A Force for Good

We sure do love our liberties here in the United States.  To be able to say, have, and do anything we want in any way we choose to do it is a pillar of American individualism.  So naturally our government should get out of the way, stop obstructing business' god-given right of exploitation, and release our precious freedoms from the stranglehold it currently has over them.  That was fun, wasn't it?  Well enough fun, because it's high-time we exit the albeit humorous realm of fantasy and re-enter the real world we actually face.

Then again, it is entirety possible this sarcasm is misplaced.  For as best one can tell, there must in fact be two Americas.  We're not talking about John Edwards' 2004 campaign for the Democratic nomination here (though given the even greater chasm that now exists between the haves and have-nots, we probably should be), no we're talking about a real alternate universe here.  One where tax rates aren't already at their lowest levels in a half-century.  But in all seriousness, when we as a people can't agree on actual facts, this is probably an indication that our discourse is far too polarized.

A conservative running for congress today is a walking, talking, self-fulfilling prophecy.  This is not meant as an insult, but rather an acknowledgement that one who runs on a platform of "government is bad" is going to look after that institution.  If government is so horrible, then why are Republican candidates so desperate to jump aboard this sinking ship?  You wouldn't know it based on its current atmosphere, but government can in fact be a force for good.

This is not to say that it can or should attempt to solve every problem, but there is no reason free-enterprise cannot coexist with a strong democratic government, as it does successfully in most European countries.  The false narrative of government as a four-letter word serves to undercut the potential good it could be doing for people who need it desperately.  The great rescission showed us what the free-market will do to these people if left to its own devices.  But aside from the common-sense safeguards we still have yet to implement three years later (The Dodd/Frank legislation being about as watered-down as a baseball left out in the midst of a monsoon), protection from the negative should also give way to germination of the positive.

Despite conservative insistence to contrary, history shows us that this can in fact be done.  Economists and historians alike both point to the 2008 economic collapse as our worst financial disaster since The Great Depression.  Does it then not make sense to seek out what remedies worked well in the 1930's and use that knowledge to help us today, as opposed to gutting successful government programs dating back eighty years?  We are of course referring to FDR's New Deal.  To state it mildly, the steady stripping away of those vital reforms over the last thirty years was certainly as big a contributor to our recent collapse as was a low-income family wanting to own a home in George W. Bush's Ownership Society.  Even in the latter case, the blame should reside with the predatory lenders themselves - not the families who were taken advantage of.

Some say the "failure" of the 2009 stimulus package disproves the idea that a New Deal-type government jolting of the economy can succeed.  This silly propaganda has seeped into the consciousness of many Americans because it is always difficult to prove a negative.  Though I have my own qualms with it to be sure, one cannot easily run on the idea that it prevented and even greater disaster, a view most economists accept.  But let's make this simpler; in fact let's remove economics from it all-together.  If our government has the ability to get an out-of-work person back into the workforce, restoring his/her life and dignity; it should simply do it.  At what point does this cease to be a financial issue and become the moral imperative it truly is?

Let's spell it out as bluntly: our fellow man is suffering; our government has the tools at its disposal to make it stop.  Simplistic?  Perhaps.  Naive?  Maybe.  Idealistic?  Probably.

The right thing to do?

Absolutely.