Government is Changing

As the election season for the 2016 Presidential Election in the United States begins to slowly take off, it is even more obvious that people are confused and uncomfortable with how government is doing it’s job. There are areas where we would like government to do more (healthcare, child care, education, transportation, regulation) and many areas where we want government to do less (social issues, regressive taxes, and areas of foreign policy).

There are no answers on the right or the left. People want smaller government that is proactive. It seems like a paradox but it simply has to do with cultural change. We want the government to be in our everyday lives less while solving real world community problems with resources, information, and technical ability. Income inequality, social programs and this sort of thing we want the government solve, even health care. The war on drugs? less so. We don’t care as much about regulating neighborhoods and lawns as we care about infrastructure. Think about what makes a community? That’s what people want for their cities. Government when you need it, not when you don’t. This requires flexibility, response, new technology, and a top down review of how government works in and around our communities.

Government is a complex institution that requires care, professional conduct, and enough transparency to keep it honest as a whole. It affects every area of our life and yet often, when it comes time that we need it, it is not there. I was recently acquainted with a woman who was applying for disability. She is functional but has a host of health conditions that really prevent her from working. Sadly, due to the fact that she has only held a handful of jobs, albeit important ones like EMT and Firefighter, she was not approved and was told flat out that it was unlikely she ever would be due to her lack of work history. It was emotionally hard and she felt very invalidated that her years of raising children, keeping a household, and other important tasks, for the purposes of government just didn’t seem to mean anything. If there is anything that people want changed this election it would be stories like that. People want to know, where is government for hard working people like this woman? Where is government in our greatest hour of need? Often, under the current system, government does not work well enough.

So how do we solve this problem? Candidates like Bernie Sanders propose a kind of democratic socialism like Europe (and even agrees with Donald Trump on a few points like single-payer healthcare) and working hard for the middle class by taxing bankers but there are few suggestions for how to make government closer and more responsive to people and more fair for everyone. That is what people want next from their government. They don’t just want government efficient talking points, they want actually efficient government that gets things done and helps people actually have real needs.

That is the kind of government we deserve.

What do you think? Comment below!