Good to Great Government vs. none at all

So I am reading this article about Obama and the 2012 presidential race. In particular, the conservative direction it.  The opinion writer mentions a Mitt Romney campaign trail quote, “This is an election not to replace a president but to save a vision of America,” he declared. “It’s a choice between two destinies.” ...he urged voters to ask: “Who are we as Americans, and what kind of America do we want for our children?”

See the article here: E.J. Dionne Jr. writes about Obama the conservative in the Washington Post

E.J. Dionne goes on to write that Obama is defending a tradition that sees government as an essential actor in the nation’s economy, a guarantor of fair rules of competition, a countervailing force against excessive private power, a check on the inequalities that capitalism can produce, and an instrument that can open opportunity for those born without great advantages.

Here is what I can say about who I am as an American and what I want for our children.

I want what Dionne articulates Obama wants.

I am a strong, hardworking, dedicated mother who was raised to believe that my role as an American is to grow myself, my skills and talents, share them for productive value in my community, prosper, thrive, and nurture a family. My job is to leave this place better off than when I arrived and to ensure that I have grown the resource base of the nation and the earth rather than diminish it.

Theory teaches us that the purpose of government is to intervene where private markets fail or fail to exist. More specifically, government's role, according to some, is to provide public goods and redistribution. Since market systems allow for individuals to create and allocate goods and services for private benefit at private cost, the social benefits and costs have to be accounted for with certain goods. These public goods are the ones typically inadequately supplied in the private sector. Education, pollution control, and national defense are common examples in the economic textbooks.

I rely on government to educate my child because I choose to work full-time and thus am not free to educate him myself. The purpose of government , what it used to be, what it is, and what it should be could be a great conversation for this nation to have. I have tended to believe that presidential elections were indeed a big part of that conversation.


Granted, what is needed from government today has evolved over time and through marketplace advancements that have been faster than public sector evolution. The way our governments work, what they provide, and how they provide it is an ongoing and important political debate. Yet the politics of 2012 are not about that.  They are about whether government needs to exist at all. There are many places where government works well but not necessarily efficiently and my response to that is increase efficiency. There are places where government does not work. Questioning whether it should work and how it could work is an important part of any consideration about the role of government. Yet defenders of government are so beat up and on the ropes, that kind of nuanced discussion gets lost. The fight is government or no government.

I'd rather the fight be about good government or great government. I am not fooled. Romney and other candidates are not really in a sincere debate about who we are as Americans. He and others are in a debate about some Americans versus other Americans. These Americans getting over because of, or at the expense of, those Americans.

I'll also note that government is a word, a term, that actually refers to layers of public sector participation. Typically all of them are thrown together as one big, bad monster when it is convenient in the midst of debate. Yet there is also a regular pattern of separation, when it is politically convenient, to acknowledge the power and strength of the states. Then the debate becomes one about the big, bad, ugly federal government versus the little, efficient, wonderful states. BUNK I say! These are false and unproductive distinctions that have more to do with trying to knock the guy out of the White House than any real valuable and important economic or social value.

We are going to have to pay closer attention than we have done before. If we blink or snooze we are going to wake up on some new form of the plantations of old.