I have heard enough mindless griping about government being the problem. Government is not the problem, not if you are talking about our government, and not that of some other country. I am content to let Canadians be the judge of their government, and the Norwegians of theirs, but if our government has a problem, it is that it has not done enough, not that it has done too much. Even simply in terms of the number of government employees, our government is smaller than at least back to Ronald Reagan.
One of the reasons for the disastrous financial crash that happened under President Bush, which we are still clawing our way back up from, is that government did not provide enough oversight of our critical financial institutions. Our financial institutions got stupid, and greedy, and irresponsible; perhaps even criminal.
Our bridges are falling down, and the roads are crumbling, not because we have too much government, but because we have not invested enough in our infrastructure; our transportation, and sanitation, water, electrical and communication services. We howl when the gasoline tax is raised one or two cents, but say almost nothing when the oil companies raise the price twenty cents overnight, or just before a holiday weekend.
Our schools are mediocre, at best, by almost every conceivable international measurement. We come in about twentieth. Twentieth! We pay mediocre teachers mediocre salaries, but offer them tenure, which results in the really bright and imaginative potential teachers not going into the profession. We need to pay really good teachers really well, while trying to find a better way to keep the best ones in the profession until they retire. If we don't, we will end up with a school system that looks like the counter clerks at the post office. "Oops! I will be right back. I am required to take a break."
We don't need fewer scientists to monitor our medicines and food and water supplies; we need more. We don't need fewer police and fire fighters. We don't need unregulated banks and copper companies and oil wells and coal mines. We need better oversight. We need, constantly, to remember the common good.
Insurance companies are not interested in providing adequate health care to everyone (and what fair-minded person does not want everyone to have adequate health care? And food? And housing?) Insurance companies are interested in earning as much money as possible, not in making sure that everyone is covered. They have, and continue, to try to not cover the people they cannot make money on.
There is nothing wrong with an insurance company trying to make money, but we ought not to confuse it with what a government is interested in, which is to care for the whole citizenry.
Bobby Jindal might lament the intrusive role of government in the State of Mississippi, but he is very loud about wanting the federal government to build bigger and better levees and locks, and to come running with food and water and medicine and pumps and helicopters. And he is right that government should do that, because government is how we act together to do what we cannot do, or will not do, otherwise.
Government is not the problem. Mindless criticism of government is a problem. We should grow up, and quit pretending that we are cowboys and muskrat hunters, and demand good government, really good government! Enough muskrat love!
One of the reasons for the disastrous financial crash that happened under President Bush, which we are still clawing our way back up from, is that government did not provide enough oversight of our critical financial institutions. Our financial institutions got stupid, and greedy, and irresponsible; perhaps even criminal.
Our bridges are falling down, and the roads are crumbling, not because we have too much government, but because we have not invested enough in our infrastructure; our transportation, and sanitation, water, electrical and communication services. We howl when the gasoline tax is raised one or two cents, but say almost nothing when the oil companies raise the price twenty cents overnight, or just before a holiday weekend.
Our schools are mediocre, at best, by almost every conceivable international measurement. We come in about twentieth. Twentieth! We pay mediocre teachers mediocre salaries, but offer them tenure, which results in the really bright and imaginative potential teachers not going into the profession. We need to pay really good teachers really well, while trying to find a better way to keep the best ones in the profession until they retire. If we don't, we will end up with a school system that looks like the counter clerks at the post office. "Oops! I will be right back. I am required to take a break."
We don't need fewer scientists to monitor our medicines and food and water supplies; we need more. We don't need fewer police and fire fighters. We don't need unregulated banks and copper companies and oil wells and coal mines. We need better oversight. We need, constantly, to remember the common good.
Insurance companies are not interested in providing adequate health care to everyone (and what fair-minded person does not want everyone to have adequate health care? And food? And housing?) Insurance companies are interested in earning as much money as possible, not in making sure that everyone is covered. They have, and continue, to try to not cover the people they cannot make money on.
There is nothing wrong with an insurance company trying to make money, but we ought not to confuse it with what a government is interested in, which is to care for the whole citizenry.
Bobby Jindal might lament the intrusive role of government in the State of Mississippi, but he is very loud about wanting the federal government to build bigger and better levees and locks, and to come running with food and water and medicine and pumps and helicopters. And he is right that government should do that, because government is how we act together to do what we cannot do, or will not do, otherwise.
Government is not the problem. Mindless criticism of government is a problem. We should grow up, and quit pretending that we are cowboys and muskrat hunters, and demand good government, really good government! Enough muskrat love!
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