The reason these extremely rich people want a smaller government is not for the benefit of the American people. Rather than depend on the government that at least has some common rules, they wish for us to depend on them with only rules of their own making.
It's time we started bending our government to our wishes, and we can only do that by voting.
The truth is that nothing the Koch brothers want in the form of a government would be good for anyone except themselves and other extremely rich people.
Rich people can pay for whatever they want, including good roads, good schools, good food, clean water, private transportation, private hospitals, private security. The rest of us won’t get any of that without the best government our taxes can afford.
While no one is happy about paying taxes, the fact is that our taxes pay for the things that keep our society civil and our lives livable. Where taxes have been cut, children are suffering from shrinking and closing schools. Public health clinics are closing, roads are falling into ruin. Boat docks and bridges and sidewalks and libraries are being allowed to fail until everybody just gets used to it and stops complaining.
All of our first responders; the paramedics training and equipment is dependent on our taxes. Our military personnel and their families depend on our taxes. Police and firefighters depend on our taxes.
The regulations the Kochs and others want to end are in place to protect American citizens. Our food supply, our water supply, our pharmaceuticals, our cars, airplanes, trains, buses, subway systems, the air we breathe, the schools we send our children to. Without government regulations we can’t depend on any of it. Profits will trump safety every time.
Lifting or ending the regulations they don’t like will make them richer and more powerful than anyone else in our country and probably many other countries as well. It won’t help anyone who isn’t already rich. (I’ll refer you to Elizabeth Warren on the subject of banking regulations!)
Frankly, if you can’t afford to build a widget without polluting someone’s water, you shouldn’t be building widgets. And, if you can’t hire someone at a decent wage with benefits, you shouldn’t be hiring anyone at all. Period.
By keeping the minimum wage as low as possible, they keep people dependent on the corporations who hire them. Leaving one job for another is pointless if they all pay crappy wages.
By weakening occupational health and safety regulations, they save more money and only loose people who can be easily replaced.
By keeping workers from getting their own health care, they keep those workers dependent on the companies who hire them. The company will decide what, if any benefits to allow their workers.
By keeping public education at low standards, and turning the public against teachers, they keep the workforce too ignorant to get anywhere except spinning in place, working from check to check.
The people who can pay for what they believe is a better education, will simple increase the profit of other corporations and likely get them a good deal of economic propaganda along with twisted history and fake science.
The reason these extremely rich people want a smaller government is not for the benefit of the American people. Rather than depend on the government that at least has some common rules, they wish for us to depend on them with only rules of their own making.
Isn’t that what is already happening in Kansas? In Wisconsin? In Michigan? And so on and so forth…
No matter who gets voted into office, the governors only dance to the music of the Koch’s and other megalomaniacs.
And we just shake our heads when we should be shaking in our boots.