By Edwin Cooney
As I compose this musing, 35 days have passed since the federal government shut down. Even in the wake of all the financial and emotional tragedy due to the political impasse, what primarily dominates the news and commentaries is whether Congress (specifically the Democrats) or President Trump is to blame for this national debacle. From the standpoint of cause and effect, both are to blame. However, blame — tempting as it may be — is pointless, unless all of us in one way or another accept responsibility and search for a solution to this ongoing and nearly annual kerfuffle.
(WAIT! Guess what? As I write this, it is over, over for at least three weeks! Even more spectacular, the “shutdown” has been shut down with no change in either the circumstances or conditions between the President and Congress. Wow!)
The heart of the shutdown epidemic is self-centered ideological willfulness. There have been a total of 21 federal government shutdowns going back to President Gerald Ford in 1976. The vast majority have been mercifully of short duration. Two of the last four shutdowns were against Bill Clinton (November 14th through 18th 1995 and December 15th 1995 through January 5th 1996). The next shutdown, January 1st through 17th, 2013 was due to a disagreement over Obamacare. This most recent government shutdown lasted 35 days.
They all have one thing in common and, until the public recognizes and deals with that common cause once and for all, it will continue to rear its ugly head. There is a myth out there that insists that we, the free people of the United States, just don’t need government except to ensure our national security. The conservative wing of the GOP (to which I once belonged) openly and proudly boasts its contempt for government. Government means power and they insist that “power corrupts.” Specifically, they go on to quote Lord Acton, a Nineteenth Century British Baron, who wrote in 1887 “…power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men…” (As an aside, here are two observations: Lord Acton was a Baron and thus a pretty well-heeled and comfortable nobleman, and I’m guessing that somehow “bad great men” does not include men like Bob Taft, Barry Goldwater, Everett Dirksen, Ronald Reagan or perhaps even a Bush or two! It can’t include Mr. Trump because he’s no conservative.)
However, there are several ironies here. First, once any man or woman takes the oath of federal office, they instantly become part of the government against which they’ve usually campaigned.
Second, if they refuse to sustain the legal functions of government without first changing the law, they violate their oath of office.
Third, history clearly demonstrates that government grew in the early Twentieth Century under Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson because “free enterprise” (which I insist once again has never been free) up to that time had failed to care for the well-being of its workers or even their customers and the communities in which they lived. Had free enterprise invested sufficiently in the well-being of both its workers and its customers late in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, there would have been no (or at least very little) need for government.
Fourth, the current government shutdown reflects Republican ideology more than it reflects modern Democratic doctrine.
Fifth and finally, since the current crisis through which we’ve just passed marks the fourth time since 1995 that a Republican Congress has voted to shut down the government it despises, it is time to take notice and call in the chips. This time we’re being taught a lesson we will forget only at our own peril. The idea that we don’t need government is downright silly. Too many workers aren’t getting paid. Too many services we legitimately rely on aren’t being carried out. After all, is it too much to expect the government to forecast the weather, inspect the quality of our food and medicine, control the quality and safety of our air travel, and even pay private contractors for their legitimate services that enable these functions to be carried out?
Even worse, there exists among this cadre of largely successful Americans a list of suspicions and resentments which inevitably fuels these periodic national political temper tantrums.
Insofar as I’m aware, none of these political temper tantrums have saved you or me a dollar or made America safer. Nor have they been in any way a gateway to a sense of national contentment.
As for President Trump’s wall, as far as I’m concerned, since he promised it to us, let him find the resources to pay for it without the support of Congress. (Note: maybe he can get a newly constituted Brazil or Venezuela to pay for it. My guess is that Mexico just won’t accommodate President Trump! Hmmm, I wonder why?)
There have been many walls in history that we have traditionally abhorred (such as The Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall, and especially the Berlin Wall). What I will never understand is what walls have to do with a healthy democracy.
As for the Trump Wall, how can that be in the best American tradition? “Go figure” with me, please!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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