@mattbbpl said:
This strikes me as the same "trim the fat" calls that we've heard for decades. That is, someone wants the sugar high of cutting taxes/government without acknowledging the trade-offs involved.
If you want to make the government smaller AND more effective, that's great and I'll back those efforts 100%. But you'd better be able to state how you intend to make that happen because we've seen this runaround all too often.
Please forgive my confusion, but I'm not clear on what you are referring to when you say "This strikes me as the same trim the fat calls...". Perhaps you can explain what you meant, in context of this discussion about our political leaders' abysmal failure to prepare for a pandemic, despite W's call to action.
Perhaps the phrase you'll recognize the strategy best by is, "Starve the Beast."
This is a strategy used to implement tax cuts without the required trade-offs(which without tradeoffs are always desireable) in an attempt to force the politically negative trade-offs after the fact once the deficit rises. It's often couched in phrasing like, "trim the fat," meaning that no cuts or trade-offs are required - only trimming unnecessary waste is involved. However, that's rarely the case.
However, in the interest of our discussion, I believe that we can agree that the federal government should be adequately funded to achieve its proper roles and duties. The debate is about what is a proper role and/or duty to be carried out by the federal govt. I feel confident that you and I, and basically anyone that is not an idiot, can agree that making preparations to protect the nation in the event of a pandemic is a proper role for the federal govt.
I agree that pandemic response is one such interest. I'm not arguing otherwise and instead raise it as an example that shouldn't be cut.
And yet, our political leaders failed to follow through on their duty to properly prepare, despite being called to do so by no less than the POTUS.
It is my belief that our political leaders find it easier to use their power, and our money, to pander to donors and reliable voting blocks, rather than fulfill their duty. Furthermore, we have allowed the federal govt so much power, and reach in to our economy and our personal lives, that these so-called leaders have ample opportunity to pander, rather than effectively lead. And, unfortunately, the voters tend to reward their pandering, which gives them what they really want, which is to stay in office and accumulate more power and wealth to themselves.
This is just an argument that our current leadership is incompetent. Once again, I agree. We've had very little coordinated response because many of the mechanisms in place to have one were either cut or ignored.
I would encourage you to always be mindful that government is made up of people. People with all the frailties, ambitions and selfishness inherent in our species. The more power and authority we grant to our government, the more temptation there is for those that make up the govt to abuse that power and authority.
This is the part that I really wanted to respond to because you need to take this a little step further. Government is made up of people as are the other countervailing forces in society such as businesses, unions, and civil organizations. By continually insisting on a smaller government, you weaken it's power relative to those other countervailing forces which in turn weakens it's effectiveness. I would encourage to think in broader, more complex terms.
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy...”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler
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