The ideological extremism of Obama's appointees to powerful regulatory agencie — the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board, among others — is finally becoming visible, in very unpopular and not easily defensible decisions. For instance, at the bidding of petulant union leaders, the Labor Department refused to allow a crucial American manufacturer and export firm — Boeing — to set up a new facility in South Carolina, one of a growing number of so-called right-to-work states (i.e., the right to work without joining a union). The principle that the federal government in cases such as this can control in which states a private firm may or may not do business is attracting withering political fire.

The Lilliputians of government are tying down the energetic, spirited Gulliver with thousands of silken threads, in order to impose a new "soft tyranny" by a myriad of tiny inducements on the one hand, and almost invisible restraints on the other. The result is enervation and lassitude in the body politic. 

Already, nearly half of the American population (including the rapidly growing portion of retirees) depends on government for a sizable amount of its income. At what point does the ratio of productive taxpayers to dependents on government become unsustainable? The question is no longer idle speculation. When Bismarck arbitrarily set the age of eligibility for pensioners at 70, he did not have to worry that many would live that long, nor that highly advanced medical care could keep them living longer and longer, and at ever higher, almost astronomical, medical costs. 

Add to this mix the fact that families everywhere are having fewer children, so the labour force relative to the army of retirees is shrinking, and you begin to see the premises of the welfare state cracking open. Without especially creative and inventive economies, welfare states today cannot survive. Does Obama know enough to know what to do? The signs are few.