Welcome to the New, New Deal
—David Davenport

Here's a good one-line summary of what's happening in Washington: Welcome to the New, New Deal.

I don't just mean the many comparisons to the Great Depression and that change of leadership. I'm referring to the host of measures enacted now to address the crisis of today that will become the long-term, big government policy of tomorrow.

Take one example: a plan drawn up virtually overnight to double federal spending on education, and with it the role of the federal government in what has traditionally been a state and local matter. This will have far more effect on education than it will on the economy.

In the 1930s, the vast array of agencies and programs created to spend us out of a Depression has become the framework for all domestic policy today. This emergency will end as well - but not the federal programs created to address it.