The Republican Plan To Take Down Your Government

http://www.blogforiowa.com/2016/07/13/the-republican-plan-to-take-down-your-government/

This is an excellent must read article by Matt Sinovic, Director of ProgressIowa, originally published in the Des Moines Register.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2016/07/03/government-foundation-american-success/86594790/

When did we stop trusting in our government? The government isn’t some distant, unknown group. It’s “us, you and I” as Teddy Roosevelt once said. But we certainly don’t feel like it. Public trust in government is lower than it has been in years, with roughly 1 out of 4 Americans saying they trust the government, according to Pew Research.

This lack of trust exists, despite the work done in the past by the government to make our lives better. The government built our highways and roads, makes sure our drinking water is clean, cured diseases with medical research, explored our solar system, and even created the internet. Yes, the internet — it started as a military project in the Defense Department before being made open and available to the public.

And our lack of trust exists despite the fact that we are faced with the good work of our government nearly every day. The government is our public schools, educators and teachers who take care of the next generation of leaders. The government is the military that keeps us safe, the police officers and firefighters who guard our communities, and the prosecutors and judges who uphold the law. These are our friends, our neighbors and all of them are hired or appointed by the officials we choose during elections.
<<snip>>

We didn’t always disparage our government. During his first State of the Union address, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower referred to the government dozens of times, in a positive way. In the decades that followed, conservatives decided to wage a campaign against the government, in an effort to privatize our tax dollars to fatten corporate profits. Programs such as Social Security and Medicare were decried as socialist takeovers. By the 1980s, Ronald Reagan famously slandered government by claiming to be terrified at the utterance of the phrase “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Reagan spent his time in office undercutting the ability of every government agency to do its job, through decreased funding and eliminating the enforcement mechanisms that allowed them to be effective. (bolding mine)

(cross posted from gd)