I found something to disagree with in Obama’s inaugural speech:
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.
At least he didn’t say the important question was whether the government makes the trains run on time.
And he didn’t say the government had to do a good job at these things. It’s a pretty low bar for keeping government programs. All he said the government has to do is help. Even if these programs do a worse job than would be done without them, he says he plans to keep them. Well, most government programs do some good, somewhere, for someone. That’s what dog and pony shows are for — to show that the taxpayers that at least somebody, somewhere is benefiting.
But even if all his government programs would be wildly successful at these goals, they wouldn’t necessarily be good. A big government is a powerful government. Power corrupts, whether it’s power exercised on the streets of Iraq or at the local medical clinic. If there are no other countervailing institutions to wield power in competition with and in opposition to that of government, history tells us that we the people will suffer, even if the government provides us with well paying jobs and health care.