I was listening to an interesting program on NPR this afternoon during lunch where the guest was tracing the links between the Tea Party of today with the John Birch Society of the 50's and 60's. As I have supported some of the ideas of the Tea Party and applaud their exercise of their constitutional rights, I thought it might be good to put some thoughts down regarding my own feelings regarding our loveable federal government. I think that there are those in my family that see me as a Tea Party supporter in the worst case and as anti-Obama in the best case. So, for all of you, here are my thoughts on our government (in summary form with extended explanations where needed).
There is clearly an important role for federal government; anarchy is not an option. The federal government should do the following:
- Uphold the Constitution of the United States
- Defend the country from attack (but not by stripping its citizens of their rights)
- Protect the borders
- Guide and regulate monetary policy, especially on a global scale
- Protect the rights of all citizens (by definition, this includes all minorities)
- Guide commerce and protect citizens from fraudulent and toxic buisness practices
- Legislate without the influence of business, special interests, other governments
- Adjudicate according to the Constitution and well-established precidents of English and American law
- Carry out foriegn policy with the best interests of the citizens in mind (not the petty concerns of individual politicians following misguided policies)
- Pursue massive projects that support new knowledge (to be shared with the citizens) and technologies that cannot be pursued by profit-driven entities
- Provide a safety net for the poor and infirm and provide meaningful training to render all capable persons of gaining employment in the private sector
There may be more, but this is a good start. Now for what the government should not do:
- Redistribute wealth
- Become the largest employer in the country
- Withhold the funding of schools that comply with all equal opportunity requirements but do not follow the whims of various government programs that control the environment and content of education
- Dictate health care
- Intrude on the daily lives of citizens with arbitrary legislation that appeals to the latest pseudo-science or mass-driven opinions
- Allow legislators to abdicate the responsibility for writing legislation to hired hands
- Pile up massive debt (I think some debt is ok ... it works well for me, but there has to be a limit)
2 comments:
I have to agree with you on your selected roles for the government. However, I would add that the right to health care is a human right and that should be protected by the government as well. Denying coverage to people born with conditions beyond their control is criminal and needs to be addressed. By making health care universal we free a big burden from the shoulders of the people. By guaranteeing health care, it allows labor to move freely to meet market demand for skills, and a mobile labor force is what this country badly needs.
As for your no-go areas, I agree mostly, except with the health care. And I'm on the border with education. It is depressing to see the math/science levels compared to other first-world countries, and we cannot just provide legal and financial services forever. Yet I have a feeling if we let the federal govt. have a go at it, since most of the policy makers tend to be liberal arts types from traditional schools, I doubt they could do much to improve the situation. That said, axing the teacher's union is a good start. Then we could introduce competitive pay and attract people from the private sector to teach math/science. I don't know that the states have the nerve to challenge the teacher's union. Or perhaps we need to thinking bigger, like observing and learning from Germany.
I was glad to see that you added the support for new projects that add new knowledge. If the government never funded space we would not have ever had silicon valley and all that came out of there. Rather than spending money on "democracy spreading" missions just think of how much money could be invested in renewable energy research.
I am not sure what constitutes human rights. I will have to ponder on that for a future blog.
I do think, though, that the government should make health care available to the very poor and to those who are mentally diseased (and the like). For the rest of us, I think the free market can do just fine and you would invest and pay for that in just the way you do for housing, food, and other basic needs.
Education ... well, I could do a blog on that one. Math and science, history, other subjects are all critically important. The government, though, gets involved with standardized testing and, if you don't make the grade, they withdraw funds. However, they seem to have a lot of these mandates. Curriculum, nutrition, sports, health, and equality-based learning are all mandates stuck on schools and these take away from teaching. No longer can we have advanced students moving at advanced pace. No longer can we have "slow" students that get special attention and team teaching. Severely handicapped students are mainstreamed and this takes the attention of the teacher from the teaching task. Government really does not do things well when it comes to education.
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