Republicans cry foul over Obama's 'big government' plan

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President-elect Barack Obama's plan to haul the US economy out of recession entails a hefty expansion of the federal government -- a prospect that has conservative critics aghast.

The centerpiece of the plan is Obama's pledge to create or preserve three million jobs -- of which he says "more than 80 percent" will be in the private sector.

That means up to 20 percent of the jobs would be in government, or 600,000, a sizeable addition to the roughly 2.5 million people now on the federal payroll.

Reared on president Ronald Reagan's article of faith that "big government" is the problem, not the solution, conservative pundits accuse Obama of belatedly showing his true "liberal" colors.

"FDR had his Hundred Days; Obama was going to have his Day," National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote, comparing president Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to the incoming administration's "madcap" dash for a stimulus package.

Rush Limbaugh, the dean of right-wing talk radio, said the only way Obama and "liberal Democrats" could meet their target was to restore the draft and conscript unsuspecting small-town Americans into the military.



Credits: Associated Press