WASHINGTON — The other week New York’s Mayor Bloomberg boldly
proclaimed his city’s intention to ban big soft drinks. Kinda,
sorta. The move was both criticized as insufficient and mocked as
nanny government gone wild.
Fans of federalism might say the Mayor’s action illustrates that
state and local governments have the ability to experiment, as our
Founders contemplated. New York can ban big sodas. Meanwhile, the
folks in Missoula, Montana, and Meridien, Mississippi, and
Montgomery County, Maryland, can make their own decisions on the
subject.
On the other hand, fans of the federal government’s current
trajectory would offer a different perspective: what’s really
needed is more federal regulation to address the plethora of
problems caused by the pesky habit Americans have of making their
own decisions. Happily, they could add, the current administration
has made dramatic progress is displacing the patchwork quilt of
individual actions and state and local laws with enlightened
federal guidance.
Here in The Nation’s Only Boom Town, inside the Beltway, our
ruling elites understand the critical point overlooked by Mayor
Bloomberg: every “problem” has a Washington-centered solution. Our
country has many problems. We are told every day of all that needs
to be done, and urgently at that. And all of our problems can be
solved — or at least “addressed” — if we simply acquiesce in more
federal government control over our decisions and our daily
lives.
It is well appreciated here in Washington that there is just
about nothing that should be left to the sound judgment of state
and local officials. Moreover, it is even less likely that there
are issues encountered in daily life for which individuals
should be expected — or even allowed — to take responsibility. At
least not without oversight from extremely well paid, and of course
very well meaning, public servants in the nation’s capital.
Like the water that fish don’t notice, reminders of
this world view surround us constantly here in
Washington. Around the country, the warmth of this enveloping
governmental benevolence is on display on network talk shows
and in assorted op-ed columns every day. Washington experts are
always ready to explain why ordinary people simply must have more
guidance from the federal government if our societal problems are
ever to be solved.
A couple of examples, which illustrate this phenomenon,
arrived in my email within the past few weeks. While I noticed
these two in particular, it is almost certain I overlooked others
of equal or greater concern. After all, things of this sort have
become so ordinary that one hardly notices. And that’s the very
reason we should sit up and pay attention.
Let Us Help You with That Savings Account
First, I received a program announcement from the National
Journal. This federal government-focused publication
advertised a panel discussion on the subject, “Are the Joneses
Keeping Up? Policy Prescriptions for Personal Financial Security.”
Assorted federal officials and Washington insiders were identified
as panelists.
The program description simply assumes it is proper and
desirable that we consider how “Washington” can “promote financial
literacy for middle-market Americans,” and that we should
discuss what federal programs and policies “could help Americans
save, invest and plan for the future.”
Now perhaps contemplation of what “Washington” might do on these
subjects does no harm. But frankly, I wonder. Should we
assume, as the flyer does, that it’s the role of
Washington to “promote financial literacy” for
presumably benighted “middle-market Americans”? And should we
accept, as a starting point for discussion, that it is up to the
federal government to “help” us “save, invest, and plan for the
future”?
A few decades back, parents taught their children to save by
word and example. My folks took me to the local bank
to open a savings account, with all of about ten dollars, when
I was in the second grade. They wanted me to learn to save. In
the final analysis, at least in those days, it was up to me. As I
was raised to do, after school I got a job and earned money, paid
taxes, and saved a little on my own.
In the past, outside the home, promoting financial literacy was
the province of high school teachers, local banks, investment
advisors, churches, and civic organizations. Planning for the
future was a matter of personal responsibility. And investing — at
least, back before that term came to mean what government does when
it spends billions on green energy companies owned by political
supporters of the president — was a means of saving and preparing
for the future.
Now the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is gearing
up to come into your living room and give you a hand.
Thanks, Mom and Dad, We’ll Take It From
Here
More recently, I received an email from the American Bar
Association summarizing a variety of things going on in Congress.
It seems that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) has introduced
the National Parent Helpline Act (S. 2293). This bill would
“establish a national, toll-free telephone parent helpline to
provide information and assistance to parents and caregivers of
children to prevent child abuse and strengthen families.”
As supporters of the bill put it: “This vital new national
resource will assist parents with a wide range of issues such as
parenting and positive discipline techniques, effective
communication strategies, stress reduction, personal care and
safety, and provide referrals to community-based prevention
programs, shelters, substance abuse programs, respite care, and
child care.”
Of course, this will take some of your money, and probably not
only for the hotline itself. Imagine the fun that advocacy groups
and community organizers will have crafting the regulations that
will some day be necessary for the hotline’s operation. They will
be determining who gets to be paid to staff the hotline, and what
related community based activities will be funded as the scope of
the operation inevitably spreads (you know, the way government
programs always do).
Even more (costly and) entertaining, we’ll have to have experts
involved in determining just exactly how the hotline should be
helping parents with the “wide range of issues” to be addressed.
What will the federal uber-nanny allow the hotline deputy-nannies
to say to parents about “positive discipline techniques”? And what
“effective communications strategies” will be scripted out for
dealing with, say, questions about birth control or sexual
preference or religion? Mayor Bloomberg can take heart that in
instructing on “personal care” and “substance abuse” the hotline
can go after irresponsible soft drink swilling.
Clearly this is a program with very great potential. Just think,
now we’re finally going to have federal parenting standards! Maybe
even a hotline for kids to report their parents for inappropriate
words or deeds (oh wait, hasn’t that been tried somewhere before?).
This will be a marvelous engine for the encouragement of even
greater dependency on the federal government. That composite woman
Julia on the Obama campaign website ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Please Try This Experiment
Here’s an experiment I’ve found instructive, and which I commend to
readers.
Whenever you watch a discussion on your favorite network, in
which pundits or politicians blather on about some societal ill,
listen to the solutions they support. If some sort of government
program or action is proposed, see if anyone suggests that perhaps
the remedy need not involve the government at all. Or that, if any
government action is called for, it should be at the state or local
level. Safety warning: Do not hold your breath waiting for
such statements.
I think you’ll find that in Washington folks very seldom ask, at
least outside of Supreme Court arguments, whether there should be
any limits to what the government should be called upon to do on
our behalf.
So we should salute the genius of our keepers in The Nation’s
Only Boom Town. The answers they have for our problems may or may
not work for us, but they are guaranteed to enhance the wealth and
power of our ruling elite.
