Elon Musk and Libertarians Are Lying, U.S. Government Isn't Too Big: Thom Hartmann 🇺🇸
March 1, 2025, Common Dreams. Edited.
The U.S. government is too big. It's too small. For decades, American political discourse has been dominated by the idea that "big government" is a problem. But this fundamental assumption is wrong. They’re lying to us again. The American government isn’t too big or too bloated: it’s too small. And the result of it being too small is a steady erosion of Americans’ freedom over the past 44 years.
As Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his March, 1933 inaugural address:
“A necessitous man is not a free man.”
And here's what that means:
If you or your children are sick but afraid to go to the hospital because you know the bills will leave you broke and homeless, you’re not free.
If you need to go to college or trade school to get a better life but can’t afford it, you’re not free. If you’re hungry and can’t buy food for your family, you’re not free. If you can’t afford housing and have to live in a tent on the street or constantly one step ahead of eviction, you’re not free. If you’re afraid every day that your child may not come home from school because Republicans have saturated the nation with deadly weapons, you’re not free. If you’re old, broken but still having to work because you can’t live on Social Security, you’re not free. If your bank & insurance company are ripping you off and you have no recourse, you’re not free.
If your voice and vote are drowned out because billionaires, AIPAC, and giant corporations are pouring cash into elections, you’re not free. If your boss refuses to let you and your fellow workers unionize and punishes you for demanding better wages, working conditions, and benefits you’re not free. These are all things, including safety from gun violence, that are traditionally provided by “big government.” And the governments of most every other advanced democracy in the world do provide these things to their people. But not America, because our government is too small. Today’s U.S. government is simply too small relative to GDP to provide the level of public services that other advanced democracies offer their citizens.
And it’s been shrinking steadily ever since the Reagan Revolution took an axe to federal programs to pay for his tax cuts for billionaires. The year the Gipper was inaugurated, federal workers made up 2.6% of the total U.S. workforce; today’s they’re 0.87% of all American workers. Too small.
Our population has grown steadily, while - as a result of repeated Republican austerity cuts to the federal workforce over 4 GOP administrations - the number of people who keep us safe and guarantee a middle class lifestyle has shrunk.
That’s why it takes forever to get ahold of anybody at Social Security, the IRS, or Medicare to answer a question or help out.. It’s why polluters skate while Americans in cancer alleys and toxic dump areas die. It’s why we have tent cities along our streets and highways. It’s why drug and insurance companies rip us off daily. It’s why employers like Bezos, Trump, and Musk get away with denying their workers union representation. The simple reality is that the only way to have a strong, vibrant middle class is to have a strong, activist federal government. And without a strong, vibrant middle class you don’t have a free nation. For decades, American political discourse has been dominated by the idea that “big government” is a problem. From Reagan’s famous quip that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” to today’s Musk- and GOP-led efforts to slash government spending, Americans have been conditioned by the rightwing media machine to view a larger government as an inherent threat to liberty and prosperity. But this fundamental assumption is wrong...
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https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/libertarians-are-lying