Monday, April 9, 2012

Mark Schmitt — Forcing Both Parties to Get Specific About What Government Should Do

...what’s missing from this well-rehearsed dance is any effort to force the question, to make a real choice about what we want government to do.
Read it at New Deal 2.0
Forcing Both Parties to Get Specific About What Government Should Do
by Mark Schmitt

This is really the crux of the issue about public purpose. So far there is a lot of moralizing and promise-making to constituencies and little debate over the appropriate role of government. This is not merely a matter of preference since the guidelines are established in the US Constitution, beginning with the Preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The discussion is now centered on what the Constitution means, with widely divergent views on this at the basis of differences over the appropriate role of government.

1 comment:

dave said...

maybe we should let rick parry(with an "a") and texas secede. everybody who is anti-government can move there(their own currency of course,or maybe they could get in on the euro)then we could rebuild our nation so that it serves "we the people" the look on ricks face after being told to get the fuck out "priceless!"