The Rise of the Wrecking Ball RIght -- Comment

This went out to a few of my friends as an email. I thought I'd share it as my second post on this blog.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-rise-of-the-wreckingb_b_899871.html

"Recently I debated a conservative Republican who insisted the best way to revive the American economy was to shrink the size of government. When I asked him to explain his logic he said, simply, "government is the source of all our problems." When I noted government spending had brought the economy out of the previous eight economic downturns, including the Great Depression, he disagreed. "The Depression ended because of World War Two," he pronounced, as if government had played no part in it."

Robert Reich, the Rise of the Wrecking Ball Right.

This is an interesting piece by Robert Reich which was forwarded to me by Martin, the 80+ former guidance counselor from my high-school days. I am no fan of the bloated government with which we have been increasingly saddled over my lifetime. Neither am I a fan of the bloated corporate giants that, through skillful manipulation of that government, the application of money and, when all else fails, brute force, have directed that government to its own ends. So, I am not typical of the people of whom Reich writes, although I do share some of their anti-government views.

Let me say that I agree with the unnamed Conservative Republican that World War Two was hugely responsible -- perhaps more than all of FDR's social(ist) programs -- for ending the depression in the US. Of course, it was mostly a government-funded undertaking and one of the last times we went to war with the full advise and consent of Congress. (WW II did far less to end or reverse the effects of the World Depression, of course. In many places, it was US Government aid that helped bring some nations out of it, a fact that many of them seem to forget from time to time. On the evidence, some might ague that the UK never really recovered from WW I, the depression and WW II, despite some positive blips. I tend to agree, but that is another discussion for another time.)

Unlike some of the people Reich mentions in his article, I know that I am the recipient of government benefits, in the form of Social Security and Medicare. I have, in the past, been the beneficiary of government unemployment insurance. And, at three times in my life, I have drawn a government paycheck. I also benefit, locally, from a state-government sponsored medical supplementary program that helps with costs not paid by medicare and also allows medical coverage for my wife at greatly reduced rates. I am thankful for all of these benefits, but feel that as a taxpayer and a veteran, I am owed some payback for all I have given. I also believe that the CEOs who received compensation packages totaling in the millions should be paying a fairer share of the tax burden than they seem to. That is especially true when the companies for whom they work have benefited from taxpayer-funded bailouts and then posted record earnings while many Americans are unemployed and still paying taxes of one sort or another.

To be fair, there are beloved social welfare programs for people many of us do not believe have earned such treatment, including illegal immigrants and many minorities, whom the left has made into protected and even, in some cases, cossetted classes. All the government bloat is not confined to one side or the other of the body politic.

For a good portion of my adult life the government has expanded, taking on responsibilities far in excess of those specified in the Constitution, even by extension of principles. Government agencies, especially those at the federal level, have become so numerous and so involved in the personal lives of us all, that the illusion of personal freedom is hard to support, even for an optimist. And the militarization of our law enforcement at all levels, mostly in support of such policies as the "war on drugs" and the "war against terrorism" plus near-imperial wars around the world, but especially in the oil-rich middle east, make one wonder what sort of country we are living in. All of these evils are government programs.

So, while the whole "wrecking ball" concept appeals to many, they fail to see beyond the rhetoric to the fact that the very people who call for less government only want less government in areas that do not directly benefit them. The right wing might talk a good game about a "return" to simpler government and a "back to basics"laissez faire capitalist system, with limited government involvement, but, first, it isn't a return; we were never there. Government has benefited big business -- especially really big business -- almost since the beginning. The railroad tycoons, often hailed as the epitome of rugged individuals in a free-market capitalist system, made their money mostly from two things: a government-backed monopoly on carrying freight along their routes; and, second, the sale of vast stretches of (often worthless) land along that right of way, made possible by the federal government, as custodians of that land.

So, read Reich's piece and make up your own mind. I am of the opinion that both sides of the aisle are pretty much equally guilty of perpetrating programs that have bloated the federal government and served as a model for state, county and even local governments, to the detriment of us all. I am a limited-government libertarian, with strong reservations about the inherent goodness of business entities (which makes me anathema to many orthodox Libertarians) and I believe "that governs best that governs least" which is often attributed to Jefferson, who was, at heart, an anti-federalist along with Sam Adams and James Monroe. (Jefferson was in France as Ambassador while the whole federalist debate was going on)

Jamie