The Government Cannot Solve Societal Ills

Some people are convinced that the government could solve the problem of poverty, poor housing, inadequate medical care, a substandard educational system, if it would devote more resources. I do not agree. I think the government is ill-equipped to solve any societal ills.  Remember when President Johnson began waging the war on poverty in the 60s?  Since that time, trillions of dollars have been spent on housing, food stamps, Medicaid, education, and welfare, yet the percentage of people who are poor is greater than when the war began and our educational system has failed all but the affluent.  We speak of "government" as if it is some computerized contraption that can be fed a problem and spit out a solution. We think of the government as if it was IBM’s Watson.

The government is made up of a bunch of people in Washington who sit around and ponder how they can line their pockets, get reelected, or how can they get a promotion. We might define a politician as one who will say anything or make any promise, to get elected.  They talk about change we can believe in while hiding what they believe in.   The only hope they deliver is the hope we will not discover who and what they really are.   These are the same people who broadcast their genitals via tweets. These are the people who think that a report that Medicare will be broke in 10 years and Social Security benefits will be reduced by 25% within the next 23 years is proof that the programs are in good shape. These are the people that pass a health care law which prohibits Medicare from negotiating prices with drug companies. These are the people that want 310 million people to have health insurance yet do nothing to increase the number of primary care physicians or bring down the cost of health care.  These are the people who must be led kicking and screaming before deciding whether to intervene in Syria before the November election because their courage to act only occurs during lame duck sessions. These are the people who will not reform an unfair tax code and would rather keep corporate profits overseas than expatriate them at a lower corporate tax rate. These are the people that tell us there is nothing wrong with borrowing 40 cents of every dollar spent or that the national debt is 16 trillion dollars when it is actually 54 trillion dollars.  These are the people who refuse to cut the level of spending that brought about the fall of Rome, the British Empire, and today is threatening the economies of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Italy. 

It doesn’t matter who wins elections.  Consider the Black and Hispanic Congressmen in Washington.  They were voted in because it was believed they could represent the interest of their constituents, many of whom are disadvantaged. In the end, most of them have turned out to be no better than those they replaced.  Like all of Congress, these lawmakers have accumulated power and wealth, while their constituents are still poor, live in the most dangerous neighborhoods, have the highest rate of incarceration, the highest rate of unemployment, and attend the worse schools.   For two years following the election of Barack Obama, the Democrats had a filibusters proof Senate and a large majority in the House. Yet during this same time, there was no Buffett Rule proposed, no comprehensive immigration bill introduced, no attempt to pass the so-called Dream Act, no attempt to extend the minimum wage beyond the 2007 amendment which only provided for $7.25 per hour effective July 24, 2009, no attempt to extend the low interest on student loans beyond 2012, no attempt to rein in the high cost of prescription drugs, no real attempt to aid homeowners who were underwater on their mortgages in spite of the banks receiving almost a trillion dollars in bailout money, no attempt to end corporate subsidies, and, no stimulus money was used to put large numbers of people to work on any major rehabilitation of roads, bridges, rails, airports, or electric grids.  These are the people that want us to forget the past when they did nothing but remember to vote for them now when they can do nothing.

As for those employed by the government, these are the people who get into arguments with prostitutes in Columbia over the fee for services, who spend almost a billion dollars on team building retreats in Vegas and give out “jackass” awards in order for their meals to be paid by the taxpayers, who allow drugs to be smuggled onto airplanes in exchange for money and demand that old ladies remove their underwear, or who loss track of guns they have allowed to be run into Mexico, one of which was used in the death of a border agent. I once saw a definition of these bureaucrats as officials who work by fixed routine without exercising intelligent judgment.

No, the government cannot solve societal ills until principle starts to trump self interest and desire to hold on to power at any cost.  Unfortunately, all attempts at this have failed throughout history.   Perhaps that is why it is said that in the end we must take responsibility for ourselves and voluntarily take responsibility for our neighbor.

Recently, I was asked if the government has ever done anything right. I think there is one thing. From time to time the government has been successful in waging war. However, let us all hope that it never decides it can make the guns, bullets, tank, and other armament because there will not be enough room on that hill to which we will all have to run.