This question, "can government do anything right", is at the heart of polarization between the GOP and Democrats. For 99 percent of polluters and speculators who are Republican, the short answer is no. There is nothing government does that business cannot do better.
The polluters and speculators either shrug off the damages their profitable activities cause, expecting gullible voters and taxpayers to pick up the costs in the name of progress or whatever other justification they can invent, or, insist that every regulation that needs to be is already in place.
This is how Florida Gov. Jeb Bush once came up with the motto for the state department of environmental protection, "less process, more protection". The devil is in the details and the details stink.
The problem for the Democrats is more nuanced, and because it is more nuanced it has been badly addressed. Nuance suggests complexity and complexity is the enemy of communication in this age of twenty second campaign commercials.
In the enormous gap between "government can't do anything right" and "government can do some things right if efficiency is demanded of bureaucratic systems", the Democrats have disappeared. A friend of mine who is a leader in the venture capital industry says, "All large systems fail." He is right. Democrats ought to insist on innovation in government infrastructure and far higher standards -- like barring lobbyist infection, the revolving door between industry and government, and "regulatory capture".
Republicans are wrong: as wrong as Jamie Dimon's two billion dollar loss for JP Morgan Chase that underscores the imaginative poverty encapsulated in the anti-regulatory jihad by the GOP. But Democrats are wrong, too, for failing to build the confidence of business by embracing bureaucratic reforms.
The irony is that the Obama administration demonstrated the capacity for bureaucratic reform: its amazing and unparalleled job of moving nearly 900 million dollars into the economy through the 2010 fiscal stimulus (that the GOP hindered to the bitter end and without which our economy would likely have fallen into a depression). Obama demanded that the money move fast and efficiently and without corruption. The White House made efficiency in administering the stimulus a mantra; something that the previous Bush administration had absolutely failed to do with its trillions invested in privatization of the military.
Yes there were some errors in the Obama stimulus investments, but the errors were minor in comparison to the unprecedented whole. So why isn't this news, heralded?
For the Democrats, part of the problem is that Obama was uncomfortable in the bully pulpit. Part of the problem is that Obama and the Democrats generally have never strategized reform with key coalition members: the unions. But here too there has been inevitable progress, as a consequence of the hemorrhaging of US jobs to low cost labor nations.
25 million Americans are still without jobs or under-employed. There are no silver bullets for the economic calamity that took decades and wrapped up several presidents. But it doesn't do any good to imagine that the US economy will return any time soon to boom times based on housing. And it also doesn't do any good to imagine that the same economic advisors and special interests who crashed the economy onto the reef should be trusted to get the economy, off the reef.
Right now, we are in the hands of the reef wreckers: the scavengers who in times of Florida's old past used lights to lure treasure-laden ships to destruction, then off-loaded the cargo and sold it themselves on the "free market". The Tea Party refuses to acknowledge or even understand how the forces who fund their efforts are the same that put them in such financial peril. That is the way it is with complexity.
Democrats have a lot of work to do. The party has to embrace government reform even when it means challenging the unions. Even here, the nuances need to be understood. Compared to the power of polluters and speculators, the unions have been a piñata. They are vastly reduced in the US economy but still used as "bogeymen". Democrats need to find their voices and soon, that is clear enough to understand.
The polluters and speculators either shrug off the damages their profitable activities cause, expecting gullible voters and taxpayers to pick up the costs in the name of progress or whatever other justification they can invent, or, insist that every regulation that needs to be is already in place.
This is how Florida Gov. Jeb Bush once came up with the motto for the state department of environmental protection, "less process, more protection". The devil is in the details and the details stink.
The problem for the Democrats is more nuanced, and because it is more nuanced it has been badly addressed. Nuance suggests complexity and complexity is the enemy of communication in this age of twenty second campaign commercials.
In the enormous gap between "government can't do anything right" and "government can do some things right if efficiency is demanded of bureaucratic systems", the Democrats have disappeared. A friend of mine who is a leader in the venture capital industry says, "All large systems fail." He is right. Democrats ought to insist on innovation in government infrastructure and far higher standards -- like barring lobbyist infection, the revolving door between industry and government, and "regulatory capture".
Republicans are wrong: as wrong as Jamie Dimon's two billion dollar loss for JP Morgan Chase that underscores the imaginative poverty encapsulated in the anti-regulatory jihad by the GOP. But Democrats are wrong, too, for failing to build the confidence of business by embracing bureaucratic reforms.
The irony is that the Obama administration demonstrated the capacity for bureaucratic reform: its amazing and unparalleled job of moving nearly 900 million dollars into the economy through the 2010 fiscal stimulus (that the GOP hindered to the bitter end and without which our economy would likely have fallen into a depression). Obama demanded that the money move fast and efficiently and without corruption. The White House made efficiency in administering the stimulus a mantra; something that the previous Bush administration had absolutely failed to do with its trillions invested in privatization of the military.
Yes there were some errors in the Obama stimulus investments, but the errors were minor in comparison to the unprecedented whole. So why isn't this news, heralded?
For the Democrats, part of the problem is that Obama was uncomfortable in the bully pulpit. Part of the problem is that Obama and the Democrats generally have never strategized reform with key coalition members: the unions. But here too there has been inevitable progress, as a consequence of the hemorrhaging of US jobs to low cost labor nations.
25 million Americans are still without jobs or under-employed. There are no silver bullets for the economic calamity that took decades and wrapped up several presidents. But it doesn't do any good to imagine that the US economy will return any time soon to boom times based on housing. And it also doesn't do any good to imagine that the same economic advisors and special interests who crashed the economy onto the reef should be trusted to get the economy, off the reef.
Right now, we are in the hands of the reef wreckers: the scavengers who in times of Florida's old past used lights to lure treasure-laden ships to destruction, then off-loaded the cargo and sold it themselves on the "free market". The Tea Party refuses to acknowledge or even understand how the forces who fund their efforts are the same that put them in such financial peril. That is the way it is with complexity.
Democrats have a lot of work to do. The party has to embrace government reform even when it means challenging the unions. Even here, the nuances need to be understood. Compared to the power of polluters and speculators, the unions have been a piñata. They are vastly reduced in the US economy but still used as "bogeymen". Democrats need to find their voices and soon, that is clear enough to understand.
3 comments:
Excellent piece and on point.
It’s fascinating how the GOP and especially Tea Party folks choose to demonize those consciences citizens with terms like Liberal and Progressive.
Liberal and Progressive thinking citizens have helped end slavery, provided women the vote, endorsed social security, endorsed medical, ended segregation, provided blacks the vote, ended the Vietnam War, moved Nixon out of the Whitehouse, provide school girls with sports through Title 9 and such. Please remind me what the so called Conservative, NRA member, NASCAR fan has accomplished to help improve the quality of life in the USA?
FYI Jamie Dimon & John Corzine, who is trying to explain trading loss of $1 billion + were both on the short list to be Secretary of Treasury for President Obama.
Therefore, to answer the question, Government can't do anything right!
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