What is the government’s role?

Shannon Bohrer

(6/2020) For over 40 years we have debated the size of our government and its purpose. One prevalent argument has been that government should be small and ought to reduce or eliminate regulations on private industry. After all, it is private industry that produces wealth. Capitalism is the key to making the world a better place to live, and government regulations only burden and impede private industry. The argument also embraces the idea that governments are inefficient, bloated and don’t produce anything. After all, the government never made any money; they get it all from the taxpayers.

Grover Norquist, a well-known small government and tax reduction proponent was once asked how small the government should be. He responded that his "… goal was to cut government in half…to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

"Government is not the solution to our problem.
Government is the problem."
- President Ronald Reagan

While the idea of small government and less taxes sounds good, no one that I know of (except Mr. Norquist) has ever said how small it should be. Too determine how small government should be, we should begin with a discussion about the purpose of government. What is it that we want government to do, why does it exist? Saying we need a smaller and leaner government, without including what we expect the government to do, is illogical. We know that our government is supposed to protect us, and as many like to say to ensure our freedom. What programs do we need to protect us and ensure our freedoms are a good starting point for the size of our government we need? How many people will it take to staff and operate those programs? How we derive that number, is the real question.

A companion argument about the size of government is that the government should be more efficient, like private industry. That sounds good, but is somewhat incongruous with facts. If a business employs 20 people, you would expect they are all needed; you don’t reduce the number of employees without affecting the business. Conversely you don’t hire additional workers, if you have no work for them. If the government should run just like a business, then is should also employing the exact number of people needed to complete the government’s business. A simple analogy would be this: if you have a two-horse wagon, you need two horses. One horse won’t work and three are too many. In my 42 years in law enforcement we never had three horses and there were times when we only had one.

While the focus has been on smaller and leaner government with fewer taxes, an underlying theme, that has been obvious, has been the distain and dislike of government. Remember, Mr. Norquist said he wanted to drown the government in a bathtub. We have a substantial portion of the population who believe we would be better, with little and/or no government.

"I do have a political agenda. It's to have as few regulations as possible."
- Vice President Dan Quayle

The size of government and the issue of regulations has been an issue since Theodore Roosevelt was president. When he broke up the monopolies, using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, it was predicted by the capitalist that the economy would just collapse. The opposite occurred, more companies resulted in more competition and the economy flourished. Having and enforcing the regulations worked, at least in this case.

During the great depression, financial regulations were proposed and the same arguments were used, that regulations inhibited business. "Free markets", were believed to be good for the country. Of course the Great Depression that started in 1929 was a large clue that free markets in banking were not always effective or efficient. Responding to the bank failures congress passed the Glass-Stegial Act, which regulated financial institutions. The act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which separated investment and commercial banking. With the FDIC, the federal government was now providing insurance for depositors, with the funds provided for by the banks themselves.

Glass-Stegial was a success and worked well from 1933 until 1999 - when it was repealed. Nine years after the repeal we had a financial collapse. Clearly, at least some regulations are good. After the financial collapse in 2008 the congress re-instituted some additional financial regulations and now there are those in governments that want to eliminate them. Is it possible that we have been saying that regulations are bad for so long, that we forget our history?

Directly related to the size and role of government protecting us is the current world pandemic. We hear that states should take the lead and we also hear that the federal government should be in charge. Historically, with natural disasters it is the role of the federal government to coordinate relief efforts. We have a past history that when hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters strike, our federal government steps up. The federal government’s lack of leadership with the current pandemic questions the purpose of the federal government, at least in this case.

During this pandemic we have encountered numerous problems, including the procurement of medical materials, the majority of which are made in other countries. While we have experienced an urgent need for those materials, we hear calls for laws to require that the materials be made in the U.S. If we enact a law that medical equipment and materials be made here, does that conflict with free market capitalism? Is that not a new regulation?

Another issue related to the pandemic is the meat packing plants. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published suggested guidelines for companies to keep the employees safe. Many meat-packing plants did not follow the guidelines, as they were only suggestions, and some plants closed. Fearing a food shortage the President ordered them to re-open.

In response, the meat packing plants want the government to create laws that prohibits them from being sued by employees, if they contract the virus. If the government protects the plant owners from being sued, but does not protect the employees by having and enforcing OSHA protective regulations, that would seem indifferent to the idea of the government protecting its citizens.

The first argument should not be the size of government; it should be what services the government should provide and to whom.

"Democracy is the worst form of government,
except for all the others that have been tried."
 -Winston Churchill