Good or bad government?

The Covid-19 public health crisis has laid bare many interconnected problems in our country, including the glaring inadequacies and unfairness of our overly complicated, expensive healthcare system, a growing number of people in poverty, especially in communities of color, increased domestic abuse and gun violence, and highly flawed policing systems across the country. On top of this bleak picture, we have the fear and anxiety that a dysfunctional government has created—fear and anxiety that also affect people’s health.

Since the days of Ronald Reagan, the GOP has bought into the mantra “government is the problem.” Newt Gingrich, and then the “Tea Party,” seized upon this view, calling for the downsizing and defunding of government, and lower taxes.

Nobel prize winning economist, writer, and political commentator Paul Krugman has called out the problem with this point of view. In his words, “A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government.” Gerrymandering began to flourish, the balance of power in Congress and state governments was destroyed, with the GOP gaining majority rule, and political extremism took an upper hand. But the Trump administration probably has done more than any past administration to turn Krugman’s prophecy into reality. It has slashed budgets of agencies (making them ineffective), put people in charge of agencies who want to destroy them, done away with regulations that protect the American people and our climate, and doggedly pursued the abolition of the Affordable Care Act, which would leave millions more people without healthcare. And the second pandemic relief package remains stalled for another month. This is bad government indeed.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Krugman adds. For starters, we need to restore a balanced government by voting in more Democrats at every level. With a unified Democratic Party under the Biden/Harris ticket, and down-ballot Democratic candidates (like Todd Rowley for Congress and Rich Sterner for State Senator) who believe in healthcare as a human right, ending racial and economic injustice, and protecting all people and their environment, we could have a better America down the road. But everything depends on high voter turnout. If you believe that the role of government is to enable all its citizens to live healthy and productive lives, vote for Democrats in this election, up and down the ballot, for this is what the Democratic Party stands for.

Jeanne Duffy,
Gettysburg