There has been a lot of discussion in a lot of blogs, articles, and so on about what Obama really thinks. Except insofar as how what someone really thinks influences policy, I simply don't care what someone really thinks. What I care about is what kind of policies a politician will enact.
So, even if Obama is a sekrit teahadist, I really don't care if his administration doesn't act on it. Similarly, even if he is secretly the world's biggest social democrat, enacting it or not doesn't matter to me.
Fortunately, from the beginning all of this Kremlinology regarding Obama is unnecessary. That is what got so many liberals to love this guy who campaigned as a centrist in the first place.
The question is regarding this administration: what is their record, and what have they indicated they will do.
First, I believe the machers in the Obama administration have spent a lot of time reliving the Clinton administration and trying to one-up it. So, Rubinomics is in. Budget balancing is in. They think this will fix the economy. Just like the 90s. This is probably why they went to the mat on health care reform.
That said, they started their administration with a stimulus and negotiated another one last December.
Second, with regards to entitlements, they have spent a lot of energy trying to protect them. But they have also made it clear they are willing to deal. Some of that may be less of a problem if HCR works as well as they say.
Anyway, HCR is telling because what could be legislated was more important than the ideal. (And that in a nutshell is the modus operandi of the Obama administration). What's possible was shown to be messy with the debt ceiling, right? But in the process the teahadists spent a lot of political capital and may have set out their undoing.
Anyway, I don't think the Obama Administration is Keynesian or Austrian. I don't think they are for the welfare state or against it. I think they are just in favor of legislating whatever can get passed.
For some people, that's even worse than being an ideological conservative. Well, to me, it's not as good as being an ideological liberal, but it does mean that if we elect Democrats in 2012, what can be done will be better.
That is all.