UPDATED — Obama's 'Enabling Act' trial balloon

Ever since Obama was elected I’ve had the feeling that the organizing principle of his agenda is to destroy America as a capitalist democratic republic in slow motion with such a barrage of debt bombs, government intrusion, weakening of our military, dissolution of border enforcement, stagnation, confusion and fear that Congress would cede its powers to him as president and voters, driven mad with fear and desperation, would agree to trade their liberty and the American dream for the security of Leftist chains — “chains you can believe in.”

It struck me that this strategy already had been used successfully: the fire in the Reichstag, followed by the Enabling Act.

The Obama/Pelosi/Reid debt bombs and high unemployment rate are our modern fire in the Reichstag.

And now George Will reports that Obama/Pelosi/Reid are floating an “Enabling Act” trial balloon, although Will doesn’t call it that — here are the pertinent excerpts, but read the whole thing (boldfacing mine):

The awful idea is for Congress to divest itself of the core competence that the Constitution vests in it — the power to make the taxing and spending choices that shape the nation. This power would be given to an 18-member panel assigned to solve the budgetary crisis.

Under legislation drafted by Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), and endorsed by 33 other senators, the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action would be composed of 16 members of Congress (four each selected by the House speaker and minority leader, and the Senate majority and minority leaders) plus the Treasury secretary and someone the president selects. The panel would propose spending cuts and tax increases to put the government on a glide path to solvency. The menu of proposals would be guaranteed an up-or-down vote — no amendments permitted — in both houses of Congress.

(snip)Regarding procedure, consider a sentence in a Fiscal Times story in The Post on the task force idea, a sentence that seems bland only because of this city’s advanced state of constitutional decadence: “The White House has been talking to Congress to try to craft a proposal that would not wholly relinquish congressional control over major decisions on taxes and spending.”

Wholly? The oath of office for representatives and senators does not commit them to partially or occasionally or when convenient “support and defend,” and bear ” true faith and allegiance” to, the Constitution and “faithfully discharge the duties” of their offices.

(snip)Year one of the Obama administration was devoted to deliberately exacerbating the fiscal crisis. The gusher of spending, combined with the new multitrillion-dollar health-care entitlement, is half of liberalism’s plan to radically and permanently increase government’s grasp on the nation’s wealth. As a response to the crisis, the task force would produce the other half.

The Wikipedia article on the fire in the Reichstag linked here and above has one especially pertinent sentence that jumps out:

Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a more or less legal fashion by passing the Enabling Act.

I think that’s what is going on now.

P.S.

Scott Brown for Senate in Massachusetts on Jan. 19.

Update, 1/18/2010, Mon.:

Michelle Malkin highlights today how Obama is leaving America open to terrorist attacks — another stick of kindling for his fire in the Reichstag. At Hot Air, Allahpundit has a post on the Democrats’ favorite group to demonize in their efforts to frighten people into doing their will. Having groups to demonize in order to frighten people was a feature of the strategy employed above to obtain the passage of the Enabling Act. Today Moe Lane features a video explaining how the Democrats’ passage of the Community Reinvestment Act, and their subsequent amendments to it, created the conditions for the mortgage market meltdown that Obama exploited to get into office. Little Miss Attila notes the love of totalitarianism that is the North Star of a leading Leftie economist. Stacy McCain is at ground zero of the resistance.

Update, 1/28/2010, Thurs.:

The AP fact-checked Obama’s State of the Union address made on Jan. 27 — I KNOW, I’m as shocked as you are! — and had the following on the Conrad-Judd proposal for a fiscal responsibility commission that would usurp Congress’s power of the purse (boldfacing mine):

OBAMA: “I’ve called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can’t be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans.”

THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted — a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.