This is what infuriates me, what the Democrats and the progressive political experts have done such a pathetic job at explaining to people. There are certain things that everyone knows the government takes the lead on—highways probably being the most obvious. But who cleans lakes and streams and rivers and makes them fishable and swimmable again? Who reduces smog, acid rain, lead poisoning? Who cleans up toxic waste sites? Who builds (or provides a lot of the money to build) senior citizen centers and community swimming pools and all manner of recreational facilities? Who sends millions of research and other dollars to universities and colleges across the country, from Harvard to small community colleges, pumping up local economies all over America? Who helps build convention centers and adjacent hotels so cities can attract convention business? And on and on and on and on and on. Most people go through their lives taking frequent advantage of these investments and amenities but never giving a second’s thought to the idea that the government made them possible. Most of them just think that lake cleaned itself somehow over the years. And it’s not just that the average American doesn’t know. It’s that no one knows the exact extent. I once got an idea to do a big article choosing three small- to medium-size American cities more or less at random, just from different parts of the country, and trying to put a number on what the presence of the federal government in their communities meant to them. I started calling around. Oh, this will be impossible, I was told. No one keeps such numbers. You’d have to call every different agency of government, and even then many of them probably won’t have it broken down regionally. Well, someone damn well should collect such numbers, and that someone should make damn well sure that the people of Ocala, Florida, and St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sioux Falls, Iowa, know about every dollar. This hatred of government we see in this country is sickeningly childish and hypocritical. The rot starts from the top—the appalling Republican members of Congress who voted against the 2009 stimulus and then had the audacity to go cut ribbons in their districts at venues given life because of that very stimulus bill they traduced as Satan’s handiwork.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 05:31:51 +0000
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