Time for an Intervention
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Bob Herbert sums up well what happens when a society's (ours) priorities go awry. A crumbling infrastructure, a lack of emphasis on education, an election contest turned into a horse race - it's all here.
What a perfectly lovely mess.
I think we can pretty much rule out drowning government in a bathtub as a prescription for righting this ship.
What a perfectly lovely mess.
I think we can pretty much rule out drowning government in a bathtub as a prescription for righting this ship.
However, I'd hate to see the pendulum swing all the way back to the LBJ social programs or the welfare state in pre-Thatcher Britain. That would invite a Reaganite restoration and begin the dismal cycle anew. We need something in between, whatever that may be, and the possibilities are exciting.
The question is: Are our political leaders up to the challenge? With moderates purged from parties that owe so much to either big business or big labor, our current and prospective leaders seem unlikely to reach the compromise we need.
Wouldn't it be interesting, though, if the next president (whichever flawed candidate wins) could assemble a brain trust of people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, economists like Robert Reich, etc., to think this through and come up with a new design?