Our politicians are responding to the public’s doubts about the future of the country. Serious voters are observing the moves of the candidates to one-up each other. Mr. Obama is taking the country deeply into a regimented order where few want to go. His results fall far short of his promises. He plays on envy of the well-off. His supporters are sweeping the landscape for social and economic issues where they can invent straw men to threaten loss of government largesse. An example is “women’s health.”

The Republicans offer relief from the flood of new government regulations. Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank have industry staggering under high compliance costs. Obamacare has only begun to reveal the size of its kingdom. The Congressional Budget Office is predicting three times Mr. Obama’s cost numbers. From the FCC to the EPA, multiple agencies are extending their tentacles like climbing vines. The IRS is hiring 4,500 new agents simply preparatory to enforcing the compulsory insurance requirements of Obamacare. Wheelbarrow loads of new regulation manuals issue from government printing presses. No one in business can comprehend all of the rules that may apply to them. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency’s new chairman is erecting new barriers to nuclear power despite protests from the other members. The EPA is strangling the coal industry despite political promotion of electric cars.

The fracking technology used in extracting natural gas has grown so fast under private industry and state regulation that the federal government was taken by surprise. It proceeded so quickly the government is embarassed that it can’t claim sponsorship. Wells are sprouting in remote areas where no power grid exists. Developers are setting up their own wind farms, where roads aren’t adequate drillers build and maintain new roads. Huge quantities of water are required. Big water treatment systems are being built to clean and reuse local sources. Worries that fracking risks polluting ground aquifers have proven unfounded.

Now the bureaucrats are finally tuning in. They want to regulate this fabulous activity. Interior Secretary Salazar is now making up for lost time. His agency has written regulations covering all aspects of fracking, which it is poised to enforce the minute election politics permit.

Mr. Obama is so idealogically enthralled with “green energy” that he has no perspective. He is an easy mark for promoters who want to build wind and solar farms. He has wasted many billions of dollars chasing technologies that can never be important. The Solyndra solar panel fiasco is only one of dozens of poorly planned government “investments.”

Now Mr. Obama wants to establish new taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” called the “Buffet Rule,” which strongly resembles the onerous Alternative Minimum Tax. The amount it will raise, while substantial (about $5 billion per year) will be insignificant alongside the annual deficit.

Meanwhile Ben Bernanke has the printing presses at the Federal Reserve turning out more paper money. Do you believe he has printed $3 trillion so far? He uses the fake money to buy U.S. government bonds. The value of the dollar keeps going down and prices go up. Inflation is an old scenario that always ends badly. Just lately Mr. Bernanke said he is standing by in case the economy needs another boost. Please, no. Don’t help! Just stand there!

George E. Edens is a Lake Oswego resident.