Response to Michael Mullen,
Thank you for your note.
As to the government's track record on social programs, I have to disagree with the view you put forward in your post, and so it seems does conservative columnist George Will -- at least on the education issue.
While he is noted for taking a similar view of the government as yours, he points out in a recent column in Newsweek (11-22-04) that the public education system has been quite successful over the last two generations in educating the American public. He writes: "In 1940 more than half of the US population had only an eighth grade education, or less. Now that 85 percent are high school graduates, 53 percent have some college education and 27 percent are college graduates..." Assuming his numbers are correct, and I have no reason to dispute them, it is plain that this success of the education system is attributable primarily to the public system (public colleges, public secondary schools and other publicly funded and operated educational programs) and to the amount of resources we have been willing to spend on it.
Further, recent studies that I haven't time to find, identify, and point you to here show that charter schools and religious schools don't really do that much better than public schools on the whole. Perhaps the subject of a future article--keep reading.
It is also not a leap of logic to point out that without public resources like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, public schools, job programs, and so on, the gap between the haves and have nots would be far greater than it is. Think back to the Great Depression days before those programs were invented.
It also isn't a leap of logic to note that without these programs the great middle class, simply wouldn't exist. I agree that the war on drugs is a failure, without a doubt. The war on poverty has so far failed because leaders have failed to commit the needed resources to winning it. It was initiated by a president who thought fighting a war in Vietnam was more important, and it has been weakened steadily since the 1980s by a series of presidents including Clinton who had other priorities.
I am inclined to believe that any way you break it down, the government plays a role in society. It will either spend all of its time and resources bailing out airlines, subsidizing big corporations, and so on, or it can subsidize, aid, or side with the vast majority of working people who make up the tax and consuming base of the country. Let's face it, without them (me and I assume you included) where are we? Also, which is more democratic in the end?
I agree with you on one point: I too don't want to having this debate when I retire in 35 years or so. But privatization is not a lesser evil; it simply doesn't work. And after almost 70 years of SS privatization is nothing but a method of robbing us of our future security. If we take examples from other countries, especially Chile, that have privatized their pension systems, we note that workers didn't gain any individual advantage by having private accounts. We should also note that Wall Street has its own poor track record--especially for working people and small investors: Enron, WorldCom, dot-coms, housing and real estate bubbles, junk bonds, and a long list of fraud etc. simply mean that current workers will have social insecurity if the government hands their money to private investors.
All my best,
Joel Wendland
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