Bill Clinton Was Right: Americans Don’t Want Big Government
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Ross Douthat and Mark Schmitt concur that the key to political success is to go small rather than big. Instead of proposing vast and ambitious government programs, lawmakers should propose small-bore stuff, a la Clinton of the mid-’90s or Bush in his first term. Give this argument it’s due. For most of the previous decade, it was a contrarian position on the left and right. Everyone from Karl Rove to Rahm Emanuel to Schmitt himself advocated bold and fundamental re-shapings of the social contract.
Now, in the wake of Obama’s State of the Union, this argument is the conventional wisdom. And playing small ball might well be the most prudent and wise way to govern the country.
But at the risk of sounding like, egads, a populist or Bill Clinton circa 1996, I suspect that the new received wisdom shows how out of touch we political elites and activists are; certainly it suggests our political memory is short. The end of the draft in ‘73; the failure of health care reform in ‘93; the government shut down in ‘95; the Iraq War in ‘06 and ‘08; the failure of health care reform this year – Americans have rejected sweeping government change time and again.
Americans don’t want big new government programs, as progressives and military hawks desire. Nor do they want to end government programs, as conservatives want. They want incremental changes to the status quo. And whichever political party grasps this truth will achieve the lasting political majority that both sides crave.
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I don’t think it’s correct to say that the public is behind the health care failure of this year. Last I’ve seen of basically all of the polls regarding support of health care is a solid majority in favor of whatever falls under the umbrella of “health care reform,” and the golden stat of the 60% that support the public option. If anything, health care was part of the mandate that helped sweep Obama into the White House a year ago. But health care reform fell apart because of not coming together for procedural votes and allowing Republicans to force a 60-vote majority to secure it. Not sure how that’s somehow reflective of the people’s desire to throw away big government.
Ultimately, I feel like the “Americans Don’t Want Big Government” banner isn’t a satisfactory explanation to the shifting political landscape. The president’s numbers are plummeting because the major platforms have yet to be achieved, not because we’re sick of big government.
Like so many things in life, it’s not the size that is so important, but how you use it, and what you do with it. How you swing it.
I’m for good government, smart government. The size issue is mostly something the Robber Barons trot out to combat regulation and taxes (for them). It’s primarily a selfish and short-sighted argument.