Editorials/Opinion

    Letter to The Editor: Small government is a “false idol”

    1 Comment
    Letter to The Editor

    By Terry Hansen, Hales Corners WI

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    Letter to The EditorA common criticism of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda has been from the perspective of limiting the size of government.  The best response I’ve seen to this position is from Brink Lindsey, Vice President of the Niskanen Center, in his thought-provoking essay, “What the Pandemic Revealed”:
     
    “For those of us who continue to believe in the indispensability of a critical stance toward government power, the task before us is one of intellectual reconstruction.  We must reject minimal government as the organizing principle of policy reform.  Making or keeping government as small as possible is an ideological fixation, not a sound principle of good governance.  Small government is a false idol, and it is time we smash it.  In its place, we should erect effective government as the goal that guides the development and evaluation of public policy.  For maxims, we can look to America’s greatest statesman. “The legitimate object of government,” wrote Abraham Lincoln, “is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves—in their separate, and individual capacities.”
     
    I strongly recommend reading Lindsey’s insightful paper, “State Capacity: What Is It, How We Lost It, And How To Get It Back.”
     
    Terry Hansen
    Hales Corners, WI  53130
     
    References:
     
    Brink Lindsey bio
     
    What the Pandemic Revealed (paragraph 26)
     
    State Capacity: What Is It, How We Lost It, And How To Get It Back

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    1 Comment

    1. JJSedona on

      I have a few criticisms of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. First of all, Biden is an illegitimate president and I look forward to Arizona’s decertification of the stolen election.
      Secondly, the Build Back Better meme essentially means that Biden will hell bent on completely destroying our country in order to “Build Back Better.” Again, the sooner Biden is removed from office, the better. Build Back Better is directly from the United Nations in their effort for a one-world government, one-world bank, and one-world medical tyranny. There is nothing good about it. For the United States to remain a sovereign nation, the United States must REMOVE itself from this group, as well as the CDC, WHO and NATO who are making policy decisions without input from we the people.
      We have lost so many rights due to the COVID pandemic that I fear we must have a civil war to get those freedoms back. We are in a war right now, even though most fail to see it. But as long as the people just go mindlessly along with vaccine passports, masks mandates and no jab no job policies, nothing will get better = things will just get worse. By peacefully refusing this medical tyranny will be the only way to change it.
      Biden is now destroying the economy and getting the United States into a war with Russia and/or China = which will be devastating should we the people not intervene. Trump and the Republicans have a good plan to get America back on track and its about time we listen. Things are about to get a lot worse if we do not.