The Myth of "Big Government"

Two days ago, I think it was, a guy named Fox appeared on the PBS program "Nightly Business Report." This guy is the editor of the Harvard Business Review and so, presumably, a candidate for an MBA degree at Harvard--and MBA types are typically quite conservative.

He said that the idea of "big government," which the Tea Party types have been complaining about so vocally, is a myth. For one thing, he said, if you disregard the increase in spending for entitlements (e.g., Social Security, Medicare) and stimulus money, government spending has actually decreased.

But (as should not surprise any thoughtful person), many people like the Tea Partiers hold their opinions with a forcefulness which is in inverse proportion to their knowledge. In other words, the less they know, the more vocal they are.

And, like all zealous believers, their minds are made up and they don't wish to be confused with the facts.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein

Populace and Paradox

The voting faction of the US populace—the electorate—frequently does not seem to think very clearly. Everybody wants government-provided services, and nobody favors taxes. How do they think those services are going to be provided for? Where is the government to get the money it needs to provide services, if not from taxpayers' taxes?

Maybe people should bear in mind two extremes and think about which one they'd like better. On the one hand, Sweden is the very model of the welfare state, with health care and many other services taken care of at government expense. Concomitant with that, taxes in Sweden are high.

You could take Mississippi as the other extreme. Government expenditures, for example on education, are low. As a result, Mississippi ranks low on a lot of measures—education, health of its citizens, etc. Also directly connected, Mississippi has low taxes—and a low standard of living. Maybe when government money is spent, that money circulates and makes everybody more prosperous.

Also, polls show that the populace disapproves of Congress. Congress gets a 17% approval rating. On the other hand, when people were polled for their opinion of their own representative, 45% approved. (And historically, nearly 96% of House members get re-elected.) How can the individual congressmen be good and the collective body be bad? Maybe this has to do with a phenomenon I blogged about before: people decry pork-barrel legislation (or "pork") when some other congressman is doing it. When their own congressman is doing it, it's "bringing home federal funds to our district." I see that phrase in the materials that my own congressman sends to his constituents. A verb declension: He's advocating pork, you're not careful with the people's money, I'm helping my district. (Like "He's a tightwad, you're cheap, I'm thrifty.")

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein

Yes, I Want It in My Back Yard

I was looking at a little mailing--sort of a newsletter--from my congressman. He boasts of "bringing home" federal dollars for projects in his district. The sort of news that gladdens his constituents. We all want to be sure we're getting a piece of that incredibly huge federal pie, don't we? When it's "my back yard," we want all the good stuff and none of the bad stuff.

But if it's someone else's congressman and his district that federal money is going to, we call that "pork barrel legislation," and deplore it.

Are we perhaps being a bit inconsistent? A guy I used to know would use the expression, "It depends on whose ox is being gored." Yes, it matters whether it's us or someone else.

You might call this inconsistent, or hypocritical. Or, how about selfish? I have long maintained that very many people--maybe the average persons--care very little about what goes on beyond the four corners of their lot. Okay, one qualification to that: they care about their children's schools. But, human nature being what it is, everybody's interest is mainly in their personal welfare and their immediate family's, and their physical home.

There are the Mother Theresas and others who have wide horizons and truly want to save the world. But many folks, when they leave their suburban houses in the morning to go to work, and look up and down the street and see two cars in every driveway, truly feel that all is well with the world. Well, maybe it's the working of those needs hierarchies that we learn about in Psych 101. Again, human nature.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein