I’ve been spending considerable time
thinking about the value we place on our American government, as well as the
need to be an informed citizen of this great nation. Last month, I walked
through the cities of Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and I could not help
but be reminded how America saved the world from Hitler’s Holocaust. I was
proud of the Greatest Generation, who waded onto the beaches of Normandy to
save others from the tyranny of the Nazi onslaught.
With all the ‘Deep State’ conspiracy
talk, the debates about ‘how much is too much’ government involvement, and
complaints about taxation, I became motivated to answer a simple question that
was asked by Rush Limbaugh: “With the exception of the military, I defy you
to name one government program that has worked and alleviated the problem it
was created to solve.” I discovered the answer by doing something Americans
often don’t have time for — reading.
Many folks think they never needed
government to do anything for them; after all, they pulled themselves up by
their efforts with little help from Uncle Sam. Many view government as the
enemy or as a bunch of bungling fools or as merely a greedy taxation
machine…maybe all three.
So let me remind everyone of some of
“Government’s Greatest Hits” — (and for brevity, these are just the Gold
Standards). These results come from the research of Professor Douglas Amy,
Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College. The good professor begins with
this:
“What follows is a short list of
some of the federal government’s greatest accomplishments. These are policy
programs that have not only worked, but have been very successful and have
greatly improved the quality of life of most Americans.
- Regulation of the Business Cycle. Until the financial crisis that began in 2008, most of us had forgotten how dependent we are on the federal government to prevent economic depressions. Since the 1930s, the government has used a variety of monetary and fiscal policies to limit the natural boom and bust cycles of the economy. Before government took on this responsibility, severe depressions were a routine and recurring problem in this country — occurring in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1907 and 1929. Thanks to government intervention, we have been able to avoid the enormous amount of human suffering caused by these massive economic meltdowns… By any measure, eliminating these depressions and this misery has been one of the greatest — and often unheralded — achievements of our federal government.
- Public Health Programs. A variety of programs run by the National Institutes
of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and
local Public Health departments have greatly improved the health of most
Americans. For example, the scourges of polio, cholera, and smallpox have
been effectively eradicated from this country — a huge achievement. And
vaccination programs have reduced by 95% our risks of contracting
potentially debilitating diseases like hepatitis B, measles, mumps,
tetanus, rubella, and diphtheria. Federal funds spent on buying and
distributing these vaccines have saved countless lives and the billions of
dollars it would cost to treat these illnesses.
- The Interstate Highway System. Started by the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s,
this system now forms the backbone of long-distance travel and commerce in
the United States…. Even some conservatives have been forced to admit the
success of this building program, with George Will calling it “the most
successful public works program in the history of the world.” It’s hard to
imagine the U.S. without this interstate highway system, and this system
would not exist at all if it weren’t for the government.
- Federal Deposit Insurance. Another government program we’ve taken totally for granted
until recently is federal protection of our bank deposits…. The main
reason we had no disastrous runs on banks (and money market funds) during
the financial panic of 2008 was that government was there to guarantee
those deposits.
- Social Security and Medicare. Without these two government programs, growing old
would be hell for many Americans…. Social Security has cut the rate of
poverty for the elderly by over half — from 29% in 1966 to 10% today. Not
surprisingly, financial columnist Jane Bryant Quinn has described Social
Security as ‘arguably the U.S. government’s greatest success. ’Medicare
has also been incredibly successful. It has doubled the number of the
elderly covered by health insurance, so that 99% now enjoy that benefit.
Without this form of “socialized” medicine, 15 million of our neediest
citizens would be going without many vital medical services and many would
have to choose between food and medicine. Older Americans are now living
20% longer, thanks in part to this effective program. These two programs
have done more than anything else to relieve the pain and suffering of our
elderly population.
Okay. Those are just five of the
largest programs that affect Americans’ pocketbooks. But is it true that
overall the government has been successful? According to the Harvard study by
Derek Bok, which compared the situation for Americans in the 1960’s to the
1990’s, after studying 75 indicators of government involvement, the study
concluded:
During the past thirty-five years, our
society has made substantial progress in most of the fields surveyed. In almost
all of these advances, government actions have played a prominent role, whether
it be in cleaning up the environment, expanding personal freedom, extending
health care to the poor and elderly, reducing poverty, or increasing
opportunities for women and minorities. Federal policies have clearly had a
hand in America’s greatest domestic achievements…
As for those who believe government
is the problem, not the solution, a rebuttal from Professor Douglas Amy, “But
the basic point here is this: there is simply no credible support for the
government bashers’ contention that most government activities are ineffective
and that policies usually make things worse rather than better. Exactly the
opposite is the case.”
Grover Norquist declared years ago:
“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to
the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”He and his ilk have been
spending millions upon millions of dollars since the 1990’s to convince
Americans to not trust their government, to despise certain politicians, to
pledge to never raise taxes for any reason, to never regulate anything because
they believe in ‘Let the buyer beware!’ (try doing that on an airplane without
the FAA’s inspections). And sadly, the results are that conspiracy theories
abound, and people are either suspicious of government or just apathetic in
their role as being an active, informed citizen (they don’t even vote!). This
essay is my humble attempt to encourage all to read and pay attention to how
much our government does for the average citizen. No, government is not
perfect, but this noble experiment has been and remains the beacon of freedom
and “the land of hope and dreams.”
It is often those who are not yet
affected by circumstances beyond their control, who roar the loudest that they
want government out of their lives. However, when those people face
debilitating disease, trauma, natural disaster, etc., they clamor for the
forces of government to help them be it fire, flood, food quality, or water
purity (to name but a few). I wonder how Norquist and Limbaugh will feel about
government actions and global warming as the waters rise up and up and up.
Sources:
“Government is Good: An Unapologetic
Defense of a Vital Institution”A web project of Douglas J. Amy, Professor of
Politics at Mount Holyoke College
Derek Bok, The State of the Nation
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
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