For about the past 40 years, the conservative right-wing of America has been railing against the size of government, claiming that there are far too many bureaucrats who do little to nothing of any value, and they have argued incessantly about cutting the size of government, including eliminating the Departments of Energy and Education and cutting all other agencies except the Defense Department across the board. This ethos got its rallying cry in 1980, when then-GOP presidential candidate Ronald Reagan famously said, "Government isn't the solution to our problems; government is the problem."
The conservative movement has used this statement as a mantra to implement their supply-side economic and social polices over the last 30 years, yet during that same time, every time they have been in power in the White House or Congress, they have increased the size of government. Sure, they have tried to cut some government programs in the name of privatization, but they have failed to do this every time, mostly because these government programs they claim are wasteful and unnecessary are in fact actually quite useful and efficient.
One of the things that irritate me the most about the conservative rallying cry against government is the claim that its wasteful and uses financial resources which should be put to better use elsewhere. While I agree with part of that statement, as in the number of subsidies given to big oil, polluting coal companies, mega-agribusiness concerns, defense contractors and Wall Street, they aren't the people who conservatives target as wasteful. Instead, they go after the poor, the elderly, teachers, and other civil servants working in road construction, sanitation, and in the many lower-paid government positions dealing with Social Security, Medicare, welfare, and food stamps. Conservatives have railed against the working class and working poor, claiming that they are lazy, uneducated and shiftless. They have also railed against teachers and placed the blame for our failing education system on their shoulders, even though they have done more damage to our children by defunding school programs and taking tax money away from school districts and reusing the funds for other projects.
Conservatives also rail against rebuilding our infrastructure and revitalizing our inner cities, unless of course it means they can build some new gated community monstrosity somewhere out in the boonies with a huge big box strip mall shopping complex and eight lane superhighways. They refuse to allow any additional tax money to go towards public transportation or fixing crumbing bridges, yet they have the gall to complain about how bad out highways and public transportation systems are when there is a major storm which knocks out power or blocks highways.
And when they try to have it both ways on jobs and immigration, railing against illegal immigrants for taking jobs away from working Americans, they have no issues moving jobs away from Americans and outsourcing them to China, India, or some other third world country where they can get cheap labor. And while conservatives claim the working class and working poor don't pay their fair share of taxes, the major corporations and hedge funds they represent actively look to establish accounts in tax haven countries in the Caribbean and the south Pacific in order to evade paying their own taxes. And that's on top of all the subsidies they are receiving from the government.
Conservatives have been declaring war on government for the past 30 years, yet when they nearly drove the global economy into the abyss, they were the first people begging for the government to come in and save them. Yet when the government came in to save the auto industry and working Americans, they had the gall to rail against government, crying socialism along the way. And while the federal deficit has gone up, they insist on cutting government spending yet aren't willing to pay their fair share of taxes or give up their tax breaks.
This mantra against government has devolved into lunacy, with a bunch of Tea Party protesters shouting vehemently against government spending, even as most of those protesters are currently receiving government benefits. Yet if these Tea Party protesters were actually successful in cutting these programs, most of them would not only become much worse off financially, they would become destitute.
But the hypocrisy doesn't end there. Many of these same conservatives who railed against government intervention during the passing of the stimulus package and the health care bill are rushing to take credit for the very same programs they voted against. Mostly because these politicians are quite shameless, but also because these programs are popular and work quite well, in spite of their rhetoric.
So the next time some conservative comes up to you complaining about how government doesn't do anything useful, ask that person if he would like to give up his Social Security benefits, his Medicare benefits, or whether we should just get rid of the police and fir departments, or all of the waste management workers who haul away our garbage or sanitation workers who make sure we have clean drinking water. Then maybe he or she will realize our government is quite useful after all.