Apr 20 2010
Americans Don’t Trust Government, And Naturally Democrats Are The Party Of Government
Our government is out of control. It is sucking the life blood out of this nation and making a mess of things domestically (or admiration for the defenders of this nation is not in question, unless you are from the liberal left and afraid of the military). It has become nag-in-chief, poking its big ugly nose into every aspect of our lives. It tells us how to act, what to eat, what to say and how many gazillion ways we cannot afford to succeed personally. It even claims that the life giving gas CO2 is some kind of poison to the goddess of Earth, and therefore we must give up our cars and large screen TVs and freedoms to save the goddess. Government is insane and hurting every one of us.
If you want to distill down the Tea Party movement it is this – government has run amok and needs to be stopped. Moreover, this new ‘movement’ – which is actually more of an awakening – is growing out from and consuming that part of the American public which is center-left to conservative-moderate. They are the voters who decide which of the aging national party candidates will win any election. They have marginal allegiance to the national parties if any at all, they very independent of the left and right group-think.
Financially this group is also the most successful of the middle class. The Teat Party supporters (there is no political party) Â is not the uber-rich trying to rationalize their gross-consumption existence, nor the Hollywood crowd trying have an actual life of value verses being paid obscene amounts to pretend to have one on stage. The Tea Party is the vanguard of the reasonably well off and happy – which is the engine of this economy and the families from which the next generation of leaders will emerge.
And they don’t like who is running our government, or what it does. They want to kick the current rulers out of DC and start dismantling the federal bureaucracy beast, since it has clearly failed to spend our money wisely. This is clear in the polling of Americans and their view of government, such as this poll from Pew:
By almost every conceivable measure Americans are less positive and more critical of government these days. A new Pew Research Center survey finds a perfect storm of conditions associated with distrust of government – a dismal economy, an unhappy public, bitter partisan-based backlash, and epic discontent with Congress and elected officials.
Rather than an activist government to deal with the nation’s top problems, the public now wants government reformed and growing numbers want its power curtailed. With the exception of greater regulation of major financial institutions, there is less of an appetite for government solutions to the nation’s problems – including more government control over the economy – than there was when Barack Obama first took office.
People have lost faith and patience with the US Federal Government. And any party or candidate that promises to bring the government back under control of the people, to remove even partially questionable functions and activities, will win. Even a hint of government solution right now is going to see a backlash (reference: Crist in Florida).
I plan to highlight how to restructure the government in a series of posts in the coming months, but each agency and department can be massively trimmed and reworked. For example, the education department should have NO mandate over public education. Instead it should be holding some emergency funds pooled by the states to deal with areas needing infusions of money. The money would be directed by consensus of the states combined with the US representatives. Other than that the department would sponsor events to communicate which techniques succeed or fail, which lesson plans have the best results, etc. Beyond that it is useless.
The FAA could be shrunk massively. That piece that was created to promote air travel should be shuttered (air travel is here to stay). That piece which is regulatory and monitoring planes can be slimmed down by one simple approach – massively increase the fines for making mistakes. Make mistakes so painful no sane company would let one happen. If human life is involved in the mistake, multiply the penalty by 100 or 1000. We’ve been at this long enough to know what is required to fly safely. Multiply the fines by 10000 if the company is caught trying to cover up the incident instead of reporting it, and have the people go to jail for a very long time.
By applying the right incentive, there is less need for inspectors. In this case the paper work will grow, but safety requires and audit trail. But I digress.
This article highlights some key data from the poll:
Nearly one out of three Americans view the US government as a “major threat” to their freedoms, and four out of five say they don’t trust Washington to solve their problems, according to a new poll out Monday.
What else needs to be said? Its so bad democrat pollsters are ringing the alarm bells madly.
Democrats have over reached and the usually tolerant center of the nation has had enough. This is going to be worse for the party in power than the election years 2006, 2008 or 1994. It is going to be worse because the arrogance out of DC is worse this time around, the lack of respect for the peoples’ opinion is much worse this time, and the economy sucks like never before. This crop of Democrats will go down into history as the ones who screwed up so badly the people had no choice but to roll back government and make sure no more fools could do that kind of damage again.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Free To Prosper. Free To Prosper said: Americans Don’t Trust Government, And Naturally Democrats Are The Party Of Government http://bit.ly/abJf4H :: Strata-sphere […]
Well if it is the case that the Tea party is predominately centrist, and that their angry, well then its their “dang ole fault we” are in this mess. The centrist Republicans have ruined the party and turned it into a party of Big government Republicans. The moderates are the fools who voted for this current gang in charge. Did they not understand Obama when he said he wanted to fundamentally change America. Did they not understand that his membership in a radical anti american racist church for 20 or so years meant something or that his associations with radical friends meant something. All the information was there. No, the moderates and centrists went along with the wave of public passion for the well spoken acceptably black black man and voted for fundamental change. Now they have it and your telling me they did not know what they were getting and are angry about it.
I eagerly await your solution as to what to do with the masses of people that have become slaves to government from the politicians to the civil service employees to those living on the public dole. These people represent a generation so tethered to the teet of tax and spend and with relatively no other real world experience. People who have never worked a legitimate, value creating job and attained their positions through patronage and nepotism (a la Bobo). I am thinking Bobo’s meeting with the world “leaders” last week was his audition for head of the UN, a useless job with no responsibilities and one for which he is immensely qualified. He sees the writing on the wall and never really wanted to work as hard as the POTUS has to—he is looking for an easy way out unless Goldman has an opening. This next election may well be the end of two party rule in this country and instead have it become one where various coalitions unite on one issue or another. We live in extraordinary times and deserve better than mediocre leaders.
With the words of the Tea party movement, what kind of a plan will reduce the big government into a small government to go back to the founding principles?
What programs do we want cut? And how much? And when?
I hope your right AJ we need to throw the bums out including the RINO bums who constantly reach across the isle to further cap and trade, McCain Feingold, vote for tarp and thus the destruction of capitalism and free market principles.
We need to get rid of anyone, most of all who defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as their liberal philosophy of granting “Loans” to those who could not afford them and would otherwise have not gotten them is what started this economic decline.
We need a reformer from outside D.C. to come to town and tear the political industrial, media alliance down and replace it with real citizens with real knowledge of what makes America work and makes her great.
We need to be mindful of the pandering professionals who will try to jump to the front of the parade and claim they are leading it when in fact they have been the problem. Specifically McCain and Romney (Romneycare)!
I don’t really understand what was so wrong with TARP. It was a loan, mostly paid back with interest, except where is was not used as a loan. It prevented a major 1930’s melt down of the whole economy. No President could watch what was about to happen and not act. The action worked, and the loan was paid back. Yes it gave Obama the jumping off point that he needed to “nationalize” Health care, student loans, perhaps push through cap and trade, and really crummy business regulations and a whole host of other government centered crap.
Obama is an awful joke, who we elected because he was good with words, he is black, and many, too many, couldn’t imagine his background and lack of it could bring the kind of change he deems suitable for America and Americans. Am I worried, yes very worried, I abhor his thinking, his policies, his methods, his mocking of the America I love and find precious beyond words. Above all else I covet my freedom to make mistakes and fix them. To make decisions, right or wrong they are mine and I can live with the consequences. But he has been a good wake up call, he has brought into focus everything that we love about this country. I believe, I don’t know who, but some person will be elected next and will fix what Obama has tried to destroy and corrupt, that which is fundamentally American. People say once policies are enacted they can’t be changed, in these cases I think they can and will be. It will take a very audacious next President!
The best solution I can think of is to keep the Congress out of Washington most of the year to prevent them from making mischief. “Cut their pay and send them home.” I’d suggest that Congress be in session no more than 6 months of the year and closed in minimum stretches of 3 months. Any law reported out of committee has to be up and available in its entirety on the web for 3 months before it can be voted into law. The congress critters can spend the rest of the time in their home district, working a job and dealing with their constituents daily.
The half of the country that doesn’t pay Federal taxes has to feel that it has skin in the game too. Since no one is going to raise their taxes, end with-holding and make them pay Social Security and Medicare quarterly or annually. That will give them the old-time Constitutional religion in no time flat.
It’s worth a try. Simple procedural reforms can create genuine substantive reform.
I rarely point out typos, but in this case, you might want to re-read this post. I don’t believe your were attempting either irony or sarcasm.
I can’t think of a single negative that would occur with the complete removal of the Department of Education and its entire bureaucracy. Does Oregon want to produce little Leftists as its primary education goal? Well, they’re already doing that.
Will Idaho reduce its lead over Oregon in test results? Why? They are currently outperforming Oregon with 2/3rds the per pupil cost. Idaho does a better job of educating kids than Oregon does. Does the federal Department of Education make that more or less likely in the future? It would seem the logical implication of such a difference would lie in the way the two states approach the job of educating their young. Idaho does a better job. Oregon, not so much. And the role of the federal government is???
.
Hi All!
I’m new to this blog. I am also as disgusted with our gov as AJ. Since AJ is going to start discussing the restructuring of our gov, I would like to toss in my two cents.
Our election system only gets those people elected who have debts to the superrich. Why not include this process on the restructuring list?
I have just finished the first draft of the book I am working on. It will advocate the use of Internet voting in all US elections. Its entitled
How to Sideline the Superrich in All US Elections with Secure Internet Voting
Two chapters discuss the security issues. It can be done with all the security of an online purchase or electronic banking.
One chapter is entitled “The Original Intentions of the Framers for US Presidential Elections.”
I also discuss the outrageous costs of running for president. Obama spent about $740,000,000 in 2008. Of course, this gives an unfair advantage to the superrich who can make big contributions.
Most importantly, I show how a system of presidential elections based on Internet voting can neutralize the power of Big Money, and make the president and vice-president directly dependent upon the people who elected them. Here is a cure for both Citizens United, and a government that ignores the people!
No agent/pub, yet. But all my chapter drafts are online for free reading or downloading at:
http://ssrn.com/author=1053589
AJ, and everyone, is welcome to read any of this, and comment on it to me, or in your own writing.
Yours,
William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Political Scientist, author, speaker, CEO for
The Internet Voting Research and Education Fund
A CA Nonprofit Foundation
Email: InternetVoting@gmail.com
oneal:
That is not true. The problem was not the centrists, it was the idiot liberals who went too far left. In 2006 when the Republicans lost control of the Congress, the deficit was $170 billion in a year. Unemployment was half what it is now.
And btw, Ronald Reagan has been held up by certain conservatives as a model, well he ran deficits and he grew government too.
And how many true blue conservatives sat out the last election and let Obama win? How many of them did not even bother to vote?
dhunter:
The problem was not TARP. Most of that money has been paid back in fact, and the part that was not spent, almost half was supposed to be returned to the Treasury. I am sure Bush would not have spent the additional funds. In fact, I think it goes without saying that no president would just go play golf while the economy collapsed, he would act. The problem here is that the Democrats did not live up to the rules and they piled on additional funds.
In truth if Bush had done nothing, he and the Republicans would have been blamed for the problems in the economy even more than they were and that would have made it that much easier for the Democrats to spend money…probably with less of a backlash.
Paul:
I know people who make more money than I do and pay less taxes…many of them have children. I don’t think many people want to take that deduction away from parents.
Welcone Dr. Kelleher. My apologies on the time it took to get your comment confirmed (first comment requires my confirmation). As long as you don’t put in too many links your comments should now be immediately posted.
Fascinating paper, Dr. Kelleher. (#7 on your list) You’re right, that could work.
But both parties, of course, will hate it. (I’m sure you know that)
Kathy, Terrye,
Private citizens (taxpayers) through the efforts of big government should NOT be forced to bailout big business.
The idea that they are too big too fail is a strawdog arguement and the leftisits will only use your acguiesence to blungeon you over the head and do more buyouts.
Irresponsible businesses fail, file bankruptcy and reorganize.
The current messing around sets up govt and corporate collusion to rippoff the taxpayer and it will lead to socialism or corporatism.
The fact that TARP money was paid back does not mean TARP was a good idea.
These giant corps are in bed with the dems and they and Obama are ripping off the taxpayers.
Do not buy the Tarp was “good” meme.
Free enterprise has its own remedies! TARP set us further down the path of destroying Free enterprise and capitalism.
Stimulus followed TARP as the camel had its nose inside the tent. Soon the camel will be eating your paycheck and the Govt will be giving you an allowance if this is allowed to continue.
p.s. Chris Christie is my new favorite politician. Best I have seen in years – better on spending than even Reagan was.
yes, that’s heresy – it’s also true. Christie is the only viable model for our future – every other path leads to failure.
Thanks for the welcome, AJ. And thanks for your comment WWS.
Some people think that having the superrich in control of candidate selection is good for the country. They think that if the rich get richer, we will all be pulled up behind them.
But I think our money-dependent election process is directly responsible for our current recession, and depression for some.
The big campaign contributors cashed in on their investments by getting favorable deregulations from Clinton and Bush. That opened the way for reckless betting. TARP was also a nice way to reward campaign contributors.
If the two parties would hate and oppose implementing a money-free election system, it must be good!
Bill Kelleher
dhunter:
Well for one thing, citizens were not forced to bail out people in TARP. It was a loan, most of which has been paid back. And it is highly unlikely that those businesses would have needed bailed out if not for the actions of government.. The Fed’s cheap money policy together with all the bad loans pushed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped create that situation. The market did not do it by itself. I also think that there has to be some common sense here. Too many on the right act as if Bush just should have ignored the situation while too many on the left looked at it as opportunity to push for more government intrusion. The idea that all of this would have magically worked out if Bush had just ignored the situation is naive…it would have been worse and the Democrats would have capitalized on it even more.
I do not understand why people like Malkin will climb all over Bush for not doing more faster after Katrina…and at the same time act as if he was supposed to ignore the impending collapse of our financial system. As if any President would, and that includes Reagan.
Bill:
Bush tried on more than a dozen occasions to get more over sight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was rebuffed by Congressional Democrats each and every time. Maxine Waters and Barney Frank made a point of complaining about those efforts publicly, stating in no uncertain terms that Fannie and Freddie were in fine shape…right up until the collapse.
As for deregulation, conservatives as a general rule support less regulation of private industry..the problem is that when it hits the fan someone has to pay.