The Empire 434

Our Common Purpose
by: Pat Williams, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

For almost fifty years, we Americans held common purpose with our government. From the early 1930's and Franklin D. Roosevelt through seven presidents, people believed that aggressive government made a positive difference in their lives. That belief was shared by both Republican and Democratic administrations. Eisenhower created the massive, job-producing interstate highway system; Nixon enacted vigorous federal wage and price controls to slow near-rampant inflation, encouraged the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and clean air and water; Ford, in his shortened term, vigorously negotiated the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty - SALT II. Under Democratic Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and Carter, Americans embraced federal efforts from The New Deal through The New Frontier. Those efforts, astonishing in their boldness and success, created the American middle class, held the Wall Street money changers at bay, spread freedom around the world, and vastly improved educational attainment for our citizens.

However, during the past twenty-eight years, Americans have found themselves oddly separated from their own government. We have become timid about the uses of government. Beginning on January 21, 1981, when, in his inaugural address, President Reagan assured us the government was the problem, we began to doubt and later distrust government. Both Democrats and Republicans began to both campaign against and belittle the very government they led. Even while trying to appropriately expand the government's efforts to improve our lives, President Clinton cleverly but falsely assured a joint session of the US Congress that "the era of big government is over."

From Reagan through both Presidents Bush, the federal government has refused to keep pace with our nation's growing domestic needs, and for a time that drift was supported by a majority of our citizens. The results are now obvious: crumbling infrastructure, including collapsing bridges; an antiquated railroad system; dangerous sewer systems; lack of health care coverage; levies and dikes that can't contain either the spring runoff of our rivers or the fury of hurricanes. And, as is now so tragically obvious, our federal government quietly watched as unregulated Wall Street and corrupt money managers ran amuck.
Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/040709N?print