THE WHEEL OF GOVERNMENT

THE WHEEL OF GOVERNMENT

                For years conservatives have been trying to make government smaller and liberals have been trying to make it bigger. Unfortunately, even when conservatives have been in charge, generally government has gotten bigger, just not as fast. Typically we’ve spent more than we’ve taken in and our national debt has continued to spiral out of control under both types of government. What gives? Well one of the basic problems is that our form of government requires compromise in order to work properly. Usually neither party has a large enough majority in the house and senate and control of the presidency so it cannot just pass any law it wants to without help from the other party. Even when it can, the other party just comes into power next and reverses everything it doesn’t like. Thus nothing can happen without compromise. This should be apparent from the stalemate over increasing the debt limit that started last year. Compromise was missing and nothing happened. Of course compromise often prevents one side or the other from getting its way, and as a result things, from our standpoint, continue to spiral out of control.

                Additionally, government is like a huge, heavy wheel which has been turning for a long time. We can slow it down a little, speed it up a little or change direction a little, but there is so much inertia, nothing can happen quickly or we risk the wheel going out of control, running over things and people and generally ruining the economy and the nation. It might even break into pieces and not be recoverable. We seem to be in the midst of this happening right now, witness the downgrading of our national credit rating last year and the risk of it again happening this year.

                So, if we don’t want to risk breaking the wheel, but we’re tired of the direction we’re headed in, what can we do? Is there no hope for reducing the size of government, reducing taxes and eliminating the national debt on a permanent basis? There is hope, but it requires creative thinking and a win-win compromise attitude. 80% of federal spending is in 4 areas, Social Security, Medicare/health, defense and welfare. These four areas need reworking over the long term in order to reduce the size of government. We also need to be careful about adding new programs of course. Below, I present an idea in the area of welfare. We need people outside of government to come up with new ideas which can appeal to both sides in all four of these areas.

                What of the poor? Most conservatives are also religious and God has told us that if we neglect the poor, we will pay for it in the next life. The poor will always be with us and we must take care of them. Conservatives typically donate a larger percentage of their incomes to charity than liberals. Liberals seem to believe that it is better for the government to take care of the poor, hence take from the rich and give to the poor, redistribute income, socialism, whatever you care to label it. Government has some responsibility in this area, so it may be partially all right, but it wouldn’t be necessary if more people voluntarily gave and there was a better way to distribute the funds than the way we do it now. What if churches and community organizations with unpaid, volunteer workers took over care of the poor? Or what if private “help the poor” organizations were encouraged to do it, instead of the government agencies that handle it so inefficiently now.

 Conservatives and liberals could both contribute to these organizations and receive tax incentives for doing so. Perhaps these incentives could be set up so a wealthy person could get a $1.5 million deduction for a $1 million contribution, or a tax credit of 50% of the contribution. Governments could fill in the holes or move money between organizations if local contributions were not enough. The helping would be done at the community level, instead of the state/national level, where the organizations would be able to detect fraud more easily and could help the poor find jobs. The poor could be asked, where possible, to give back time and work to the community organization or church or private company that was helping them, or even to other people in need.

New ideas could be gathered for all four areas of high cost. From an engineering standpoint, if someone provided the specifications, like must appeal to both parties, must not affect the people presently using the system, must cost no more than X dollars, etc. engineers and others could solve for the best system. This is of course oversimplified, but you get the idea. Politicians don’t seem to have the capability and courage required to solve these kinds of problems. If you have an idea for a compromise solution which would reduce the level of government involvement in one of these four areas, please Email it to me at egrubbs121@gmail.com, or put it in a comment or post it yourself to this website. Maybe we can get some of the politicians to listen to our ideas!

Elmer Grubbs

A semi-rational conservative