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September 14, 2005

We've got what they wanted. Now what?

The surprise and shock of the citizenry at the federal response to Hurricane Katrina really shouldn't be especially surprising or shocking.

As most are well aware, the federal government is wholly under the power of Republicans. For many years, conservatives and Republicans have been adamant about lesser and weaker government. They've wanted less government oversight and regulation. They've pushed to starve the beast of government by forcing tax cuts. These cuts were supposed to lead to bone cutting slashing of federal spending.

The Republicans have instead cut taxes and done little to cut government spending in any significant way. Despite Tom DeLay's declaration of victory against the "war on the budget", the only areas of government seeing real cuts are part of the social safety net. The military, government oversight,homeland security, government contracts and Iraq have seen nothing but growth.

With these hefty spending increases, it would be easy to assume that the Republicans are making attempts to run an effective government. But they aren't. It's pretty plain that they don't want to, either.

This is a group of individuals who, in general, articulate a loathing for government at all levels. They want it to be ineffective, lazy and generally nonresponsive to the people. If the citizenry feels disaffected and burned by the government and the private sector steps up, the citizenry will see no need for the strong, centralized government at the federal level.

Certainly during times of national crisis, the private sector has stepped up to aid victims. But asking them to take over the social safety net, self regulate themselves with consumers and self regulate themselves with land use and pollution is nice in theory. But so is Communism.

Privatization is the goal of today's Republican Party. And not just with oversight and the social safety net. They're also working to privatize much of the military, using contractors such as Blackwater and Aegis to to fill recruiting gaps and patrol streets with automatic weapons in New Orleans. These contractors have no sworn oath to the US government or it's citizens. They're private, money making organizations whose loyalty is to their shareholders. They don't answer to the American people if they get out of hand.

Taxpayer dollars are bleeding out of the national treasury to pay private contractors and charities to deal with issues that the government used to handle. They aren't saving the taxpayers money. There is no congressional oversight of these private organizations, hence the American people have no oversight. Government is now too inept and too weak to even come to the aid of a major US port city following a natural disaster.

This is what the Republican Party has wanted for the last four decades. Now they have it. Now all of us have it.

Posted by Carla at September 14, 2005 11:07 AM