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Government is Not the Problem. Bad Government is the Problem

Steve Roth | January 4, 2024 6:32 am

Politics

Having gone from trump to Biden. a person who I thought would never make a good president makes Steve’s argument on Bad Government being the problem when trump was the president.

Asymptosis » Government is Not the Problem. Bad Government is the Problem, Steve Roth.

And the solution to bad government is … good government.

A lot of people — maybe even most Americans — think that making government smaller will make it better.

But that reminds of the time when I was little kid that I got in trouble for pouring water out of a glass down a heat register in our house.

Why down a heat register? I can only say that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Why was I pouring water out of a glass? Because the water was warm, and I wanted cold water. I figured I could pour the hot part out. What can I say? The logic of children.

With the experience, wisdom, and sagacity of age, I’ve realized why that wouldn’t work. It’s like blood-letting, right? If you drain off the bad blood, you’ll get better!

For the last forty or so years, the Republicans have been engaged in the political (and intellectual) equivalent of blood-letting.

Contrary to what the sainted President Reagan said, government is not the problem. Bad government is the problem.

The solution to bad government is not small government, but good government.

Pass it on.

4 Comments

Ten Bears says:

January 4, 2024 at 6:59 am

Not headlined, or even sub-head or foot-lined, but second line in today’s meat of the matter, right after (paired with?) first line “Reagan’s A Nation at Risk was a Hit Job … “

Nice timing, thank you, all I needed was one more link …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

January 4, 2024 at 9:22 am

The Jan. 6 Riot Inquiry So Far: Three Years, Hundreds of Prison Sentences

NY Times – just in

Nearly three years after a mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in support of former President Donald J. Trump, the criminal investigation into the events of that day pushes on.

Prosecutors have called the riot inquiry the largest in the history of the Justice Department, and there is no doubt it is vast by any measure. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  January 4, 2024 at 9:26 am
  
  … While some of the cases have attracted nationwide attention, particularly those involving far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia, most of the prosecutions have flown beneath the radar, unfolding in quiet hearings often attended only by the defendants and their families. These proceedings have helped to flesh out the story of how an angry crowd of Mr. Trump’s supporters, egged on by his lies about a stolen election, stopped the democratic process, if only for several hours.
  
  The bulk of the riot cases, more than 710, were resolved without trial through guilty pleas. As of the Justice Department’s latest update in December, about 170 people have gone to trial in Federal District Court in Washington, in front of either a jury or just a judge, with a vast majority resulting in convictions.
  
  As for punishment, more than 450 people have been sent to jail or prison, with the longest term so far being the 22-year sentence imposed on Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys. Several people who were not associated with extremist groups but who assaulted the police in what officers have described as a “medieval” battle outside the Capitol have been sentenced to a decade or more behind bars. …
  
  … About 450 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers at the Capitol, and about 330 have been accused of obstruction of the certification of the election that was taking place inside the building on Jan. 6. But the Supreme Court recently announced that it was going to review the obstruction charge to see if it should apply to the Capitol attack. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

January 5, 2024 at 5:15 pm

President Biden lambastes Trump for Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a day ‘we nearly lost America’

Boston Globe – just in

AP – President Biden on Friday delivered a ferocious condemnation of Donald J. Trump, his likely 2024 opponent, warning in searing language that the former president had directed an insurrection and would aim to undo the nation’s bedrock democracy if he returns to power.

On the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters, Mr. Biden framed the 2024 election as a choice between a candidate devoted to upholding America’s centuries-old ideals and a chaos agent willing to discard them for his personal benefit.

The speech, the president’s first political event of the election year, was intended to clarify the expected choice for voters this fall. Biden, who reentered political life because he felt he was best capable of defeating Trump in 2020, believes focusing on defending democracy to be central for persuading voters to reject Trump once again.

“We all know who Donald Trump is,” Biden said. “The question we have to answer is who are we?”

Biden laid out Trump’s role in the Capitol attack, as a mob of the Republican’s supporters overran the building while lawmakers were counting Electoral College votes that certified Democrat Biden’s win. More than 100 police officers were bloodied, beaten and attacked by the rioters who overwhelmed authorities to break into the building. …