Good Government

We Can Do It

(In my previous post, I stated that I believe the word “government”, itself, is part of the problem. It has a negative connotation. But there can be, and has been, a such thing as good government. This post is not at all intended to be a comment on Ronald Reagan’s character or his intentions, just his approach to the economy and government, which I believe has been extremely harmful for many people. We had capitalism before Reagan, not communism, but it was a more tamed version of capitalism — one in which the people who were extremely well- “overcompensated” by it, paid back some of their overcompensation through a better tax structure. We can, and should, have that again. And it actually makes the economy better and more efficient for everyone.)

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan pulled off a paradigm shift in the thinking of a large percentage of Americans, it was a shift away from the Progressive approach and back to the Laissez-faire approach (that is, the trickle-down approach, which had given us the Great Depression). He was able to pull it off because too many of the voters at that time were either born after the Depression years, or were too young to remember the suffering and stress of the working aged people during the Depression years.

In 1980, many voters took for granted things like Social Security, the FDIC, the GI Bill, and the many vibrant public school systems that contributed so much to both the local and national economies. Many of those voters didn’t understand the need for a government that cared. In fact, many believed that the government didn’t care, or couldn’t care. And sadly, for themselves and for the rest of us, some even seemed to think that it shouldn’t care (a major factor in Reagan’s ability to pull off the paradigm shift). It is important to realize that those great programs were created by a government that did care – a government by the people and for the people.

Reagan was also able to pull off the regressive shift because at that time people were understandably distrustful of, and frustrated with, government itself, after both the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

But government is essential. And good government is best.

It is important to understand that there will always be government. Even anarchy will lead right back to government; probably government by the meanest, for the meanest. It is not government, in and of itself, that is bad. Bad government is bad. Good government is good. The concept of the United States of America is that “we, the people” are the government. We have the power to make it good.