Oh, No

With elections just days away, the Party of No is licking its chops in anticipation of controlling both houses of Congress, as GOP candidates vow to dismantle a bloated federal government that provides its members the best health care our taxes can buy, lavish perks, and personal access to America’s richest people and most powerful organizations. For that we should be grateful. Unfortunately, that’s not where Republicans are looking to cut, as Speaker Boehner made plain when he touted the 46 bills he has ready for Senate approval – most of which are aimed at deregulating energy production, defanging environmental protection, and destroying Obamacare. And so we will have to learn again – as we do every 30 years or so – that we need clean air and clean water, workplace safety and consumer protection, public education and public health, and that corporate America is not in business to provide them.

As for the bloated part, the federal government now employs a staggering 2.7 million people – which turns out to be a 50% decrease from its all-time high of 5.3 million in the seventh year of (dare I write it?) Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

Do we need a government that is cumbersome, inefficient and inert? We do not, any more than we need a government that taps our phones and reads our mail. What we need is a government – as the often-maligned but more-often-prescient Paul Krugman wrote this week – that will reinvest once again in the public infrastructure on which our private enterprise depends.