Believe it or not, I occasionally have dreams about politics. This is the fruit of one of them.
It occurred to me last night that the GOP’s position on pretty much everything can be reduced to two words: GOVERNMENT SUCKS! At best, it’s horribly inefficient and can’t get anything right; at worst, it actively operates against your values and interests (if you are a Reactionary). While the government was giving us Iraq, Afghanistan, stagnant wages, and Obamacare, the private sector was creating the iPhone and Twitter. And so, the best course is always to put your faith in the private sector if you want to get something done.
My reactions are as follows:
- Yes, sometimes government actually does suck. For example, if the GOP can’t raise the debt ceiling, and thereby does untold damage to the economy for no good reason, that would be one of them.
- The Trump presidency should be enough to end our hero-worship of businessmen. What if John Galt is actually an unhinged moron?
- The paradox of the GOP argument is that it may or may not apply when they are actually in power. The argument becomes stronger the more the GOP flounders, which may actually work to their advantage.
- Does American government usually suck? It depends on whether the glass is half empty or half full. If you lived in a third world country, you would say no. I don’t know of any jurisdiction in the US where the roads aren’t maintained, the trash isn’t picked up, criminals aren’t jailed, and the parks and libraries aren’t kept open.
- The John Galt wannabes who say that everything should be left to the private sector don’t have any understanding of how the government permeates everything we do. For example, the iPhone wouldn’t work but for a host of federal regulations. And John Galt uses the roads and the parks and the libraries and the judicial system just like everyone else, only more so.
Government is, at its essence, a service provider. Every new proposed government program has both costs (including opportunity costs) and benefits. You can have a reasonable debate about whether any particular program is worth it; politicians should do their best to see that the debate occurs in the open, and is civil. But you can’t get anything done if one side simply asserts that all government programs are wasteful and evil, because that isn’t true.