Dr. Forbush Thinks

One myth propagated by the right is that there is this thing called “government waste.” I say that this is a myth because this idea is never demonstrated. The right throws this idea into the air and expects everyone to salute it. But, where is the “government waste?”

Well, the California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger ran a campaign on platitudes like, “I will destroy government waste!” During one famous speech he blew up a pile of boxes after making this statement. Of course during his campaign he refused to point to any specific form of “government waste,” but he continued to recite the same platitudes at every speech. During one debate Arnold was asked specifically how he would eliminate “government waste.” His response was to have “experts” come in and go over the books.

Arnold was able to win the election even without giving any examples of “government waste” or any other details on his plans to govern the state of California. People thought that he would blow a big hole in “government waste” and California would be saved. So, he called the Republican leaders and asked them for help. Perhaps Arnold himself had been swindled into thinking that there was government waste to be found. The Republican leadership told him to hire a brilliant accountant from Jeb Bush’s staff to go over the books in California. Arnold did as he was told and remarkably no significant “government waste” was found. The big news was that two people seemed to be doing very similar jobs and perhaps the jobs could be reduced to one job. Obviously an accountant could go into many Fortune 500 companies and “go over the books” and find a couple of jobs where the work was being duplicated. Most companies are not 100% efficient.

But, the bigger question is: Where is the “government waste?”

If I were to venture a guess, I would suggest that the “government waste” is the money that politicians spend to distort the truth. The marketing campaigns that are used to tell the American people that there is “government waste” is a prime example. How much money is being spent on these lies that end up getting into the American psyche to such an extent that people expect the “government waste” to not only exist, but they will vote for the fool that claims he can get rid of it.

But, there really is more government waste. For example, sending 160,000 American soldiers to the Middle East to sit in the desert without any benefit to the American people would be one such waste. Spending money on munitions to kill 30,000 Iraqi civilians is another waste of money. Paying companies like Haliburton millions of dollars for military contracts in a place that we shouldn’t even be is even more of a waste. In fact, the entire Iraq War is a government waste without any benefit to the American people. The only benefit that the Bush administration claims now is that we are creating a democracy in Iraq, and even the success of that is beginning to look doubtful.

The Republican Party used to believe that the government was an investment. You pay your taxes and the collected effort resulted in infrastructure that benefited the entire country. The return on investment could be seen in the improved efficiency of businesses. As time went on the infrastructures were taken for granted and the upkeep of the infrastructure was no longer considered and investment. In fact, the taxes spent on the upkeep of the infrastructure began to look like a burden to many. The right began to look for excuses to stop paying for the infrastructure that had made them wealthy. They created the idea of “privatization,” which would magically make infrastructure “profitable.” Unfortunately these people have lost sight of the purpose of infrastructure, which is to make use of collected resources to make everyone benefit.

To some the government’s involvement in the building of the infrastructure in our country is considered “government waste.” After all, can’t parents just take responsibility and educate their own children? Why should the government be involved? If a man wants a road, why can’t he just build it? We don’t need a military, if we have a well-armed militia. Why are we wasting so much money on these things? If the government just let us keep our own money I could buy guns for my wife and kids and we could protect ourselves from the evil that lurks beyond our yard. If you support the less government mentality then this trajectory leads us to a brave new world that looks a lot like the Middle Ages. Of course some people really like the Middle Ages and they really would want to live there. Most of us however, only want to visit the Middle Ages when we go to the Renaissance Faire on a weekend once a year.