Does Obama have a Libertarian streak?

George Will just wrote a piece, "Nudge Against the Fudge," where he points out that several of Obama's advisors from the University of Chicago (Thaler and Sunstein) are advocates of "libertarian paternalism." The basic idea is that rather than mandating choices, government can help set smarter defaults that nudge people to better decisions. The example given is automatic enrollment in 401k plans, so that people would be saving unless they opted out.

In this approach, people still have the same amount of choice, but the default choice is more likely to be in their (and society's) long-term self interest. Everyone gains if the national savings rate goes up, and everyone gains when their personal savings rate goes up.

George Will concludes with this pithy line:

Thaler and Sunstein stress that if "incentives and nudges replace requirements and bans, government will be both smaller and more modest." So nudges have the additional virtue of annoying those busybody, nanny-state liberals who, as the saying goes, do not care what people do as long as it is compulsory.