"The era of big government is over," President Clinton said, and it may have been that philosophy that cost the lives of thousands as a result of Katrina.
In a column in today's New York Times, Paul Krugman writes: "For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming?"
Krugman and others are quick to blame the right, but the simple fact is President Clinton and other Democrats never made the case for government serving the needs of the people. The nation is paying the price.
Randy - Clinton's fault - here are some more quotes from the same article
ReplyDelete"For one thing, the undermining of FEMA began as soon as President Bush took office. Instead of choosing a professional with expertise in responses to disaster to head the agency, Mr. Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh, a close political confidant. Mr. Allbaugh quickly began trying to scale back some of FEMA's preparedness programs.
"......the downgrading of FEMA continued, with the appointment of Michael Brown as Mr. Allbaugh's successor.
Mr. Brown had no obvious qualifications, other than having been Mr. Allbaugh's college roommate.
What part of "bigger government" was Clinton referring to in this speech. There are areas in which ?bigger government" is not better -such as the infamous "No Child Left Behind"!!
I definitely was not saying that Clinton is responsible for this mess, but when Democrats fail to get across the message that big government can work for the people and is not always an enemy, this is the kind of thing that happens. If it were not for big government, we would not have Social Security, Medicare, voting rights for all, and so many other things to which we have grown accustomed. The dangerous movement toward privatizing government functions, and running government like a business is going to end up costing America dearly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Randy, there are areas of our society where it is imperative that government take the initiative - but why is it purely the "Democrats" responsibility to get that message across, oh yeah - because the other side of the aisle is so concerned with "big business".
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