obama program and the very real
likelihood that—yes, he can—most of it will be written into the laws and life of America. The architecture of change
is breath-taking; in Newt Gingrich’s view, Obama’s budget represents the “European socialist” model, a cliché
that combines two of the right’s preferred slurs... Obama’s new America will be very American, a reach for
enduring values of equality, opportunity and economic justice... Republicans may jeer and the Limbaughs may
sneer and smear—but it won’t matter. Today, it’s the Obama Revolution.