The Death of Federalism

Shock, outrage and shame over poor response to Katrina should kill the Reagan era

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
9/5/05
http://zeppscommentaries.com/History/federalismdeath.htm

David Brooks of the New York Times, a conservative columnist, has figured it out. He wrote, of the catastrophic failure of the administration to address the disaster of Katrina, “Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence.” Brooks concluded that some sort of big change was coming – if not progressive, than perhaps a Giuliani law-and-order nightmare (“nightmare” is my word, not Brooks’).

Brooks isn’t alone. Calls from all across the political spectrum are being raised, questioning while Americans sat, shamed, and waited for their fellows to be rescued in New Orleans, if this is really what “getting government off our backs” was supposed to mean.

Certainly, Putsch is a weak and incompetent president, one who stalled for days with his trademark deer-in-the-headlights look, doubtlessly wishing he had a copy of “My Pet Goat” he could distract himself with while waiting for the grown ups around him to tell him what to do.

But the failure of the government can not be laid at Putsch’s ineffectual feet.

The problem began with the rise of what is called “Reagan Conservatism.” Reagan, like Putsch, was a figurehead, albeit a more capable one. It wasn’t his idea, either. He was just hired to market it.

The idea was simple: weaken the power of the federal government by persuading people it was their enemy and the weaker they could make it, the better off they would be. A weak federal government, it was argued, let the free market expand its muscles, and gave individuals greater freedom.

Through some slick verbal sleight of hand, they dropped the Founders’ belief that the government was the instrument of the people, proposing that the power of the people could function only without a government to safeguard their rights and freedoms.

The notion was embraced by every ambitious, unscrupulous or radical group that hoped that they could gain from the subsequent power vacuum. Only by “drowning the government in a bathtub” could Citicorp look after your financial interests, or the Roman Catholic Church protect your individual freedoms, or the white power elite see to it that black children got a good education.

But for most Reaganite conservatives, it was even less straightforward. They didn’t want to weaken the central government; they merely wanted it to reflect their will, at the expense of everyone elses’. That’s why you had members of the “get government off our back” crowd cheering the forming of the vast and ineffective police state bureaucracy known as the Department of Homeland Security, applauding the warrantless searches of the Patriot Act, yelling for the rights of churches to avail themselves of public resources to promote themselves (and in a shameful example of how well that worked out, the webpage of the ineffective FEMA had, third on its list, Pat Robertson, the vicious nut who called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez last week, as a good place to send donations to help in the relief efforts in the Katrina zone), and demanding government intervention in such family matters as Elian Gonzales or Terri Schiavo.

In other words, it was all smoke and mirrors. “Get government off our backs” in no way was meant to remove any burdens from your particular back; they just wanted you to carry their freight for them instead of your own.

What it turned into was the theft of the wealth of the United States for the benefit of the top 10% of people. It was the greatest rape of a nation’s resources from within in history. In the 25 years during which Reagan Conservatism has held the public spellbound, the disparity of wealth has grown to levels not seen in places other than third-world shit holes where the king lives in opulent splendor while the rest all live in mud huts. In 1975, the wealthiest 1% controlled about 15% of the national wealth. Now, the top 2% control 60%, and the top 1% control 38%.

Even as military spending exceeds the rest of the world combined, the military is gutted and rendered useless by the greed of military contractors, and when money does actually go to the military, it is squandered in misallocations aimed, not at helping the military, but at helping rich and powerful congressmen who desire reelection.

Even as the federal government grows by 33% in just four years, spending for social services and public services is slashed. Government is anxious to put these services in the hands of the churches, even though most responsible churches aren’t willing to take on what for them would be an insurmountable burden.

People are beginning to see through this. Not only are they not getting the services and protections they are entitled to expect from their federal government, but they face bigger tax burdens. This is partly due to growth in federal spending, and partly because the lion’s share of taxes has been passed to them. In 1953, when the federal government was about the same size in comparison to the GDP that it is now, a family of four making median income paid four percent in taxes. Rather than experiencing more freedom, people in the bottom 98% are experiencing less, not only from the Republican predilection for bedsheet-sniffing, but through the privatized tyranny of avaricious banks, acquisitive churches (the demands to replace science with pseudo-religious lore in the so called “Intelligent Design debate” being a good example) and small local governments, ones easily controlled by the major economic interests in the area.

In Reagan conservatism, “getting government off our backs” means piling everyone else on your back, and “saving money” means giving the rich and powerful a free ride.

In the richest country on earth, people in a major city had to wait five days for help to arrive, despite the fact that the world knew they were there and needed help. That is disgraceful, and beyond disgraceful.

Greg Mitchell, the editor of the superb “Editor and Publisher” website, accused Putsch of dereliction of duty. That is certainly the case, but one thing Mr. Mitchell missed (but doubtlessly understands) is that in the case of the Reaganites, there was no sense of dereliction because there was no sense of duty. Government is for the favored, not the people, and those waiting in the steam among the mire and the corpses for help that didn’t come are definitely not favored.

David Brooks completed his essay by saying, “ We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.”

I hope Brooks is right. It’s time America threw off the self-serving “federalists” who want to steal the birthright of all Americans, and took back that which is theirs – including the federal government.