Leona Fines: The End of Cowboy Government

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Leona Fines

22 days from now, America will shed its silly animosities and elect a black man as President, a man whose middle name is Hussein, whose last name is one letter off our national nemesis. Why am I so sure? Because so far, only a few of us have opened that envelope, looked at that quarterly statement or called the nice lady at the bank and asked, "Tell me the damage." But between now and November 4, we all will have done so. Each of us will have downed that malt whiskey and said "I'm ready. How much did it hurt?"

And after the rage momentarily subsides, the hot flashes pass, the bright among us will contemplate the words of one John McCain, his plan of 2005 to charge headlong and dump our Social Security into the same unrecoverable black hole where everything else has fallen into.

OK, back to our bank statements. More rage subsides, and we think back to the first time we heard a certain actor-president on TV, informing us that government is the problem, not the solution. We'd think back to the first time he told his story about the million-dollar government broom closet, the million-dollar government staple guns, and realize that McCain still tells pretty much the same story. He updated it somewhat with Montana Bear DNA, but the idea's the same: Get government off our backs, small government is good government. How did he put it? "I am fundamentally a deregulator."

Since Reagan was president, Middle America has seen its standard of living diminished, our buying power slashed, and the disappearance of the married, single-income family. But we kept believing the myth. Government is bad, regulations are bad. Thousands of little bureaucrats chipping away at our tax dollars. Little pork barrel earmarks all ganging up to make us poor. And we swallowed it whole. Never mind that during the same period of time, executive salaries skyrocketed, perks for the wealthy skyrocketed. Don't tax the rich, we were told. They're the ones that lay the golden eggs.

In the late 80's, the Savings & Loan crisis hit. We were out billions, and some of us asked ourselves, gosh those guys live rather well. If I made such catastrophic mistakes, I'd be out on my bum. All the while during the early 1990's, our paycheck continued to shrink and our homes lose value. Then under the cover of 9/11, Bush invaded a nation to the tune of one trillion and counting.

And now this. We're on tap for more money than anyone can humanly imagine. And every day, we're told it wasn't enough. AIG wants more. Wall Street will want more, and Bush will say here have some. Oh, and Iceland is bankrupt. Good grief, how does an entire country go bankrupt? Say, wasn't Iceland the wealthiest per capita country in Europe? Yes it was, but don't ask. And we're suddenly realizing that every junior congressman, every talk show host who waved his finger at us, "Let the market correct itself," had utterly no idea what he was talking about. And by the time this thing finally hits bottom, we'll expect to see any official vaguely called "Republican" frog-marched out to the paddy wagon, his political career in flames.

All of this because they were wrong. Dead wrong. In reality, government is a solution. Yes, thousands of little faceless bureaucrats with calculators -- that's what it takes to properly run things, and watch things. Yes, those same "inefficient" bureaucrats maligned in every election since Reagan. Yes, those nameless government overseer drones, might very well have caught this thing before it sunk us, might very well have said, "Whoa, guys. How about a reality check?" That's how this nonsense could have been stopped, if there had been enough people to oversee. If there had been regulations.

But the Bushes and the McCains used our most powerful myth to deceive us, that of America's wide open spaces, our land of unbridled opportunity, no chains, no taxes, small government, a bit of ingenuity, individual initiative, and we'll all be fine. They were wrong. We already owe the Chinese more money than we can imagine, and soon, we'll owe them more. The term "debtor nation" did not attach itself to us under Clinton's watch. No, it happened under Bush.

So bring on Mr. Barack Hussein Osama, whatever you want to call him, because by November 4, we won't care what his name is. Hey, did you read that the AIG execs went on luxury vacations before the ink was even dry on the bailout? I think these guys have never heard the term "storm the Bastille." No, we won't care if Obama and Ayers were blood brothers by the time this vote goes down. All we'll care about is that he takes names, settles scores, and restores us to at least a fraction of what we were before the Bush Nightmare began.