Commentary
During a recent special visit from faraway friends, the conversation turned to politics. Our friends are more liberal than we are, but we focused on common ground and our talk remained comfortable. One observation we shared was that politics seems ubiquitous today. Politics surfaces in conversation frequently.
We both lamented this, wistfully remembering our younger years when politics would surface occasionally, but most of the time, life was about, well, life. How did we get to this point?
The short answer is: progressive ideology, a profound shift in societal values, and democracy unleashed.
Progressive Ideology
The original intent and design of the American government was to defend the rights—the life, liberty, and property—of the American people from foreign and domestic predations. As free people, we were left to figure out how to prosper and how to help each other.Originally, the federal government’s scope of activities was strictly circumscribed to the few powers explicitly enumerated in the Constitution. In fact, so small and unobtrusive was the federal government that President James Monroe won reelection in 1820 running unopposed. It took more than a century—from the founding in 1789 all the way up through 1900—for Uncle Sam to spend $16.55 billion (
see Table 1.1 from the White House Office of Management and Budget). Today, by comparison, Uncle Sam
spends more than $10 billion per day. Even adjusted for a larger population and a weaker dollar, today’s federal government is many multiples the size it once was.
By 1900, the political movement and belief system known as “progressivism” had become entrenched. Millions of Americans began to believe that the federal government should do more than keep us safe and free: It should also look out for the economic well-being of citizens. During World War I, the federal government adopted measures to assist farmers. The New Deal in the 1930s extended federal economic assistance to the poor, the elderly, and the unemployed. The Great Society programs of the 1960s got the federal government heavily involved in medical care, housing, and education.
Progressive logic inexorably led to demand for more and bigger government. If Uncle Sam was responsible for helping Citizens A, B, and C, then why not D, E, and F? If it’s right for the federal government to subsidize medical care and education, then why not transportation, day care, maternity leave, and so on?
For decades, progressives—even if they were socialists in their hearts—didn’t openly advocate socialism. Too many Americans were firmly opposed to socialism, so progressives adopted a gradualist approach to it. Their strategy was always to call for government to do, spend, tax, and control
more and more of the country’s economic activity. That strategy has been hugely successful. Government has gotten involved in many areas of life that used to be considered one’s private business.
Shifting Values
The reason the progressive push for the expansion of government succeeded is attributable to a fundamental shift in our sense of right and wrong. Traditional respect for property rights has eroded. Americans still believe it’s immoral and criminal for an individual to sneak into his neighbor’s house and take some of his money, but through intellectual and moral gymnastics, millions of Americans have convinced themselves that if government takes some of our neighbor’s money to give to us, this is “social justice.”
As Thomas Jefferson
wrote in 1816, “It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.” Yet, through mutilated logic as well as moral confusion, many now believe that A’s right to his property can be cast aside due to B’s greater “right” to have A’s property.
Even if the money Uncle Sam takes from citizens isn’t given to us, but instead to some poor, needy souls, does that make the process morally legitimate? Americans have forgotten
the lesson of the Good Samaritan. Real charity is helping a person in need with one’s own money. Those who, rather than relying on voluntary donations, use government to compel other citizens to fund assistance for the needy are employing an ersatz “charity” not worthy of the name. And the fact that government today transfers much wealth not just to those in need, but also to the well-to-do and politically connected through the base practice of
cronyism is outrageous.
Democracy Unleashed
As government transfer payments became increasingly widespread and increasingly accepted over the decades, many Americans decided, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em.” They might not have particularly liked the idea of government handouts, but with so many of their fellows receiving government assistance in one form or another, they rationalized that it’s only fair that they receive some benefit, too. Politicians quickly learned that one of the most effective tactics for wooing votes was to confer benefits on voters, and so federal spending and federal debt have continued to grow to an alarming extent.
Republicans have become the party of Big Government. In the first two years of his presidency, President Donald Trump had the advantage of a Republican-controlled House and Senate. Nevertheless, annual budget deficits increased. In
2019 and
2020, with a Democratic House, Trump capitulated without a fight to Democrats’ push for higher spending. He figured it would have been a losing battle.
Democrats are the party of Bigger Government. Whereas Republicans recognize the vital importance of the private sector and try to keep it from being taxed and regulated to death, Democrats simply want to control every facet of the national economy. This is how we got to “all politics all the time.” Democracy in the USA has become
democracy of the Marxian variety. Although we choose to blame politicians for the obnoxious omnipresence of politics and our suffocating national debt, the true culprit is “we the people.”
Due to profound shifts in values over the decades, we have brought this mess upon ourselves. Do you see any way out? Do you see a budding majority of Americans ready to shrink federal spending massively and to stop demanding benefits and assistance from Washington? I don’t. Looking at the trend in the national debt shows that officials in Washington, whether with Republican or Democratic majorities, suffer from CFI—chronic fiscal incontinence.
The
national debt first reached $1 trillion in 1982; $4 trillion in 1992; $6 trillion in 2002; $16 trillion in 2012; and is now $30 trillion in 2022. The momentum of this trend seems unstoppable. There appears to be no way back to the relative innocence of the era of limited government when daily life was not enmeshed in constant political preoccupations.
The only question now seems to be whether our addiction to Big Government will culminate in decades-long stagnation, à la Japan, or in a cataclysmic financial collapse worse than anything our country has experienced before.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
