Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Importance of Government

3 comments:

TJE said...

PBM, I like this piece. He is, however, picking the low hanging fruit. The important questions are what are the essential tasks of government and which level of government should take on which tasks.

PBM said...

I'll consider that TJE, but I just hate that this gets lost in the debate (at least with hardcore Tea Partiers, and a lot of the national GOP). It shouldn't be big government vs no government, everyone should just strive to make government as efficient as possible. I'm for cutting some regulations, and leaving some for local governments (as long as they actually fulfill their job), but the free market radicalism that has overtaken the GOP isn't good for our national debate or progress in solving our problems. It is a one-size fits all solution that is horrific at worst and dubious at best. For the regulations kept within the federal government, we need to make sure they are being honestly administered by public servants, not people who are trying to benefit their former employers. We also need to make sure that regulators have power to actually fulfill their missions. The current GOP doesn't want any more regulation on deep water drilling, or coal mines, and wants to strip power from the regulators of Wall Street. That is an unbelievably absurd and foolish solution to the events that have happened in the past 4 years. No regulation ever would be harmful to our society and it is outrageous how prevalent that thought is in today's national GOP.

PBM said...

And even if they don't believe in no government at all, their constant utilization of that sort of rhetoric is detrimental to our nation's political debates.