Opinion

For liberals, too much government is never enough

James Sharp Contributor
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After this week’s FCC ruling regarding the internet regulations that are euphemistically known as “net neutrality,” I have come to the conclusion that, in the eyes of those on the left, too much government is not enough. Actually, the FCC ruling did not prompt me to come to that conclusion; it merely prompted me to write about it.

It is not as though the concept of a meddling federal bureaucracy is anything new; it is not. Quite the contrary. Since the early part of the twentieth century, liberals have succeeded in creating an endless number of governmental agencies. The right has had its hand in the sandbox, too. After all, Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, arguably one of Washington’s more insidious bureaucracies. But the Democrats carry the lion’s share of the blame for creating the bureaucratic nightmare that we call “Washington.”

Ronald Reagan, in his first inaugural address, summed it up by stating that, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. (Emphasis on the second “is”). Truer words have never been spoken.

As though we Americans did not already have enough agencies in Washington looking after the food we eat, the water we drink, the mortgages on our homes, the stocks we own, the cars we drive, the fuels that we burn in those cars, the toys our kids play with, etc., the populace saw fit, after electing Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to lead Congress in 2006, to elect as president the most liberal member of the United States Senate.

What Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have unleashed on America is a burgeoning of an already bloated bureaucracy, the likes of which would have had President Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson doing cartwheels of glee. Nowhere is this more evident than in the gargantuan health care legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by Obama early in 2010. The amount of governmental paperwork required to administer the health care of 300 million Americans is bad enough. And considering the number of government employees that will be required to keep track of it all, it amounts to a Leviathan-in-the-making (if not already made).

While many of the newly elected members of Congress, along with a number of veteran conservative stalwarts, are promising to overturn or at least defund the health care law, liberals see the law as their crowning achievement — the legislative equivalent of a Super Bowl ring or a Stanley Cup.

Which proves my point that — insofar as liberals are concerned — more government means better government. Or, to put it another way, too much government is NEVER enough.

James Sharp is a middle-aged, middle-class, middle-management sales guy. He believes in a strong military, limited government and unlimited opportunity for all US citizens.