Cost of Government Day (COGD)
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Title: Diet plan for a bloated government

Date: July 20, 2003

Source: Scott Fish, Portland Press Herald

Words: 1,286

My opinion of the current political situation in Washington, D.C.? There are pluses. The war on terrorism is generally going well. The Bush tax cut package. The return of common sense and sound science to environmental issues.

Still, the federal government keeps growing in size and reach. Count me among those who thought, with Republicans controlling both Congress and the White House, the GOP would grab the reins of runaway government growth and spending and yell, "Whoa." Cato Institute's Ed Crane tells Human Events that at this time in President Reagan's first term, "the total increase in government spending was 4 percent total for three years; today, the increase in spending is 30 percent for three years."

Another yardstick: Cost of Government Day is the date of the calendar year when the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens imposed by federal, state and local government. This year, that date is July 11th - four and a half days later than last year and 17 days later than in 2000.

The next time someone asks, "Is the GOP Embracing 'Big Government'?" What's my answer? I didn't join the Republican Party to help Americans become less independent and more dependent upon government.

Our nation is at a crossroads. How long can government take more of our earnings before we reach a breaking point? How much will we allow government to micromanage our lives before we say, "Enough!"

I remain optimistic about America's future, and I still have hope that the Republican Party will wake up.

To that end, I offer here two solutions to America's "Crisis of Government Obesity," one short-term and one long-term.

First, I want elected officials to stop their lazy, damaging fallback on tax increases as their answer to every alleged public problem. Especially the trivial and stupid problems. Does the federal government really need to use our money to fund retirement homes for chimpanzees? To back a loan for someone to buy a bed-and-breakfast in Bar Harbor? To pay for a Bangor motel to paint its interior and landscape its exterior?

We must insist that our elected officials return to public policy solutions promoting independence and the American spirit. This healthy approach to public policy can begin tomorrow. There are examples everywhere:

From the book, Revolution at the Roots, by William D. Eggers and John O'Leary. "[E]very city function in Indianapolis has to pass 'The Yellow Pages Test.' If there are private firms out there providing a service, you have to ask why the city doesn't make use of their existing expertise." The same principle can work for the federal government.

From now on, all new government programs should include specific, defined goals and sunset provisions. At some point, a non-political auditing entity asks of each program: Is it on target to meet its goals? If not, why not? Can - or should - the program be put back on track, or does it make more sense to end it now? When the sunset provision kicks in, the program stops.

Apply the same scrutiny and honesty in auditing existing government programs.

None of the examples demands random cuts. There's no demand at all for cuts. The only demand is for honesty and accountability with our money in assessing the true need and viability of government programs.

My second solution to America's "Crisis of Government Obesity" was a long time coming, the result of more than two decades in politics. What I observed during that time is this. Generations of Americans lack the minimum skills every American citizen should have: a basic understanding of the principles upon which our nation is founded and also of how government works, including the vital role of each of us in the care and feeding of government.

These minimum skills were once taught to every public school student in "civics" classes. I'm convinced that the long-term solution for runaway government is a renewed learning of minimum civics skills.

Consider these lines from a 1925 Maine school civics textbook: "The simple tasks of citizenship - taking an earnest part in home duties, helping the unfortunate of one's neighborhood, earning one's living, voting intelligently - are such seemingly commonplace acts that many persons believe it makes little difference how well or ill they do them. This spirit of indifference is the nation's greatest danger, for a nation succeeds or fails not on the battlefields but in the preceding and succeeding years, in the homes, schools, and places of work."

How can you argue against that timeless wisdom? Instead of raising young Americans on "the simple tasks of citizenship," our very language of lawmaking is now a foreign language. For too many citizens our elected officials may as well be lawmaking in Latin or ancient Greek - a situation 180-degrees away from how our system of government was designed.

In brief, ours is a republican (small "r") form of government where citizens choose (elect) people to be their eyes, ears and mouths in Washington, D.C. Our republican government works only when citizens understand how it works and, in turn, elect the best-qualified people to public office.

When citizens have no idea or the wrong idea of how our government works, what kind of people will they elect to public office to make the laws of the land? Talk about the blind leading the blind!

Ignorance is a godsend for people who want government controlling our lives. Curing ignorance is the central work at hand for those of us still believing in the pre-eminence of individuals over the state, in the genius of the American spirit over the spiritless outlook of bureaucratic central planners.

The people we need to reach first don't understand how government works. They know something's wrong, but they aren't sure what to do about it. That was me 20 years ago. I remember the frustration of reading political reports and editorials in newspapers, having no way of knowing for sure whether what I was reading was true or false. I had a weak civic foundation. That's an awful feeling.

I've learned enough since then to know that the "simple tasks of citizenship" can be learned quickly. Once understood, people can learn more on their own. Fostering those simple tasks has been, since 1998, my motivation at

AsMaineGoes.com.: offering a Web site where people can discuss, debate and learn about public policy.

Also, I am working with the Maine Public Policy Institute on a presentation including "simple tasks of citizenship." We are booking now to give the presentation in chicken shacks, Dairy Queens, Grange halls, universities - anywhere people hungry to learn are willing to listen.

Two friends, not long after Congress's Fourth of July recess, told me they think it's time for a revolution. I agree in this sense: I don't want the last chapter in American history to be that of another failed socialist experiment. It is worth recalling, in the shadow of Independence Day 2003, the words of two of America's greatest revolutionaries, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

John Adams reminds us that before the Revolutionary War, "The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people." I intend to do my part in rekindling that zeal for independence in the minds and hearts of the people. Will you?

Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Cherish . . . the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves."

Ladies and gentlemen, the wolves are at our doors.

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