Tom’s Tidbits- THIS… this is what government is SUPPOSED to do!

THIS… this is what government is SUPPOSED to do!

Greetings,

As I write this, Coronavirus has infected about 3.2 million people and killed about 230,000 worldwide. The US has about a third of those cases with 1,064,572 infected. 61,669 of our fellow citizens have died. So far.

Tens of millions are jobless, companies large and small are closing, and entire industries are threatened. Basic supply chains to keep us clean, healthy, fed, and housed (those of us privileged enough to BE all those!) are crumbling. Any return to ‘normal’ involves medical solutions that are months and probably years away. There’s no end in sight, but it’s not hopeless… the medical solutions will eventually come and we can affect the spread of the disease while we wait. Things might well be better in a couple months.

Whether they WILL be better depends largely on the actions of government. OUR government. Citizens can’t coordinate public health responses, distribute medical supplies, stop mortgage payments, issue checks, or control interest rates. Not by ourselves, at least… that’s PRECISELY why, over two hundred years ago, we built a government to do these and a thousand-and-one other things FOR us. Governments might do it well or poorly, but it’s EXACTLY what they’re SUPPOSED TO DO! Service and support aren’t privileges; they’re not even something we have a right to ask for. It’s the government’s DUTY to provide these things, and our RIGHT to DEMAND they do it well! Unfortunately, our current government has shown little inclination or the ability to do so.

Donald Trump seems to think it’s all about him, and it’s tempting to agree. His incompetence, venality, paranoia, and greed make a bad situation worse and people are dying because of it. But the problems we’re facing go deeper than either he or Coronavirus. They’re the results of over 40 years of government policy… OUR government’s policy… that has been corrupted by greed. Americans don’t have health insurance, job security, or pensions, and our education system beggars us. 63% of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover a $500 emergency, much less months without income and a devastated economy to look forward to.

What would a functional government look like? They’d be coordinated, and follow the plan laid out by their predecessors and experts for exactly this emergency. They’d be communicating clearly, consistently, and most of all FACTUALLY. They’d be working to coordinate skills and supplies between groups rather than pitting them against each other. They’d be injecting money into the economy, to rich and poor alike to keep things alive, but metered as the crisis changes… billionaires don’t need as much help as the maids swabbing their toilets. There would be OVERSIGHT… rigorous, balanced, sensible oversight of the money going out, with actual penalties to those who try to game the system.

Most of all, a functional government would be bringing home the trillions it’s spent on war. For too long, the prophesied military-industrial complex has intentionally bloated a real need for defense with graft and corruption. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to try a carrot rather than a stick, both at home and abroad.

It’s been over 40 years since Reagan said the scariest words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’. That charmingly reasonable suspicion of bureaucracy was twisted into a slavering and inflexible dogma that ALL government is bad. Now, a systematic, intentional, decades-long process has resulted in an electorate where over 40% believe they don’t deserve the basic fruits of a free society. Their basic faith in government of, by and for The People has been destroyed. There is no better place, no better time than now, to restore it. Lives depend on it… maybe yours.

Make a great day,

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