O My America — Killing the Government

by Lawrence Bush

They’re going to shrink government until it’s small enough to drown in the bathtub. That’s what Grover Norquist, America’s most avant-garde rightwinger, proposed during the early George W. Bush years. A decade later, they’re doing it: Riding the deficit hysteria to the finish line, where Social Security, Medicare, the Environmental Protection Administration, America’s infrastructure, and other hated targets of the right are being lined up and blindfolded, by our chickenshit Democrats, to await execution.

Yes, it’s the Democrats I blame, for their incapacity to present and defend fundamental liberal ideals. As soon as the dogs of the right howl, the Democrats scatter and run. I honestly don’t blame the Tea Party, for when I look at the U.S. government — its groteque military bloat, its national security monsters, its indulgence of industry, its toadying to capital, its lack of substantial democracy, its pure corruption — I hate it just as much as the Tea Partyers. (I simply don’t share their fascistic faith in log-cabin individualism and entrepreneurialism.)

Oy, it’s nauseating, the fawning over business people that’s taking place in Washington these days! To see Obama pleading with the Chamber of Commerce: Oh please, please create a few jobs for us! Mightn’t it work a little more effectively to send a few bankers to prison for a long, long time? To use the taxation system to twist a few arms? To regulate, regulate, and regulate some more?

Americans would not mind the strong-arming! According to a recent Rasmussen poll, “68 percent of likely U.S. voters believe that government and big business already work together against the interests of consumers and investors. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll shows that only 13 percent disagree with this assessment, while 18 percent are not sure. The view that government and big business work together against the interests of others is shared across partisan, demographic and ideological lines. Seventy percent of liberals hold that view, along with 69 percent of conservatives. Seventy-one percent of Republicans think it’s true, and so do 64 percent of Democrats.”

Here’s a little quote from FDR, spoken at a similar, if worse, time, back in 1932, to the Commonwealth Club: “The responsible heads of finance and industry, instead of acting each for himself, must work together to achieve the common end. They must, where necessary, sacrifice this or that private advantage; and in reciprocal self-denial must seek a general advantage. It is here that formal Government . . . comes in. Whenever . . . the lone wolf, the unethical competitor, the reckless promoter . . . declines to join in achieving an end recognized as being for the public welfare, and threatens to drag industry back to a state of anarchy, the Government may properly be asked to apply restraint. Likewise, should the group ever use its collective power contrary to the public welfare, the Government must be swift to enter and protect the public interest.”

FDR for President!