Republican Voters and the Role of Government

A reader asks, “What is wrong with Republicans? Don’t any of them get diabetes?”

The problem is that these congresspeople represent people who don’t think that government should be in the business of doing anything good for the American people.  The Fox News crowd believes that once people rely on government for anything, the whole country turns into Cuba.

These are people capable of perceiving only black and white.  They aren’t reminded, nor do they want to be, that all Americans receive a bounty of valuable services (see below) that are paid for by their tax dollars.

Remember that Trumpers wanted to “dismantle the administrative state,” and that everyone from Ronald Reagan to Ben Carson said, “Government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem.” This is a mantra that has carried a great deal of weight throughout the entirety of the last 40+ years.

Part of this is “trickle down economics,” the theory that tax cuts for the rich mean more prosperity for everyone.  Of course, people who read understand that this concept has been completely debunked, but it’s still held in place by the more ignorant members of our society.

The U.S. government, via its tax base, provides each American with infrastructure, police, fire fighting, criminal justice, national defense, public education, labor laws, auto and food safety standards, air traffic control, TSA, libraries, emergency medical care, environmental regulation, social security, Medicare, the National Archives, national parks, bank regulations and deposit insurance, copyright and patent laws, federal dams to provide electrical power, flood control, the Weather Service, the Federal Housing Authority, consulates and embassies, FEMA, veterans affairs, public water systems, monitoring of all international cargo, NASA, border protection, and the National Institutes of Health.