{"id":220,"date":"2009-02-10T21:12:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-10T21:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2009\/02\/10\/220\/"},"modified":"2014-09-10T19:20:16","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T00:20:16","slug":"220","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=220","title":{"rendered":"A Government Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Obama<\/span> made a gloomy speech last night, saying basically that we need much more government in order to avoid an economic collapse that could cause a severe reduction in our country’s standard of living. He wants to give the government a lot of money to spend; his plan will require more and bigger government institutions in the short run, and more government tax burden on the citizens in the long run. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not entirely against all of this. As a young man, I had socialist leanings. I said back then that the government IS the people; there\u2019s nothing else that represents the \u201csocial body\u201d. As such, government control of the economy would represent a more democratic and egalitarian way of running the economy than capitalism would. Capitalism requires that rich people control the economy; government (ideally) gives everyone a vote and a voice in it. It seems more fair.<\/p>\n

As an old man, I\u2019ve learned that theories like this don\u2019t always work out. Government often takes on a life and a voice of its own, not necessarily the voice of the people. And it usually doesn\u2019t do as good a job in running things as capitalism does. <\/p>\n

I had a \u201cgovernment day\u201d yesterday, one that gave me some food for thought regarding Mr. Obama\u2019s philosophy (i.e., exploiting public fears regarding the economy so as to expand government). My mother is in the hospital and things are busy where I work, but my car was due for state inspection. So I got up early and drove over to the local inspection station; it is scheduled to open at 6:30 AM (sez so right on the NJ MVC web site). Well, I got there at 6:50 and there was a chain blocking the driveway, with two or three cars waiting behind it. So I got in line and waited. At about 7:10 a guy finally walked out and took down the chain. OK, fine. Despite the delay, my car passed and I went home. <\/p>\n

Next, I needed to visit the Post Office as to buy a money order. Why, in this day and age of credit cards and checks, would I need an old-fashioned money order? Because a local government agency made a mistake and claims that I have an outstanding parking ticket, in a town that my car and I had never even seen. I received a cheery note in the mail from this government agency, stating that if I didn\u2019t send them $95 by the end of the month, they would start collection actions that could include detainers and a revocation of my driver’s license. And by the way, this agency didn\u2019t accept checks or credit cards; only money orders were acceptable. Well, I intend to protest all of this; but having once had my drivers license nearly revoked because of a government agency\u2019s mistake, I decided to pay first and argue later. So I needed a money order, and a bit of research told me that the Post Office was probably the best place to get one.<\/p>\n

USPS.COM told me that the local P.O. would open at 8:30 AM. So I got there at 8:45, and guess what? It wasn\u2019t open yet. There were some people waiting at the door; they had heard that it would open around nine. So, another government-sponsored wait for me. Around 10 minutes after nine, the Post Office window finally opened. After a few more minutes I was able to get my money order, as to forestall the government from taking my rights to drive away (and thus be able to help my mother while in the hospital). <\/p>\n

While at the window counter, I thought that I might combine some pleasure with business and buy a small sheet of commemorative stamps; hey, why not support a government effort to make its product (postage stamps) nicer to the consumer, and even worth collecting? Well, the friendly postal clerk looked in his cabinet and told me, sorry, no commemorative stamps. What? I get a quarterly catalog from the Postal Service telling me about their commemoratives, and I knew that a variety of special stamps had just been printed celebrating Abraham Lincoln\u2019s 200th birthday, the Chinese New Year, Edgar Allan Poe, and some other stuff. Sorry; my local Post Office was not participating in consumer marketing that day. Just the basics — take it or leave it (after requiring a half hour wait).<\/p>\n

Ah, government. Under Obama, government is going to play a bigger role in all of our lives. So we, the common folk, are going to experience more paperwork, more waiting in lines (or on hold on telephones), more \u201ctake it or leave it\u201d transactions, more \u201cobey or we go after you\u201d orders. And yeah, more taxes eventually.<\/p>\n

Government (as we know it here in the USA) gives its best efforts to 1.) those who get the most attention from the press; 2.) those who can sway the most voters; or 3.) those who work the system best (e.g., utilizing constitutional guarantees to sue the government). Sometimes poor and middle class people can do this; most often, it\u2019s the rich and powerful who do it best. With capitalism<\/span>, the rich and powerful make the big decisions; but at some point they have to think about whether the poor and middle class will buy what they offer. So, when the dust settles, both systems favor the rich and powerful, but give something to the poor and middle class. Neither is clearly a better system, from the social justice perspective. (If you remember the lessons of history, you will forget about communism<\/span> as an alternative; communist centralism makes the biggest promises to the poor, and then cheats them the most.) <\/p>\n

But yes, there are good things about government, and they were also part of my day. I was able to drive reasonably quickly to my mother\u2019s hospital on a highway built with government funding. My mother\u2019s health is largely subsidized by the government (Medicare). And I myself work for local government, and I was able to get some things done that day that made our agency\u2019s operations a tiny bit better (but admittedly, I can sometimes be a brain-dead, rubber-stamp bureaucrat too; it\u2019s contagious). <\/p>\n

So I\u2019m not saying that President Obama is entirely wrong. But for such a bright guy, for a politician who campaigned as an \u201cintelligent pragmatist\u201d, I am surprised at how quickly he has leapt into the \u201cbig government\u201d pot. The American people may let him get away with it this time, given the mess that we\u2019re in; but at some point, they may revolt and start listening to the Republicans once again. And then, things will go too far the other way; too much will be handed back over to the private sector. It\u2019s all a question of balance, and I wish that Mr. Obama would try a little harder to strike a good, steady balance (and avoid the inevitable counter-revolution). Even if that means giving less power and glory to Nancy Pelosi and Obama\u2019s many other Democrat friends.<\/p>\n

P.S. — Joe Connolly<\/a> from the WSJ made a good point today on his Business News broadcast (on CBS newsradio), regarding middle aged people getting laid off. He noted that employers are getting flooded by resumes these days, and are tempted to immediately throw out the ones from older folk. Then he suggested that they think twice about that, given that the entire crew of US Airways flight 1549 (the one that successfully ditched in the Hudson River last month) was over 50.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Obama made a gloomy speech last night, saying basically that we need much more government in order to avoid an economic collapse that could cause a severe reduction in our country’s standard of living. He wants to give the government a lot of money to spend; his plan will require more and bigger government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4603,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/4603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}