Of course, the reality of very successful government programs is what really turns the Conservatives livid.
Attacking Programs that Work
Conservatives are not only in denial about the impressive record of government policy successes, they have actually attacked many of the programs responsible for these achievements. As detailed in other articles, anti-government forces have been systematically trying to tear down social programs and rollback regulations. Many of the successful programs mentioned earlier have already been undermined. When Republicans were in control of Congress, they cut back spending for vital infrastructure facilities, lessened enforcement of clean air laws, cut spending for basic scientific research, weakened consumer protection regulations, and cut back on student financial aid.
Particularly troublesome were efforts to undermine Social Security, a successful program that is fully solvent for at least several more decades. Conservatives tried to institute a privatization plan that would have allowed some of the money that goes toward Social Security to be invested by individuals themselves in the stock and bond markets. They claimed this was necessary because the program was fiscally unstable in the long run. But their privatization plan would have done nothing to address that problem. Besides, many economists and government analysts have pointed out that the problems facing this program are decades in the future and can be fixed with quite modest reforms.12 More importantly, the Republican plan would have had several detrimental effects. The government would have had to borrow at least a trillion dollars to fund this scheme, greatly increasing public debt, which is already soaring. It also would have cost workers a great deal more in the commissions and fees they would have to pay to brokers and mutual fund companies – amounting to billions of dollars that would have been skimmed off the top of the retirement system. Finally, and most importantly, this privatization plan would have put workers' savings much more at risk in volatile financial markets. When the stock market plunged in 2008, many retirees who saw their IRAs melting away were very glad to still have the stable income coming from Social Security.
What the Right Really Hates: Successful Programs
Such vociferous attacks on successful government programs like Social Security reveal one of the dirty little secrets of anti-government conservatives and libertarians: they hate successful government programs even more than unsuccessful ones. Government programs that work contradict the conservatives’ contention that government is bad and always screws things up. Worse, successful programs may actually encourage people to view the government and their taxes in a more positive light. So it is the very success of a program like Social Security that invites attack by conservatives. As Paul Krugman has explained, government haters “are not sincerely concerned about the possibility that the system will someday fail; they’re disturbed by the system’s historic successes. For Social Security is a government program that works, a demonstration that a modest amount of taxing and spending can make people’s lives better and more secure. And that’s why the right wants to destroy it.”13
Some of this same perverted political logic was at work in the defeat of Clinton’s universal health plan in the early 1990s. Some conservatives opposed it because they thought it was too expensive and wouldn’t work. But others opposed it precisely because they were afraid it would work. As Grover Norquist has explained, many on the right feared that if the plan passed, it would be a big step down the road toward a more generous government on the European model. They were afraid this would generate much more public support of government and much less support for Republicans who wanted to reduce government. In Norquist’s words, the conservative opponents were motivated by “sheer terror of Clinton's health care plan. The goal was to stop the government seizure of the health care industry. Had the Democrats taken over health care, I think we would have become a social democracy and we could have never undone it. We wouldn't have won in '94 ...”14
Government is Good - The Forgotten Achievements of Government
