Wednesday, July 25, 2007

When Government is the Problem

Carl Pope on Huffington Post

Ronald Reagan famously said, in his first inaugural address, that "government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." This belief has been an article of faith for reactionaries ever since, and from 2000 to 2006 the entire federal government was gripped by cultish obeisance to this belief.

We have learned, of course, to our sorrow, that when government is run by people who subscribe to this cult, government does become the problem -- look at the way the right has handled Katrina, Iraq, protecting communities from fire, and the aftermath of 9/11. For the same reason the College of Cardinals would not elect an atheist as Pope, we shouldn't trust those who don't believe in government to run it.

Last week, a Congressional hearing brought this into savage relief.

At the urging of the Sierra Club, Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee looked into the scandal that, in providing hundreds of thousands of trailers to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA ignored evidence that the trailers it was buying were killing their residents with astronomical levels of formaldehyde.

Read the rest here.

I'm shell shocked. I've been saying this since Reagan! Any party that believes "government IS the problem" leaves you with ... well, anarchy! There's a BIG difference between "government IS the problem" and "there are problems with government".

We've seen the effects of "government IS the problem" throughout this administration. The only cure is to put people into government who believe that the problems can be solved and removing the people who believe the way to solve the problem is to throw the baby out with the bath water!

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