Government at its Worst and at its Best

I have said heretofore that I am no longer willing to take the time to write for my blog because my audience is at best unresponsive and at worst non-existent.

However, I have also decided that what I have written for other venues should also see the light of day on my blog. So here goes!

Christiegate

Living in the town that is the subject of this scandal it has been covered rather well by our local newspaper. One of the articles prompted me to write a Letter to the Editor, as follows:

The continuing “Bridgegate Scandal” (Suburbanite January 17, 2014) can only remind us of the original scandal after which all other scandals have been named. While the two are different in many ways, they have some important features in common.  

In both cases the scandal broke right after the incumbent won re-election by an overwhelming majority. In both cases the incumbent claimed ignorance, and was quick to fire underlings.  

Nixon declared, “I am not a crook!” Christie declared: “I am not a bully”.  

In both cases the facts kept developing. In the case of Christie they too are just developing, with the mayor off Jersey City coming forth with how his refusal to endorse Christie led to “purposeful stalling of a pension reform bill that would have benefited his city", and the mayor of Hoboken charging that Christie withheld federal storm relief funds from her city to punish her.  

Whether Christie knew the details of what his aids were doing is irrelevant. As anyone who has worked in either the private or the public sector knows, underlings know and act upon what they perceive the boss wants. Clearly this is what they understood the boss wanted.  

Punishing a political adversary is part of the political game, but punishing the citizens of a town for the perceived sins of its elected official is beyond the pale. It is time for Governor Christie to take responsibility and resign. Failing that, serious consideration to impeachment is in order.

This appeared directly under a cartoon on the subject, inexorably linking the two, which I reproduce here:

This represents government at its worst!

On the other hand the importance of government at its best is not to be overlooked, as the New York Times article entitled “Innovation,Optimism And Jobs” seemed to do, prompting me to write a Letter to the Editor, which was not published. The letter follows:

To the Editor:

 Joe Nocera’s column “Innovation, Optimism And Jobs" is misleading, not by commission, but by omission, or at least in emphasis. 

 In discussing technological change and whether it will help or hinder job creation, he barely touches upon the vital role that government plays. While, in talking about past technological innovation, he does mention, “governmental change:” and that “Factories used children as workers, until governments passed child labor laws” and that “free education became the law of the land” but he fails to point out what a vital role government played. 

 The fact is that innovation did wipe out an enormous number of jobs. Government kept such dwindling jobs from devastating huge swath of the population by forcing job sharing. People used to work eighty hours a week and more, but as fewer workers were needed government forced the fewer jobs to be widely shared, not only by eliminating child labor, but by passing laws limiting the number of hours to be worked to 40 hours and mandating extra compensation for hours above that, while at the same time making sure that lower paid workers would not have their income cut as their hours dwindled, by setting a floor to how much compensation could be reduced, i.e. the minimum wage. 

 If we are to meet the challenge from the new efficiencies, we must once again reduce the number of hours worked, follow through on free education by making college free, and in general improve our educational system by investing in our human capital. 

 Earlier innovation would not have benefited the broader population without government intervention, and neither will the present one.

Comments, Corrections and/or Questions are welcome.