What is the role of government?
by: John Bachtell

When Barack Obama was elected president, he stressed the history-making election victory was "not the change we seek but the opportunity to make that change." Being elected, it turns out, is only half the battle.

Once elected, officials must legislate and then it's up to the institutions of government to implement policy.

The role of government and its ability to make a difference in people's daily lives is not a question the progressive or democratic movement can take lightly. This question was at the heart of the health care reform battle.

Government is not a classless concept. Under capitalism, monopoly corporations dominate government policy and its institutions. U.S. capitalism has developed to such a stage that corporations and finance capital and government are fully integrated into the state. Marxists call it state-monopoly capitalism.

At the level of postal service, sanitation, water, fire, policy and emergency response - the question is not whether government or not. (Although there are battles of privatization and budget cuts.) But on issues big and small, the question is government for whom - Wall Street and multinational corporations or the people?

For 30 years the extreme right wing and Republicans have been doing every thing in their power to dismantle the part of government that addresses people's needs, and protects them from the worst corporate exploitation and discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation.

Grover Norquist, co-author of the Republican "Contract with America" famously said, "My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

The Republicans carried out a strategy over the past 30 years of deliberately running up massive deficits to bankrupt government and force massive cuts in social spending and the elimination of social programs. The Tea Party movement and its ""Contract For America" is a logical extension of this.

At the same time Wall Street, and the Republican ultra right were obliterating corporate regulation and turning government into an instrument for unrestrained exploitation.

Even while the Republicans were calling for an end to big government, they were enriching the military corporations with exploding military budgets, subsidizing corporate profits, aiding outsourcing, bolstering government intrusion into privacy, wiretapping and stomping on basic constitutional rights.

We are entering a new era of potentially widespread reform, with a president who has a different attitude toward the role of government. It's complicated because the Obama administration reflects the coalition that elected him and there are pressures from all directions - powerful sections of monopoly capital vies with a labor-led mass people's coalition and movements to seek advantage.

Government is an arena of the class struggle. Whenever government actually serves the interests of people it is the result of bitterly fought battles. This is true at all levels, from federal government to local school councils.

The broad labor-led democratic movements will have to win power at neighborhood, city, state and federal levels to transform government to favor the multi-racial, multi-national people's interests. Those of us living in Chicago can attest to that. The election of Harold Washington as mayor initiated a brief era of unprecedented reform in city government that is being felt to this day.

One of the biggest hurdles in the health care reform fight was whether people had confidence government could administer health care. With the victory the battle now shifts to implementation.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the programs, have been without an administrator since October 2006. Obama is appointing Dr. Donald Berwick, a professor of pediatrics and health care policy at Harvard medical School, renowned for his efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of health care.

The health care law's implementation, plus the battle for the role of government, are issues in the fight to extend reform to the public option, Medicare buy-in or a single-payer system and so the current reform must succeed.

People are often of two minds when it comes to government. They appreciate social services and any protections from corporate exploitation, racial or gender discrimination. But people's faith in government has eroded in the face of the constant anti-government ultra-right ideological barrage, and the actions of the state itself. A recent Pew poll found a majority agreed the government is "so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens."

Ineffective -- and repressive -- government also erodes confidence. The flood of big money into elections and lobbying, waste and corruption also turns off people. People become cynical when incompetent right wing ideologues are placed in positions of authority ruin and loot departments. The most notorious example is FEMA under "Heck-of-a-job" Brownie, who oversaw the disaster in New Orleans.And when government is repressive -- from Supreme Court decisions that take the side of corporations to political prisoners and witchhunts to police brutality and trampling on constitutional rights --those actions also erode confidence.

If we are to embark on an era of reform, the role of government and its ability to effectively serve the interests of the people will be at the heart of the battle.

Article courtesy: www.peoplesworld.org

Limited government: good in 1787, a fraud today
by: Lou Incognito

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called the passage of health care reform "not a baby step or half measure," but "a solid step forward." The AFL-CIO leader said that the reform measure "survived a $100 million lie and distortion campaign by Big Insurance to kill it, the same kind of scare tactics these groups have aimed at health care proposals for six decades." While labor saw health reform as a step toward single-payer Medicare for All, the "limited government" Republicans saw it differently. The GOP took to court its arguments that health care legislation 1) is unconstitutional, 2) is too costly, and 3) infringes on our freedoms. Despite the hypocritical "limited government" claims, the lawsuits are not only without merit, but also raised at taxpayer expense.

When the Constitution was written in 1787, the Industrial Revolution had not begun. Corporations were chartered and went out of existence when their assigned tasks were completed. Trade unionism was in its infancy, pollution was unknown, and health care was at a primitive stage. Rather than unemployment, there was a labor shortage. Also, the frontier was still open. As the Industrial Revolution developed, even Thomas Jefferson had to revise his thinking. Jefferson called for a limited government until he saw the harm in failing to restrict, and even eliminate, profit-seeking corporations. In 1816, he wrote about the growth of corporate power in England, "I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

To shield "that aristocracy of monied corporations" from taxes and regulations, today's ultra-right Republican Party continues to use "limited government" against the nation's best interests. In particular, since there is no mention of health insurance in the Constitution, the GOP claims health care reform, the public option, and Medicare for All are unconstitutional. Even Medicare would be unconstitutional by current GOP standards. Such claims are historically and morally incorrect. An 1819 Supreme Court decision, authored by Chief Justice John Marshall, defined Congress's implied powers: That body (Congress) is to "perform the highest duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people." Those words remain law.

Ultra-right Republicans advance a second, also fraudulent, argument for limited government (at taxpayer expense). They claim that the costs of health care and other social programs are too large and increase the federal deficit. What they are not telling us is that corporate waste alone would cover national health care without adding to the deficit, according to numerous government studies. The federal deficit would be eliminated if tax loopholes were eliminated and tax rates were so steeply progressive that Warren Buffett would have a tax rate that is not lower than his secretary's tax rate, as it is now, but many times higher.

Republican claims that federal programs mean loss of innovation are also hollow. The main researchers and innovators are paid by the federal government. In its 2008 platform the Republican Party admitted the contribution of the federal government: "We support federal investment in basic and applied biomedical research. This commitment will maintain America's global competitiveness, advance innovative science that can lead to medical breakthroughs, and turn the tide against diseases affecting millions of Americans - diseases that account for the majority of our health care costs."

The third charge that the Republicans are bringing to court (at taxpayer expense) is that health care reform violates our freedoms. The new mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance is "the most egregious, unconstitutional legislation that we can remember," said South Carolina Republican Attorney General Henry McMaster. He is among more than a dozen state attorneys general who have filed a lawsuit asking the courts to declare the mandate unconstitutional because it is "an unprecedented encroachment" on the rights of individuals and the states by the federal government. However, he failed to mention the Republicans who have proposed health care mandates.

When the Nixon administration called for an employer mandate to provide health coverage for employees, there were no "violation of freedom" cries. In 1993, Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., sponsored a bill that would have required individuals to purchase health insurance. Mitt Romney, the Republican former presidential candidate and governor of Massachusetts, said mandates were in keeping with conservative ideology. Even the Heritage Foundation called individual mandates a "daring free-market reform."

Despite the bluster, the insurance purchase requirement would be unnecessary under single-payer Medicare for All.

If limited government were in force there would be no child labor laws, no anti-monopoly laws, no labor rights, no civil rights, and no women's rights - and be no traffic laws. People would be poisoned by contaminated food and unsafe medicine. There would be no environmental protection. The Republican governor of New Jersey cut taxes for the wealthy recently - that will cost the average New Jersey family a $1,700 local tax increase to preserve essential services. A vote for limited government is not a vote "most beneficial to the people."

Article Courtesy: www.peoplesworld.org