Big Government Built This Country

[Londoner]

I'd say that government working in conjunction with capital

And then we had to go through a period where that newfound wealth needed a more just system of social distribution. That change in the social contract mostly happened because of UNIONISM and FEDERALISM.

The combination of new wealth and a new way of distributing that wealth, created a vibrant middle class whose consuming power actually launched even more new wealth as capital was invested to respond to the growing market that the middle class created.

CAPITAL and LABOR when working in harmony, can create enormous wealth

Very well said. There was a consensus which ran from the progressives through the liberals and moderate Republicans about striking a compromise between labor and capital. The consensus took shape as a dense tapestry of laws, programs, and regulations which gave hard working Americans the financial solvency to consume.

In exchange for this compromise, the economy was loaded with the goose that laid the golden egg: demand. This demand (i.e., money in middle class pockets), lead to massive investment, innovation, and job growth, i.e., the point of capital is to capture demand. [When there is no demand - because you've repealed all the programs which protected that demand - capital invests in questionable derivatives, oil futures, and insanely complex hedge funds, that is, the real economy of manufacturing and innovation is replaced by the phantom one of financialization]

Regardless, Reagan asked us to abandon the tenuous compact between capital and labor - he told us not to worry about middle class demand, or the way said demand drove the consumption economy for decades. He said that the efficiency gains of letting the market price labor would result in a cornucopia of jobs, innovation, and cheap prices - the multiplier effect of all these things would lift boats to unseen heights... and create demand live never before.

But there was a catch. Reagan's big gamble (i.e., unwinding the postwar compromise between capital and labor) depended on the truth of trickle down economics.

When the money failed to trickle down as promised; when the middle class steadily lost wages, benefits, and standard-of-living support; when the country's vital organs were sold off to mega-merger-monopolies; when the middle class started to lose their affordable education and health care - when capital flew to 3rd world labor markets instead - a deep structural flaw emerged: the greatest consumption economy on earth did not have sufficient domestic demand. The middle class progressively lost their ability to consume as the owners of capital began to narrowly accumulate all the gains of economic growth - gains which turned into centralized power over markets, political outcomes, and media. (Yes Virginia, the government can be bought)

What did the Reagan Revolution do to make up for this demand shortfall? It sent every American - regardless of income - 3 credit card offers a week. America would spend 30 years fueling consumption with debt.

(Tragically, the money that was supposed to trickle down to middle class pockets actually arrived in the form of high interest loans; the real money trickled into the pockets of politicians so they would [do things like] crush energy and drug competition (thus setting up anti-competitive monopolies over the once-affordable living standard of the middle class). Indeed, Movement Conservatism set up a well-oiled machine that directed Reagan's famous "Trickle Down" NOT into middle class pockets, but into think tanks, talk radio, and TV for the purpose of convincing a generation of Americans that this wealth grab and centralization of power stood for freedom. In short, the money that was supposed to lift all boats (like during the postwar years) was instead converted into the political and market power of a small group of Americans.)

FYI: when your economy is driven by middle class consumption, one thing is certain: the middle class is too big to fail. The 30 year project of transferring wealth out of the middle class has destroyed this country.

America swallowed poison in 1980.

 

[The Rabbi]

The real Glaring Error in the OP's paean to the Joys of Big Government is that we'll never know to what better use the money and manpower could have been spent if left to the private sector.

If Big Government spending were the Salvation of Humanity, the Stimulus Bill and two years of deficit spending would have sent job creation through the roof...but, you know...

Sure you can. Just look back at what infrastructure the private sector put in place from 1776 up until the end of the 19th century. Nothing. T.

bzzt, fail.

There were plenty of private toll roads in colonial times. If you look at "infrastructure" most of it was built by cities and towns, not the Feds. Until the interstate system they did not add much.

 

[Toronado3800]

What was the last privately funded road still in use? Are some of the toll roads or is that only for maintenance? Some bridges perhaps? I BELIEVE the McKinley bridge over the Mississippi while it may have been a toll bridge was owned by Illinois.

Hmmm, state vs federal funds? Interesting. Perhaps we should only count states that were not formed after Homestead or the Louisiana Purchase.

 

[The Rabbi]

What was the last privately funded road still in use? Are some of the toll roads or is that only for maintenance? Some bridges perhaps? I BELIEVE the McKinley bridge over the Mississippi while it may have been a toll bridge was owned by Illinois.

Hmmm, state vs federal funds? Interesting. Perhaps we should only count states that were not formed after Homestead or the Louisiana Purchase.

The McKinley Bridge was not named for the president but rather a RR company president. Appears to be locally funded.

Designer of the bridge was American engineer Ralph Modjeski.[3] When the US Highway System was instituted in 1926, the McKinley Bridge carried the famous Route 66 across the Mississippi River for four years until a new alignment took the route over Chain of Rocks Bridge in order to avoid leading traffic directly into the downtown St. Louis area.

The bridge was owned by the city of Venice, Illinois and operated as a toll bridge.[4] After decades of disrepair due to the lack of toll revenues, the McKinley Bridge was closed in 2001.[1]

The state of Illinois attempted to provide money to the city of Venice for repairing the bridge, but was unable to do so because of the outstanding taxes owed by the city. As a result, the City of St. Louis foreclosed on the bridge, delaying reconstruction efforts further. In an agreement reached in June 2003, the states of Illinois and Missouri agreed to take over ownership of the bridge from the city of Venice.[5]

 

[The Rabbi]

But most of the infrastructure in this country was built by small gov't, not big gov't.

 

[thereisnospoon]

The real Glaring Error in the OP's paean to the Joys of Big Government is that we'll never know to what better use the money and manpower could have been spent if left to the private sector.

If Big Government spending were the Salvation of Humanity, the Stimulus Bill and two years of deficit spending would have sent job creation through the roof...but, you know...

Sure you can. Just look back at what infrastructure the private sector put in place from 1776 up until the end of the 19th century. Nothing. The private sector doesn't build infrastructure, they take advantage of the government's activities. But you still want to believe that the private sector does it better. If left to its own devices, the private sector would have you in abject servitude. You'd work for the company for subsistent wages, you'd live in company housing, and you'd shop at the company store. At the end of a year, you'd be in debt to the company. You'd practically be a slave.

That's the thing about faar right republicans. They look at our history and say, but if the private sector...... Do you know why the government builds infrastructure? The people got tired of the waiting for the private sector.

Yeah yeah yeah...All those federal construction companies that build infrastructure...
Look genius, don't come on here with the pro union mantra. No one cares.
This nation's greatness lies in it's people not government. And don't you ever forget it.
This nation works only if the private sector is prosperous.
Government produces nothing. It only consumes. And it consumes in a wasteful gluttonous manner. Hence the reason why government can do nothing within budget nor on time.
Indentured servitude, my ass.
Our country went through that long ago and now we are a much smarter society.
People like you simply cannot make it on your own. You need politicians and bureaucrats to tell you what to do and when you get a boo-boo, you want government to be your mommy. So you all figure since you need government to run your lives, that should apply to everyone else. Newsflash, the rest of us are not shit scared little yellow spined wimps.
Rugged individualism, achieve, improvise, overcome, adapt, succeed.....THAT is what makes this nation great.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

If the today's GOP was in charge during the postwar years, you would never have had the Hoover Dam or the great hydroelectric power projects conducted by Tennessee Valley Authority

This shows what a completely ignorant, imbecile CLOD you are. This was PRE WAR, done in the 30s during the Great Depression.

Idiot stick.

Do you think Big Government has ever done anything good for this country? Do you think the current anti-government hysteria ignores, say, the relationship between the Space Program and the development of technologies vital to the private sector?

Those technologies were developed by the private sector.

 

[Gadawg73]

Why is it Big Business STILL TO THIS DAY lobbies government for tax credits, domain changes for commercial use, zoning changes, etc. and on and on ASKING FOR CASH FROM TAXPAYERS "to create jobs" and government almost always caves in.
And that would be REPUBLICANS leading the charge for that taxpayer $$ to go to BIG BUSINESS.

 

[Toronado3800]

Hmmm again at how to count funding for roads. To me government spending on the state level may as well be federal since states don't really decide what the legal intoxication limits are on their roads. Then again my Republican brothers love all the State laws, regulations and powers they can get their hands on. It is a big deal to them AND I also believe California has drug us into the 20th Century with environmental standards. So hmmmm.....

Now I will argue big government created our space program no matter what private companies like Lockheed or Boeing built.

Perhaps the partnership is the secret to success. Government lays down the frame and applies taxes intelligently to build or research it.

 

[Londoner]

Those technologies were developed by the private sector.

Fair enough...

The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is not in the private sector. It developed something called ARPAnet which evolved into something called the internet.

The internet was made possible partly by the government allocation of taxpayer dollars.

The profits of Apple, Google, Ebay, Amazon, & Microsoft were made possible partly by the venture capital provided by government (the taxpayer) to develop the internet. Let's not even talk about the computer itself. (Pick your industry: Aerospace, oil, pharmaceutical, cellular technology, medicine, biotechnology, auto-manufacturing, and you will find tax payer subsidies, public-private partnerships, directly lead government R&D, federally funded university labs, Pentagon support, and bailouts. [Do you know how big the lobbying industry is?] Government also allocates resources to roads, water, dams, electricity, the justice system, and defense, i.e., profits are enabled partly by the Government allocation of money.

Unprecedented profits.

Yet, somehow, we have a bankrupt middle class tax payer. Why? Because he no longer recovers his investment in the corporate welfare state; because he no longer reaps the 'ol trickle down from the subsidies and bailouts he provides to wealthy share holders; he no longer reaps the benefits he received during the postwar years when there was sufficient revenue to invest in the public sector; when he received a livable wage, affordable education, affordable transportation, affordable health care, safe neighborhoods, great museums, public parks, after school programs for his kids, and affordable utilities . . . for his capital investment. The benefits which once accrued to that investment are now narrowly distributed to a small group of share holders)

Meaning: John Q Public is broke partly because our corporate captured government socializes the costs and risks of business, but privatizes the profits… as roads crumble, energy grids fail, and funding for our great public universities is cut (all the things Reagan said the market would take care of). Business enjoys unprecedented profits as the country which made it possible dies in the background. We were told that if more money accumulated on top, it would come back down in spades. Who knew that it would get stuffed into derivatives and oil futures? [I guess this makes sense. Why invest in the real economy if you no longer pay your workers enough money to buy stuff?] Who knew all this freedom talk was a hoax designed by capital to rob John Q in order to enrich the wealthy few? Who knew that they could so brilliantly funnel public money into private bank accounts? Who knew they could literally take over a political party. or convince a generation that they stood for freedom? Who knew the public was so gullible?

To answer your point: when you say that most of these technologies were developed in the private sector, I think you ignore the contribution of the taxpayer -- the contribution of the public, of the government allocation of funds and resources. This strategic omission of Government's role is done because the interests which have captured your media don't want to pay back the public for its investment.

Do you know how much taxpayer support Exxon gets from the military stabilization of the middle east? The point of movement conservatism (which has been fully captured by extremely narrow interests) is to cover up that support so government is powerless to recover the taxpayer's investment. It is the worst kind of welfare, but as long as Exxon invests in talk radio and greases enough shareholders, they will have armies who flock to the message boards and clog the debate.

 

[MarcATL]

The PEOPLE of this country came up with the ideas, inventions, MONEY to make it what it is.

Exactly Steph! People run government. Reagan very strategically convinced a generation of conservatives that corrupt, incompetent demons run government (not people). He did this to lower the tax and regulatory burden on the people who put him in power. Let me explain. The biggest threat to his movement was that you might figure out that actual good Americans managed the building of this country's infrastructure -- actual good people filled the government which defeated the Nazis, built the Hoover Dam, and put a man on the moon. Reagan de-emphasized the good people in Government for a very simple reason: if you trusted government -- if you focused on the positive things government did to build this country -- you might trust it to solve, say, the energy crisis, and this would raise taxes on the folks who put him in power; it would also threaten the market share of his Big Oil donors. Therefore, he created an anti-government ideology so you wouldn't give Washington the power that was given to the Big Government Progressives & Liberals who lorded over decades of economically vital infrastructure projects.

Reagan needed to obscure the positive things Big Government did so he could hand the economy to special interests. Remember: he was a politician (-one of the best ever). The result of Reagan's strategic distortion was that we trusted special interests with our energy future -- interests which had a financial incentive to downplay any data which suggested that the demand for oil might some day outstrip the supply by a factor which would destroy the economy. And he destroyed the alternative & conservation movements, who begged him to realize that we needed to slowly move toward less petrol-intensive systems. The result of giving energy to special interests has lead to the greatest misallocation of resources in this nation's history. While Europe and Asia were building smaller cars and high speed rail, America built gas guzzlers and massive, sprawling, big box, energy sucking suburbs. When gas prices rise, the US suffers the most because the market sold people on a way of life which included unsustainably high energy consummation. This is what happens when you let those concerned only with short term profit manage a long term public utility. They milk the cow until they have enough money to parachute into dynastic privilege. They use their financial leverage to crush competition and suppress any science which hurts their interest.

Reagan got America to mistrust government at precisely the time we needed a moonshot around creating less oil-intensive systems -- he did this so he could take care of big oil. He did this so there would be less upward pressure on taxes. [Had the progressives and liberals done likewise, modern America would not have been built] Reagan also failed to lead on energy because he didn't have the political courage to ask Americans to make sacrifices. He promised them morning in America and handed out credit cards and tax breaks. He basically asked us to go shopping while Rome burned and our energy future was handed to terrorist nations. He protected a small group of special interests and in-so-doing he dug our grave.

Make no mistake. Reagan's anti-government ideology was done to enrich the few at the expense of the future. Does this mean government is perfect. God no. Markets are far better than bureaucrats at allocating resources, but there are limits to the faith we should have in any one idol.

WoW! Just...wow!

 

[MJMavro13]

Government is the most wasteful & unproductive organization in our history. If the government had to play by the basic rules of sound finance, it would have been broke years and years ago! Tax payers and hard working American's built this nation. People with the desire and drive to do for themselves and to make their own path in life. Be it the construction laborer or the CEO.

 

[The Rabbi]

Those technologies were developed by the private sector.

Fair enough...

The Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is not in the private sector. It developed something called ARPAnet which evolved into something called the internet.

The internet was made possible partly by the government allocation of taxpayer dollars.

.

Wrong-o. The internet as we know it was made possible by the private investment and work of hundreds of companies making both hardware and software. It literally would have been impossible for gov't to build the structure we have today. We owe all that to the profit motive and Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, etc etc.

 

[8537]

The PEOPLE of this country came up with the ideas, inventions, MONEY to make it what it is.

Exactly Steph! People run government. Reagan very strategically convinced a generation of conservatives that corrupt, incompetent demons run government (not people). He did this to lower the tax and regulatory burden on the people who put him in power. Let me explain. The biggest threat to his movement was that you might figure out that actual good Americans managed the building of this country's infrastructure -- actual good people filled the government which defeated the Nazis, built the Hoover Dam, and put a man on the moon. Reagan de-emphasized the good people in Government for a very simple reason: if you trusted government -- if you focused on the positive things government did to build this country -- you might trust it to solve, say, the energy crisis, and this would raise taxes on the folks who put him in power; it would also threaten the market share of his Big Oil donors. Therefore, he created an anti-government ideology so you wouldn't give Washington the power that was given to the Big Government Progressives & Liberals who lorded over decades of economically vital infrastructure projects.

Reagan needed to obscure the positive things Big Government did so he could hand the economy to special interests. Remember: he was a politician (-one of the best ever). The result of Reagan's strategic distortion was that we trusted special interests with our energy future -- interests which had a financial incentive to downplay any data which suggested that the demand for oil might some day outstrip the supply by a factor which would destroy the economy. And he destroyed the alternative & conservation movements, who begged him to realize that we needed to slowly move toward less petrol-intensive systems. The result of giving energy to special interests has lead to the greatest misallocation of resources in this nation's history. While Europe and Asia were building smaller cars and high speed rail, America built gas guzzlers and massive, sprawling, big box, energy sucking suburbs. When gas prices rise, the US suffers the most because the market sold people on a way of life which included unsustainably high energy consummation. This is what happens when you let those concerned only with short term profit manage a long term public utility. They milk the cow until they have enough money to parachute into dynastic privilege. They use their financial leverage to crush competition and suppress any science which hurts their interest.

Reagan got America to mistrust government at precisely the time we needed a moonshot around creating less oil-intensive systems -- he did this so he could take care of big oil. He did this so there would be less upward pressure on taxes. [Had the progressives and liberals done likewise, modern America would not have been built] Reagan also failed to lead on energy because he didn't have the political courage to ask Americans to make sacrifices. He promised them morning in America and handed out credit cards and tax breaks. He basically asked us to go shopping while Rome burned and our energy future was handed to terrorist nations. He protected a small group of special interests and in-so-doing he dug our grave.

Make no mistake. Reagan's anti-government ideology was done to enrich the few at the expense of the future. Does this mean government is perfect. God no. Markets are far better than bureaucrats at allocating resources, but there are limits to the faith we should have in any one idol.

Fantastic post, Londoner.

 

[editec]

Another pointlessly misleading, steeped in ignorance, partisan bitch-festing, Hobbsian-choice thread?

EITHER government DID IT ALL or GOVERNMENT did NOTHING?

Those simplistic, child-like POVs are the positions some of you folks are trying to support or refute?

Really!?!?

You people cannot possibly be THAT stupid.

Tools or fools.

I honestly cannot figure out who is who.

But its one of the other, folks.

 

[NYcarbineer]

The system of government we have allowed the working people of this country, over time, to hold their own against the Capitalist money interests that would have happily impoverished them in perpetuity had they been able to.

That is the ultimate greatness of America and its Constitution.

 

[Truthmatters]

What would this country look like without the louisiana purchase?

What many on the right fail to see ids they have bought a package of the rewrite of history.

The silly phrase Big Government is a silly phrase they were taught by the people who succesfully manipulate then to vote against their own self interests.

It means nothing in reality but is used to train them to refuse any government progress that their owners want them to vote against.

Do they rail against giving the oil cos big subsidies?

NO

Why?

because their owners never tell them its "BIG GOVERNMENT".

Do they rail against the "Big Government" Louisiana purchase as a historical example of the things they hate?


No


Why ?

Because their owners never twll them too.

 

[editec]

The PEOPLE of this country came up with the ideas, inventions, MONEY to make it what it is.

Exactly Steph! People run government. Reagan very strategically convinced a generation of conservatives that corrupt, incompetent demons run government (not people). He did this to lower the tax and regulatory burden on the people who put him in power. Let me explain. The biggest threat to his movement was that you might figure out that actual good Americans managed the building of this country's infrastructure -- actual good people filled the government which defeated the Nazis, built the Hoover Dam, and put a man on the moon. Reagan de-emphasized the good people in Government for a very simple reason: if you trusted government -- if you focused on the positive things government did to build this country -- you might trust it to solve, say, the energy crisis, and this would raise taxes on the folks who put him in power; it would also threaten the market share of his Big Oil donors. Therefore, he created an anti-government ideology so you wouldn't give Washington the power that was given to the Big Government Progressives & Liberals who lorded over decades of economically vital infrastructure projects.

Reagan needed to obscure the positive things Big Government did so he could hand the economy to special interests. Remember: he was a politician (-one of the best ever). The result of Reagan's strategic distortion was that we trusted special interests with our energy future -- interests which had a financial incentive to downplay any data which suggested that the demand for oil might some day outstrip the supply by a factor which would destroy the economy. And he destroyed the alternative & conservation movements, who begged him to realize that we needed to slowly move toward less petrol-intensive systems. The result of giving energy to special interests has lead to the greatest misallocation of resources in this nation's history. While Europe and Asia were building smaller cars and high speed rail, America built gas guzzlers and massive, sprawling, big box, energy sucking suburbs. When gas prices rise, the US suffers the most because the market sold people on a way of life which included unsustainably high energy consummation. This is what happens when you let those concerned only with short term profit manage a long term public utility. They milk the cow until they have enough money to parachute into dynastic privilege. They use their financial leverage to crush competition and suppress any science which hurts their interest.

Reagan got America to mistrust government at precisely the time we needed a moonshot around creating less oil-intensive systems -- he did this so he could take care of big oil. He did this so there would be less upward pressure on taxes. [Had the progressives and liberals done likewise, modern America would not have been built] Reagan also failed to lead on energy because he didn't have the political courage to ask Americans to make sacrifices. He promised them morning in America and handed out credit cards and tax breaks. He basically asked us to go shopping while Rome burned and our energy future was handed to terrorist nations. He protected a small group of special interests and in-so-doing he dug our grave.

Make no mistake. Reagan's anti-government ideology was done to enrich the few at the expense of the future. Does this mean government is perfect. God no. Markets are far better than bureaucrats at allocating resources, but there are limits to the faith we should have in any one idol.

WoW! Just...wow!

Agreed.

Nicely done, Londoner.

 

[KissMy]

A government competing with private sector is the best. Not a government that creates unfair laws monopolizing or controlling an industry or segment. Free market competition defeats communism & socialism every time.

 

[Truthmatters]

Great idea,

Lets do the public option so the government has to compete with private insurance.