Paul Krugman says the last week’s tragedy was caused by people who don’t believe in government.

But the federal government’s lethal ineptitude wasn’t just a consequence of Mr. Bush’s personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn’t forthcoming?

The right may be denigrating the public sector in word, but it’s doing so while massively expanding it.. I’m awestruck, here. Government leaves thousands dead, and Krugman lambastes people who are skeptical of government? How does that follow?

He moves to this curious piece of evidence in support of his position:

Does anyone remember the fight over federalizing airport security? Even after 9/11, the administration and conservative members of Congress tried to keep airport security in the hands of private companies. They were more worried about adding federal employees than about closing a deadly hole in national security.

No. The governmetn indemnified the private security firms and airlines from lawsuits related to their incompetence, effectively removing corrective market forces. Then they federalized the system, and I don’t think anyone would argue that the results have been laudable.

Here’s where Krugman loses it:

Of course, the attempt to keep airport security private wasn’t just about philosophy; it was also an attempt to protect private interests. But that’s not really a contradiction. Ideological cynicism about government easily morphs into a readiness to treat government spending as a way to reward your friends. After all, if you don’t believe government can do any good, why not?

Krugman’s making two false assumptions, here. The first is that the ruling GOP doesn’t believe in government. In Iraq, this administration believes it can build a liberal soceity from scratch. It believes government can save marriages, convert convicts to Christianity, eradicate the drug supply, save public schools through nationalized testing, stop unwed sex by teaching abstinence, and solve the problem of high drug prices by forcing the rest of the country to pay for the medication of elderly people. That’s an off-the-top-of-my-head list. This is an administration that has added an entire cabinet department to the federal rolls (also the largest bureaucracy in the history of U.S. government), spent money at record levels, expanded the regulatory state, and — at the same time — has been the most secretive administration in American history. If Krugman believes these to be signs of an administration, political party, and philosophy with “contempt” for government, I’d hate to see what “faith in government” looks like.

Krugman’s second false assumption is more egregious. And that is that cronyism is somehow limited to the right, or to limited-government types. Please. The bigger the government, the more corrupt the government. I’ll make no attempt to defend the appointment of Michael Brown. Nor will I attempt to absolve the Bush administration of charges of cronyism. They’re as guilty as every previous administration. But they are as guilty as every previous administration. Cronyism isn’t symptomatic of those of us who distrust government, cronyism is endemic to government. Corruption and backscratching are part and parcel of government. They are the very nature of government. They are one of many reasons why those of us who hold contempt for government — well — hold contempt for government.

Here’s a question for Krugman: The Army Corps of Engineers set out on the task of shoring up those levees on the outskirts of New Orleans in the 1960s. The federal government had taken responsibility for the system in the 1920s. Forty years later, after both parties have held both the White House and the Congress, that task was never completed. Despite, repeated warnings, we finally paid the price for massive government incompetence.

So what if government had never gotten involved? Does anyone think that if corporations with assets to protect in Southern Louisiana weren’t protected by federalized flood insurance, and if the federal government hadn’t assumed responsibility to keep Lake Ponchartrain at bay, it would have taken forty years to fix those levees? Anyone else suspect the levees would never have fallen into disrepair in the first place? My guess is that anyone with business in the area would have invested to protect his investment. There may still have been damage. But not wholesale devastation.

Krugman also conveniently neglects to mention the dereliction of duty of government officials at the state and local level. I’ll be that has nothing to do with the fact that most of them are leftist Democrats who believe wholeheartedly in big government.

This is important. We lost the debate after 9/11. Massive government failure inexplicably led to a massive expansion of the government. One result of that expansion — puting FEMA under the bureaucratic nightmare auspices of DHS — likely contributed to the futility we’ve seen over the last week. A government-planned Brasilia-like New New Orleans would be an atrocity. The Paul Krugmans — or the Jonathan Alters — simply can’t win this debate.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 5th, 2005 at 7:19 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.