E.J. Dionne: Make the Sell- Why don't Democrats talk more about the perils of too little government

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/make-the-sell?page=0,1


Make the Sell
Why don't Democrats talk more about the perils of too little government?


WASHINGTON--Here's a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose.

This is what happened in two statewide referendums last week that got buried under all of the attention paid to the governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey. In Maine, voters rejected a tax-limitation measure by a walloping 60 percent to 40 percent. In Washington state, a similar measure went down, 57-43.

They lost in part because opponents of the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights measures (known as TABOR) did something that happens too rarely in the national debate: They made a case for what government does, why it's important, and why cutbacks in public services can be harmful to both individual citizens and the common good.

The idea that most voters hate government has an outsized influence on the thinking of both parties. Republicans try to exploit this feeling; Democrats try to get around it.

Only rarely do those who believe in active government take the argument head-on and insist that many of the things government does are necessary and, yes, good. The media almost never discuss what the sweeping dismantling of public services inherent in the rhetoric of the anti-government movement would mean in practice. It's far easier to replay footage from a few tea party rallies over and over, and discuss some vague “mood” in the electorate.

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But will President Obama and his party take the lesson and go on offense against the simple-minded anti-government screeds now getting so much play?

Obama took a brief whack at doing so in his September health care speech. He noted that his predecessors “understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.” Why aren't we hearing more of this?

there goes EJ again, complaining about not enough government." It would like complaining about too much air to breath. What a maroon.

constantly the govt is too big and powerful, except when they're in power.

Raygun started breaking it, and Bush nearly finished it off.

There isn't enough well-run government - repukes and stupid democrats try to shrink it by refusing to fund it. When it's well-funded, it's well run. And as the country gets bigger, we need more government.

Dionne has a point. A good one. You don't.

make a case that the government is too small. Certain parts may be too small, but others are bloated beyond belief.

War can bloat budgets without doing much to help the populace. Witness idiot son.

What part of "promote the general welfare" is hard to understand?

I don't see the words "enable the forces of free trade" anywhere in either the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.

I'm starting to see that Dems will sacrifice wins just to keep the current system of campaign financing in tact. There are very few liberals representing us.

Is she so spot on!

and low taxes. Most are in the third world, and many are undemocratic. Why do big government and high taxes and democracy all go together? Because democracies give people what they want, and they want things such as infrastructure, national security, health care, pensions, safe food and drugs, etc.

Our big government makes the wealth of big corporations and private individuals possible. Wingnuts don't understand it, but it's true: rich countries have big governments. A totalitarian state actually requires only a small government, basically just a military and an effective secret police. But if you're going to provide people with a decent standard of living, there's no other way to do it than through big government.

Government is big because somebody wants it to be big. The people who want this are the voters.