Government Action

I promised that this blog would not be partisan and I intend to continue with that policy. With that thought in mind, I am writing this second political blog entry with the understanding that the problems talked about in this entry are the responsibility of both the major political parties and us, as Americans. As the voting public, we have allowed our country to travel down the road it is currently on for far too long. We have allowed this by not keeping ourselves informed of the issues as talked about in the previous blog about being an informed voter. This entry is simply a device to help begin the thought path that will hopefully motivate some to seek out more information.

What is it that makes people think that the federal government can solve any of the social problems we face. I often find it incredible that anyone could even think that the government could handle anything better than they could on their own. I would love to hear of one single item that the United States government can tout as an example of their success on the social agenda. Is it Social Security…NO! Is it Medicaid or Medicare…NO! Is it control of the borders…NO! Betterment of the education system in America…NO! Actually, there is nothing. Not one time in the history of this country has the federal government conducted any action in the realm of social policy that can be judged as a long-term success.

Following the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing depression that followed, the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations enacted policy after policy that kept the U.S. languishing in a depression far longer than any other industrialized country on Earth, except for Germany which was still trying to recover from the Treaty of Versailles. Only World War II pulled the United States out of the Great Depression. Hoover and Roosevelt’s maneuvers only secured the beginning of the countries slow travel from a solid capitalistic society to a country that has moved down the road to more and more socialistic tendencies.

I am not writing this as a rail to travel towards the now popular, “Obama is a Socialist,” battle cry; in contrast, I am in full belief that since the Great Depression of the 20s and 30s, this country’s politicians have slowly grown an ever increasing Socialist agenda. An agenda that has continued to swell at the hands of decisions made by career politicians, trying to repair the ill-guided decisions made by earlier career politicians. A fact that is further aggravated by politicians who make their choices in government many times guided by greed and partisan politics rather than what was truly best for the country.

This is not to say that there haven’t been well-intentioned elected officials who have served in Washington; however, their numbers tend to be so small that their deeds are often overlooked when compared to the failed policies and scandals of the many self-serving elected individuals, including the leaders of the Democrats and Republicans in Washington. To actually do a search of the biographies of the current legislature would show a majority of those serving in congress, especially those in leadership positions, have no real world work experience, have spent most of their adult life in elected office, and are of the legal profession. Any one of those attributes should be enough to make the common citizen wince in fear.

The fact is, our government is so large and indecisive that it tends to form policy and pass laws based on current popular sentiment (lately in as little as a few hours) or in reaction to some incident that has already occurred and is in the process of correcting itself. This causes the federal government to be an overactive, grossly-overreaching institution instead of the limited, proactive government the framers had envisioned.

Regardless of party affiliation, it is a government that generally misses everything initially, then tries to make up for it by passing regulative legislation enacted so late that it is of little help and/or so strong that it counteracts any positive, corrective advances already made by the private sector. Of course, congress also feels it necessary to interject its presence and drift off on tangents of such amazing importance as steroid use in professional baseball or college football’s BCS controversy.

An issue of recent concern has been the earmarks that congressmen assign to various spending bills. The real subject should not be the inclusion of the earmarks, but that regardless of the earmarks, the earmarked money is still going to be included in the bill. The earmarks simply give the money a destination rather than allow it to be assigned to some undesignated purpose by some anonymous government official. So the real outrage should not be that there are earmarks, but that the money will still be appropriated and spent regardless of whether it is actually required or not.

But I digress so back to the initial topic of this blog. Sure the government can provide temporary aid; however, in the end, the problem will return and usually with greater calamity. In the history of this country, the federal government has never been the catalyst of economic growth. Growth has always been spurred by national or world events and technologic improvements. Government can not replace American ingenuity, personal responsibility, human compassion or pubic integrity. When the federal government tries to solve the problems, it doesn’t matter who is in the seat of power, it will not work and only exacerbates the problem. Unfortunately, this sort of problem solving is what the federal government has been trying to do, and what many of our fellow citizens have become reliant on, for far to long.

So when you hear someone make the statement that they need the government’s help, ask them what it is that makes them expect the government to provide a long-term solution. I doubt they will ever be able to give a practical answer.

Sincerely,
Bill