To hear Republicans talk about it, the Government's just a budget, just a set of statistics. All they say nowadays is "Cut Spending!" "Cut Taxes!" Everything revolves around the fiscal picture.
They don't even have the decency to keep that straight. Take Rep. Ryan's roadmap seriously, and you won't see a balanced budget for decades, and we'll add trillions of dollars of debt in the meantime. This is important to emphasize, I think, because the republicans are emphasizing the cost side of government relentlessly, but totally ignoring the benefit. They talk about running government like a corporation, but if you run a corporation like this, you'll go bankrupt before long.
If we are going bankrupt in this country, it's because the Republican hatred for Government and paying for it leaves them utterly unwilling to do what it takes both to balance budgets over the long term, and to invest in our economy, so we have enough prosperity to pay down our debts with.
Money isn't everything, but it's not nothing at all. But what it means, what it's value is depends on what's done with it. Republicans have encouraged a vision of Government as something separate from the people, of taxes as a burden that must be done away with, and of spending as a parasitic leaching of American economic resources, a terrible legacy to be imposed on our children.
Many are criticizing the President's SOTU address on this site on the basis of it's very centrist, very compromising spirit. I can understand the frustration and the concern. I don't agree entirely with the critiques, though. I believe Obama had to be a centrist yesterday, because the center is where the real competition is, and it's a center that's been long dominated by the GOP's policies. If our aim is to change that state of affairs, we have to recalibrate the politics of how people approach their government. The Republican Party wants us to see our government strictly as a liability to be minimized.
We have to present it as something else entirely, and the President did exactly what he was supposed to do there last night.
He used the term investment. People are familiar with that term, with the concept. You spend money to make money. Rather than just view government spending as a cost to be born, the use of the term investment connotes getting something in return. It gets people thinking, what do I get in return for this spending, rather than just what you're losing in taxes, and in the debt imposed on your children.
It also gets people thinking about quality. Republicans feed on a sense of pessimism about government, a can't-do attitude if you will. Government will screw everything up, they essentially say. Well, if something won't go right, if it's just a necessary evil, you won't care so much what gets done, or how well it works, since you're already assuming the worst, and assuming it can't get much better.
But if it's an investment, a matter of getting something back, that changes the conversation. With an investment, you work to optimize your returns, rather than remaining in a constant state of damage control. Investment also invites stewardship and involvement. When you have something at stake, you keep yourself apprised of your interests, watchful and vigilant regarding your return on investment.
In summary, the Republican approach of liability and damage control encourages passivity, disinterest and beancounting, while the Democrat's approach of investment encourages involvement, vigilance, and a mentality of rational cost/benefit analysis.
He talked about reforming government not in terms of the indefinite notion of small government, but in the more solid terms of minimizing redundancy, raising efficiency, and getting better results. This is important, because the Republicans will try to slash things, and Obama needs something to make that sort of indiscriminate cost-cutting a political liability. If he can make the case that less government is not better government, he can get the public on his side in defending good government.
Money isn't everything, but it is something, but it's only something to the extend that it helps get things done. It's no coincidence that Republican Policy has lead to economic torpor. It's basically about keeping money in places, rather than moving it around, letting it percolate through all levels of the economy. With Republicans, essentially the dollar does less, goes fewer places. This is why the economy does better under Democrats than under Republicans, because the basic mentality of the Republican is that the wealth of this nation should be handled in ways that make it only of value to a few, while the rest have to squeeze what value they can out of what little they have.
This economy, by it's nature, is strained, and everybody knows it. The Republican's approach to this is to distract people into thinking that it's Government taking their money, slowing down the economy, discouraging investments.
It's important that when we discuss these issues with folks not of our party that we make it clear what the real "uncertainties" in our economy are, who the real horders of wealth are. Put simply, we need to change the narrative, and fight to keep it right, rather than simply hope that people will naturally see who they are getting screwed by.
We can't win if we merely put ourselves on defensive, defending liberalism and progressivism with the old, already accounted for arguments. We can only win if we convince the center to take a point of view that corresponds and connects more cleanly to our philosophy of government, if we convince people to think of government spending as an investment, and not merely a cost without benefits.