If you’re a politician who has run on the agenda that bigger government doesn’t work … it does not benefit you politically to have a successful government. If you say that “big government programs” don’t work and your opponent points to Medicare or Social Security or food stamps or the VA or any other government program and it’s a success – it undercuts your position. Simply put – people wouldn’t find you credible. What we’re seeing since at least the mid 90′s is this notion that government is a failure and thus must be smaller.
Do we want a laissez-faire economic environment where corporations can manipulate pricing and banks can do whatever they want without fear of regulation? Do we want Wall Street to be able to speculate on oil and other commodities driving up the cost of food and gas by at least 25%? Do we want the FDA to regulate what drugs go on to the market before pharmaceutical companies start to sell their drugs to customers? Do we want the SEC investigating insider trading and ponzi schemes? Do we want the FBI protecting Americans from child pornographers and sex traffickers?
So – when it comes to passing a law that will allow for more regulation of Wall Street … those “conservatives” just block funding for those regulators. When regulators screw up – they can happily point to their original agenda that government doesn’t work. Unfortunately – this also has an impact on how the PEOPLE feel about what government can do. If you hear the same message over and over – you start to believe it. And now – you have an echo chamber on Fox “News” just regurgitating the same trash over and over and over until it becomes truthy enough. The Economix blog at NY Times uses the post office as an example and draws a larger picture.
We’ve written about this before in “Congress wont’ let the post office be successful“
Economix points out the challenge the U.S. Post Office has HERE:
The Postal Service is in a similar, and perhaps instructive, position. Already the agency has become something of a symbol of government incompetence and inefficiency.
The agency is supposed to be self-sustaining, but its costs have outweighed its revenue for several years now. The Postal Service’s most obvious challenge has been the proliferation of e-mail, which greatly reduced demand for mail services but not the expensive infrastructure required to maintain a nationwide postal system. It also has significant pension and retiree health care liabilities.
But perhaps equally damaging is the fact that agency funds are hamstrung by Congress.
In this case, the funds aren’t coming directly from taxpayers, but from consumers and business customers. Congress has not allowed the Postal Service to make some of the decisions that would help it collect more revenue from customers, such as providing more diversified services, like insurance or banking, as its Japanese counterpart does; or raising prices, since postage rates cannot go up faster than the overall Consumer Price Index. (The Postal Service also has not received permission from Congress to cut costs, such as by eliminating Saturday mail delivery.)
