The Beneficent Purpose of Government

Here we tread upon a governmental responsibility that is sure to evoke a wide range of angst, ire and outrage. What could the Founding Fathers have been thinking to expect the government to “promote the general Welfare”?

It logically follows that part of our civil contract involves the government in various areas of our lives to make us more prosperous, healthier and happier – to improve our welfare. The question then is if this is a proper and necessary part of our government, how and in what ways is our government best suited to fulfill this mission?  And from this ill-defined goal we are left with the ill-conceived notions of politicians; and nothing good can come from that. So we are left with the requirement to rationally and logically deduce what endeavors the government should engage in to fulfill its welfare obligation.

The easiest to grasp is health. The government has a vested interest in protecting and promoting the health of its citizens. This is especially true in areas where the public would not be adequately capable or prudent to undertake efforts that prevented unhealthy events or that advanced healthy conditions. So the government has a fundamental authority the task of enacting laws, policies and programs that reduce disease, advance medical science, and extend the quality of health care for the general population. The real challenge for government is how to determine the most efficient and productive ways to do this is, not whether government should be engaged at all.

Improving and advancing the prosperity of citizens at first glance almost seems to be socialism; but as with most concepts you are blindly jumping in the dark and even when you land don’t know where you are so don’t jump. The government invests in many efforts that provide infrastructure and facilities that support the economic power of the country and public. This public investment creates economic value that enables the private sector to expand its own economic value. Roads and transportation systems extend access to markets and resources, power networks and generation systems provide cost effective power to support both producers and consumers, and basic research provides breakthrough ideas and technologies that make entire new markets and businesses possible. Such governmental sponsored activities also create jobs that increase the quantity of money flowing into the consumer market place. This additional income expands demand and thus further increases business. Thus the role for government in generating prosperity is in investing in areas that provide opportunities or infrastructure that increases its citizens’ ability to engage in economic business development more efficiently and competitively.  

And to round out promoting welfare there is the happiness facet. The government’s role in promoting happiness is probably not considered a government responsibility because it seems just not something you think of a government doing. But let’s look at happiness from the perspective of creating a society where people have opportunity, where their natural environment is pleasant, and where their lives are not subject to brutal, miserable, soul-crushing poverty and despair. This responsibility is like many of the other purposes of government, if a society doesn’t strive to fulfill that role then the society pays the costs of its negligence.

The Founding Fathers were cognizant of the fact that a free and democratic society would only thrive, prosper and endure if the members as a whole derived value from the society. It turns out that the most vibrant economic engine is based on a large economic base. Wealth and economic strength is not created by the wealthy, but from the broadest and most economically engaged middle-class. Thus the government should be engaged in promoting the general welfare because lacking health, prosperity and happiness guarantees a society’s failure; and that would violate the next contractual clause in our Constitutional agreement.

A Defensive Stance – A Common Purpose

It would be hard to not be familiar with this purpose of our government, well of any government actually. The defense of the nation, the protection of the citizenry, securing the integrity of the country; this function is routinely touted by politicians with regard to how they will do it better than their opponent. This government purpose is one of the central roles around which societies organize to obtain. It’s the role of protection. “Providing a common defense” is a group oriented goal however and not necessarily meant to deal with the protection of an individual at all; that responsibility is covered elsewhere.

The defense function is usually conceived of as being a protection from foreign enemies. In this arena, the Constitution extends to the federal government the obligation to protect the states and territories under federal jurisdiction from outside agents. For this purpose the government is charged in providing the military, security and related organizations necessary to carry out this task. In essence it reflects a judgment that united and national defense forces are more effective and more capable of defending the nation as a whole than the states would be able to do as individual and separate entities. This responsibility to act against foreign threats does not obviate the states from having their own militias nor from their own responsibilities to provide for the defense of their own state. However, the states are strictly subordinate to the federal authority with respect to foreign enemies; and cannot operate in opposition to the federal forces when dealing with those forces are dealing with domestic threats.

This raises the less often understood (and perhaps accepted) function of federal defense organizations, that of protecting the union itself. This role is one of the justifications that the Union had in fighting the U.S. Civil War. The Constitutional contract that the people adopted for themselves and us, their posterity, is not easily revocable; maybe even irrevocable. Certainly it cannot be dissolved on a unilateral basis. Protecting the country is thus ensuring the continuation of the Constitutional system itself. That is why officials are asked to pledge their allegiance to defending the country and the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic.

So even in this highly cited role of our government there are areas of disagreement over what it can and should cover, how wide its reach is, and how it is managed and maintained. Politicians will claim that they have particular values and skills that make them the better suited to providing the best protection and defense of America, but considering their abilities in other areas of our society they are most likely as poorly equipped and capable for this responsibility as they are for most. Over the course of our history we have seen every variant and extreme of poor judgment, direction, management and oversight of the country’s defensive organizations. Just because the common defense is a legitimate purpose of government does make politician any good at it.

A Calm and Peaceful Purpose: A Government Goal Gone Awry

Now we come to an area of our civil compact in which the government is more often than not, not only ineffective in affecting this state; but given the contentious relationship between the Democrat and Republican parties ( and their various internal factions) is the major engine in the public’s many faceted dissatisfaction with every aspect of government.

We the people have proposed that the government should ‘insure domestic Tranquility’. They are thus tasked with organizing our social structure, systems and endeavors under the guiding principle of a calm and peaceful society. We might also surmise that the Founding Fathers also intended that the government would function in a reasoned and rational manner and not one prone to emotional, confused or agitated actions that disrupt civic equanimity or incite public discord and strife. This is not an unusual or particularly singular American desire. It is commonly shared by most societies. What people do not want to live in peace; where they can raise their families, conduct their business and personal affairs, and live with their lives without threat from neighbors, officials or society?

Regardless of the failures and ineptness of our political leaders and their advisors, our government is still to be held honor-bound to strive toward delivering a tranquil society. This includes the enactment of laws that conform to such a state, to providing law enforcement agencies that protect the public peace and that monitor civil activities accordingly, to establish judicial systems to apply justice based on our laws, and to undertake programs and policies which enhance harmonious social conditions.

This governmental purpose is mostly forgotten or ignored by our political parties and the politicians. What we see is politicians who strive to find divisive wedge-issues and provincial special-interests to leverage partisan and parochial advantages to support their campaigns rather than to serve the people. They renege on their pledge to place the public interest before their own and to be as concerned for the future as well as the present. Is it any wonder that politicians act without reason or judgment? This purpose of our government is no longer considered good politics. Politicians can thus toss social tranquility aside as an expediency to accomplishing their own goals and purposes, instead of the public’s.

Still this does not absolve the government of its responsibility, or the public of its, to advance society toward a pattern of behaviors, laws and organizations that evolve even if in fits and spurts toward a peaceful social existence. Perhaps if the public had a greater expectation or insistence for politicians who were more capable of reasoned and rational approaches to governmental policies, the public would benefit from the wisdom embedded in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers; rather than the greed and corruption that our politicos have rendered us to date.

Connections: The Missing Factor

The lack of jobs growth in the US’s economy is perplexing the experts and the not-experts (the politicians). Republicans have their pat-answer: lower corporate taxes and the jobs will come. While that has its ever popular consumer attraction appeal, it is an answer that is not really based on any statistical or historic evidence. Democrats have a less monosyllabic and more varied approach with their guesses: tax-credits, more stimulus/investment, infrastructure, training, and the list goes on. There is a reason that the politicians are clueless, aren’t they always clueless! The economists on the other hand have N*(N-1)/2 possible theories on what is preventing slow or no job growth under whatever circumstances exist at the time; where N is the number of economists questioned. The problem is that the economists are almost as bad as the politicians when it comes to guidance on what to do to turn the job situation around. If one of them (or a small group of them) is right there is unfortunately no way to figure out which one it is.

As for the politicians, since they don’t know what to do anyway; they fall back on their preferred decision making method: do what their respective special-interest contributors tell them to do. This may benefit the special-interests, but these special-interests are not concerned with jobs or anyone else for that matter. They are just seizing the opportunity to gain some monetary advantage at the expense of everyone else.

The nation’s problem is that unless the politicians begin to understand just a little about what is causing our jobs problem and what needs to be done to effectively do something about it that the economy will continue to limp along and suffer from the drag that unemployment puts on all facets of our economy.

Let’s take a look at the “tried and true” adage that small businesses create most of the new jobs in the economy. Even if you look at that in a simple-minded manner, you know like a politician, the data is questionable on that ‘fact’. In ‘fact’, it may be that small businesses hinder job creation. The real fact is that size of company is not the determining variable. Newness of company is much more salient, as both a creator of jobs, and as a destroyer of jobs (almost half don’t last five years). So using the big “small” word is one of the many ways that politicians miss the ‘fact’. All in all, politicians shouldn’t get the job based on their interviews so far.

But even if politicians and policy-makers began to appreciate this part of the equation, they still wouldn’t be able to do the math required to impact job growth. Just knowing that new businesses create new jobs doesn’t really tell you what to do that would actually help get more new businesses started; and one might ask “why is the government trying to create jobs” shouldn’t the market place do that? Just another political-economic concept that the politicians don’t know what they’re talking about.

What do politicians need to start learning? Thought it is beyond their innate abilities, we can hope that they have someone on the staff and advisory committee that is sufficiently competent to find some expertise to train the politician to stop making political plans and start supporting plans and policies that are prepared by more knowledgeable and accountable people. The accountable part is critical.

First lesson, jobs are created due to a number of factors in any economy; but in our economy there is more than just the number of factors. While each factor contributes to or detracts from job growth, there is also a higher math facet to the equation; in addition to adding its own contribution to the equation different factors may influence the effectiveness of other factors. So it can get very complex, very fast. So in the real world it is important to understand the most powerful factors, particularly those that you can influence, and construct your “influencing” policies and programs around them. You also want someone monitoring the one’s you can’t and looking into the impact that the middling and minor factors are having which may undermine all your good intentions.

Now here is a thought provoker: Big businesses create jobs (B-jobs), which cause middle-size businesses to create jobs (M-jobs), which cause small businesses to create jobs (S-jobs). The number of S-jobs is typically going to be greater than the number of B-jobs and maybe M-jobs. The number of M-jobs is likely to be as great as or greater than B-jobs. Now before you jump off the cliff that your political leaders have already flung themselves over, while they are shouting that you should jump now before you are left behind, don’t conclude that is therefore best to emphasize S-jobs. You know why of course.

Yes, that’s right; the majority of S-jobs and even M-jobs are created because of the B-jobs. This is one of those intertwined relationships in the jobs creation equation. Now please, don’t go running off thinking that all you have to do then is create B-jobs. You would be right if you could just go do that, which you can’t without understanding many of the other factors. And, you would also have to make sure that you were creating B-jobs that were; well, valuable. This is not a job for politicians; you need a group of people of at least modest intelligence for this and you need to set up your economic systems to support and not inhibit beneficial results.

So yes, you don’t want to tax businesses beyond rational levels; but equally important you don’t want to be rewarding businesses to do things that are disadvantageous for our economy but benefit the business. You know, exactly what politicians do.

A Just Purpose for Government

“Establish Justice”, seems like an obvious purpose for our government; and it is contractually binding. Certainly you would not reject that goal. You wouldn’t agree that you are less entitled or not entitled to the same rights that any other given person in our nation is granted under the law. I suppose there might be some individuals who are, let’s say, less cognitively capable or who have some self-esteem issues which leads them to think that they do not deserve the same rights; but you don’t think of yourself as somehow unworthy of equality within in system. Besides under our law we have definitively determined that you are not allowed ‘under the law’ to abandon, relinquish, or in any way give up or forfeit your basic rights. So like it or not, you are entitled to justice in America; in fact, equal justice. No less and no more justice than anyone else. And here’s the part many of you will have a hard time with, everyone else has the exact same claim and right to the same equal justice. That’s part of the contract we agreed to.

Now not many of you remember signing the contract, but there are some who do because they did. But for the rest, the binding agreement is an inherited obligation handed down from generation to generation; additionally it is a verbal contract commitment that you made when you first claimed for yourself any of the rights granted under the Constitution. Even before that the rest of society granted you those rights as a citizen of the United States when you were born. All in all, there is no way out except complete forfeiture for citizenship and leaving. So the government owes you justice.

The difficulty with the justice purpose of government is that once we all understand that justice is part of the guarantee of our democratic system, being a part of the contract doesn’t convey what justice entails. I completely understand this problem, because it is really hard to define what justice is as it applies to our societal framework.

Given the constitutional covenant which fundamentally addresses the laws that unite us, justice would be principally the realm where we interact with each other under our laws. The government’s purpose with respect to justice is to insure that laws are applied uniformly and equitably. This includes protecting citizens’ rights by providing the governmental infrastructure that administers justice: the courts, law enforcement, and god-protect us government lawyers. It includes the legislature’s duty to make laws that abide by the principle of justice, no matter how bad they are at it. Thankfully we have the checks and balances within our structure that provides the opportunity to limit and correct their errors of judgment, intent and foolishness.

The societal questions that abound around treating citizens fairly is the most difficult aspect of justice. The problem here is that determining what is fair is often not a legal issue and not related to the law. The purpose of justice when it comes to questions of fairness is for the government to be able to justify to the people and all branches of government that what is deemed fair, is deemed far under the law. So a progressive tax rate is often argued as unfair, but the principle of justice is not the basis of determining whether it is fair or not. Justice only requires that it is within the legal jurisdiction of the government and that the tax laws do not violate the obligation to apply the law justly to all.

In a democracy, Justice is a core purpose of government. If the government does not insure and deliver justice then the government will ultimately run afoul of its other constitutional contractual obligations; and the consequences of this failure are emblematic of our very founding.

The Union Purpose of Government

It’s not that we have forgotten the purpose of our government; it’s that we probably never learned it. In the second installment on the purpose of government I thought the starting point might logically proceed from our covenant. If my meaning doesn’t spring immediately to mind, perhaps the following snippet from our contract will help: “form a more perfect Union”. Yes, the U.S. Constitution which many consider the seminal document defining our government and perhaps even its purpose.

On the supposition that the preamble serves to set forth the general purposes and goals of our government then an examination of the preamble is a rational point of departure for a discussion. How then is a “more perfect Union” a purpose for our government?

The Union referred to is the collection of states that determined that their individual interests and futures, and the interests of their citizens, would be better served if they redefined the confederated government that they had been working under into one that established the federal system we have today. This is how it was formed but doesn’t explain what its expected purposes are. So let’s begin and see what it is that we have by way of expectation in the purpose for our Constitutional government.

The ‘more perfect’ is the salient semantic component of this constitutional goal. After all, we already had a Union with the Confederation; the problem was that it was not an effective and viable governmental structure. The immediate and local individual states’ interests were trumping the national needs and interests of the Confederation. Even at the start, we had difficulties in reconciling the local, state and regional versus the national views. The ‘more perfect’ sets forth a purpose and vision for our government, our union; that entailed a cohesive force that provides a single national means to deliver upon the contract. While admitting to the impossibility of delivering a ‘perfect’ Union, our Founding Fathers chose to incorporate the aspirational goal to insure that it was better at achieving it other goals.

Beyond that very American ambition, there is still more in the simple word: Union. Whether they understood it or not, the Founding Fathers encompassed a societal purpose to our federal government that it was to extend fundamental equality of rights within the nation. As the nation has matured and endured this notion of equality has broadened and strengthened as an essential principle that is both a guarantee and an obligation. This is one of the purposes of our government. Within the framework of our federal government, we have established the individual and the collective responsibility to recognize the mutual rights we are obligated to respect and grant each other; and which the government is empowered and directed to maintain in the execution of our laws. The governmental purpose imposed by the ‘Union’ context is to hold individuals, groups, states, regions, and the nation itself to abide by the equality of rights and of responsibilities that our laws delineate. This purpose includes the government’s responsibility to insure that no laws are enacted which inherently violates any other guaranteed conditions of our Constitutional compact.

While we instantly demand our rights, we rarely and reluctantly acknowledge the ‘mutual’ responsibilities required of our democratic system. It’s not hard to see how the divisive and antagonistic mentalities of our political parties have contributed to the failure of working toward are ‘more perfect’ Union. The political parties represent what the Founding Fathers had to overcome in creating the form of government Americans were willing to and still die for, the short-term and local interest over the national and societal interest. 

A Treatment Plan for Healthcare

Both Republicans and Democrats want to fix America’s healthcare system. Both want to reduce the rapidly rising cost of health care, particularly Medicare and Medicaid. And both want to use their view of how healthcare should be provided to defeat their opponents in their election campaigns. But neither has shown any ability to actually provide a plan that actually provides a plan for accomplishing it that would serve the public. How is this possible, if healthcare is an important issue to the public?

The easy answer is that politicians are as woefully ill-equipped to grapple with the healthcare system as they are with pretty much anything else. Yes, our politicians are an incapable lot. But while it’s an easy answer, and it is true that the politicians are in no position to develop or craft a viable healthcare plan; they are unfortunately in the position of having to agree to whatever plan would ultimately be adopted. So they are a player at the table, we just need to find a way to put them at the kiddy-table and remind them that they should be quiet while the adults are discussing serious matters. Once the adults are done, they will be allowed to go play in the family room (Congress), but will have to do what they’re told.

The more important part of the answer is that the public is once again caught in their wishful thinking mode about healthcare. Most people are satisfied with their medical care. This satisfaction is of course disconnected from an appreciation of what they are paying for. Either they are covered by a medical play that covers all or most of the costs, or their deductable is not outrageously bad and the co-pays are relatively small. What they are not accounting for is that they are paying for other medical costs that are not part of what they think of as their expense. Local, state and federal taxes that go to support medical systems like hospitals; the Medicare and Medicaid programs that are not adequately funded and which are increasingly consuming more and more in public funding. The public doesn’t see the increasing medical costs that are outstripping any salary increases or inflation rates anywhere else in the economy as part of their medical expense problem. The public thinks that an unsustainable healthcare system doesn’t mean they will be affected in the future. I am not saying that they’re stupid, but Forrest Gump had a philosophy about intelligence that comes to mind.

What the public needs to do is not delude themselves into thinking that things are generally ok with healthcare, they are not. The public must reject the notion that the political parties or factions within a party are even more clueless then they are about how to fix healthcare. The first step as with most problems is to admit that you have a problem and then to find someone who can help you find your way. The problem is that as the healthcare system collapses under the weight of unaffordable costs, your personal healthcare will suffer through either increased costs, reduced available providers, or altogether unavailable healthcare services.

The solution is for the politicians to remove themselves from being the agents that design the healthcare system, they must be restricted to only agree that whatever is funded under a government budget is paid for with non-borrowed revenues. If the public cannot pay for it, then they cannot get it.

Now while neither the Democrats nor Republicans can design a governmental healthcare system that will provide more care at lower costs then the mess we have today, it can be done by people who know how to solve problems that are constrained by the requirements that define what is to be delivered as the end product.

Why Politicians Fail (like on Medicare)

Obama and GOP leaders were squabbling today at the White House. Wow! Is this some wacky completely outlandish Hollywood movie idea that is just so removed from reality that it ruins the movie? No, it’s the same old political posturing that the Democrats and Republicans engage in because it is their most sophisticated strategy. “It’s your fault because you didn’t tell me how to do it.” “Your idea won’t work because it’s just stupid.” Imagine the mental power that must be behind the planning that goes into this elementary school playground ploy. Is this any way to run a country? No, it isn’t.

The reason that the Republicans and Democrats cannot find a mutually acceptable solution is that they are ignorant of at least four factors.

First: neither has any idea of how to actually solve the problem.

Second: each side believes that it’s either they win and the other loses, or they lose and the other wins.

Third: both are incapable of looking beyond their own view-points to find options and alternatives that would be superior to their own feeble efforts.

Fourth: you don’t solve financial problems in a political arena; you solve the political problem of demonstrating how the solution aligns with your political perspective.

Considering these failings on the part of politicians of either stripe, is it any wonder that they flail and stumble around desperately trying not to get caught in the light of day where it would be clear that they don’t know how to demonstrate the soundness of their position. Instead of developing a viable strategy to deal with issues like the sustainability of the Medicare objective, they seek to garner enough of a voting majority to just push through their version of a catastrophic approach. Yes, one side may want to provide what you can’t afford and the other to prevent you from getting what you need; but either way you wind up in the same sorry state.

Do you really think it’s as hard to fix Medicare as they are showing it is for them to do it? Maybe they should just put out their own explicit plan for how they are going to deal with Medicare, and let the voters decide. If you can’t elect representatives that can solve the problem once put into office, then maybe the voters can pick the plan they want to live with/under. Put the plan on the ballot, structure it so that it is not alterable by the politicians once the plan is chosen, and let it rip. I wouldn’t recommend this myself, because there is a much better way to fix Medicare. But the politicians haven’t got a clue and you don’t want them tinkering with the plan after you vote for them. You want it in writing before you do.