The Uses of Big Government

Last edited Sun Nov 4, 2012, 12:33 PM - Edit history (1)

cross-posted from penigma.blogspot.com:

The Uses of 'Big Government'


Small government cannot do the tasks tackled by 'Big Government' - FEDERAL government.

Mitt Romney will promise anything to anyone. One of his past promises was to turn disaster response back to the states. At the same time, the Ryan budget would cut FEMA by 40% while 46 states have deficits or shortfalls. This suggests strongly that there would be relatively little money going to the states for assistance, and less planning and coordination being funded as well - which is essential when multiple adjoining stats are affected, as was the case with Katrina and Sandy.

One of the best questions I have seen raised about this disaster is -- did the disaster hit individual states, or did it hit us as a cohesive nation. The Romney approach isolates the stats involved and places them effectively 'on their own'. The Obama approach takes the premise that we are a nation, and as a nation what affects one state or multiple state affects us as an entire nation, and that it should have the larger resources and services of ALL of the country, not just isolate individuals to be on their own, or counties and municipalities on their own, or even leave regions and individual states to struggle through this on their own.

It is ALREADY in the hands of the state; FEMA takes their lead from each state already. This does not constitute a 'change'. But what it does mean is that some states do not have adequate resources, arguably MOST states do not have sufficient resources, even with more money directed to them the federal government, to respond to massive disasters.

That applies to both natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy, and it applies to longer, more pervasive events like the terrible Dubya-precipitated crash of our economy that similarly affected the economies of other nations.

The rally in Dayton, where Romney faked the donation of supplies for disaster victims, explains why donations from individuals and groups is inadequate. The Red Cross rejected the offerings because it cannot adequately manage in-kind donations. They need donations of money and blood. Private aid is both too disorganized and too sporadic and often involves donations of the wrong things rather than what is needed. It does not address the distribution problem; it does not address the other aspects of response and recovery.

President Obama has been exemplary in responding to a terrible multiple-state disaster that will take a lot of help over a long term, in an organized and effective manner. It requires the intervention of our military in conjunction with state's national guard units, that have the necessary equipment and training to respond.

That takes federal funds, that takes federal organization.

What it does not take is jack-ass grandstanding by someone like Mitt Romney, attempting to benefit and exploit the disaster for his own political 'photo-op'.

What Romney did was not a relief rally; what Romney did was exploitation and manipulation and more lying. While he claimed it was not political in essence, clearly that was not true.

We cannot have this man in high office - or low office. We cannot have the policies and philosophy and ideology of the right govern us either.

Big government has its problems, yes - but they are problems which can be addressed and redressed. There are larger problems with small government. Small government made sense when we were a small country. We are a large country, and have been for some time, in a small world which is still very large compared to us, when taken as a whole. We NEED an adequately large government, and we would be penny wise and pound foolish not to fund that government.

It is that larger government that gave us our interstate highway system, and so many of the other advances which made us a modern, competitive country post WW II. It is large government which gave us our space program, it is large government which developed that atom bomb. It was an attempt to be too small a government and an inept and failed ideology which gave us the disaster that was Katrina and the disaster that was the too-recent economic collapse of our nation.

Don't put those people in power, not at any level, not local, not state, or federal, not again. It was a mistake when that happened in 2010 with the tea party and the GOP sweep into government. They have done nothing but harm us, ruin credit ratings, grid-lock government, and fail in every way over and over. These people want to wage a culture war that would set us back into the 19th century or earlier. We live in the 21st century, not the ludicrous alternate reality of their ideology. That way is failure, that way is disaster, systemic, structural disaster.