What Worries Americans: Big Govt or the Economy?

This is part two. Click here to read the entire series.

Yuval Levin founds his case against the welfare state on this description of the national mood:

It is becoming increasingly clear that we in America are living through a period of transition. One chapter of our national life is closing, and another is about to begin. We can sense this in the tense volatility of our electoral politics, as dramatic "change elections" follow closely upon one another. We can feel it in the unseemly mood of decline that has infected our public life — leaving our usually cheerful nation fretful about global competition and unsure if the next generation will be able to live as well as the present one. Perhaps above all, we can discern it in an overwhelming sense of exhaustion emanating from many of our public institutions — our creaking mid-century transportation infrastructure, our overburdened regulatory agencies struggling to keep pace with a dynamic economy, our massive entitlement system edging toward insolvency.

But these are mostly symptoms of our mounting unease. The most significant cause runs deeper. We have the feeling that profound and unsettling change is afoot because the vision that has dominated our political imagination for a century — the vision of the social-democratic welfare state — is drained and growing bankrupt, and it is not yet clear just what will take its place.

Supposing the first paragraph to be a valid description, is the second paragraph the most plausible explanation? I've met plenty of anxious people over the past three years. Many were beyond anxious: terrified and desperate. And what was the cause of their "unease"? Not the impending bankruptcy of Medicare. I know people who have seen their family incomes drop 80% or 90% over the past 3 years. I'm not going to mention names here, but if I did, I'd venture that Yuval Levin would recognize some of them. I know people who have been out of work for months. I don't personally know anybody who has been foreclosed upon, but that is the accident of living in an area lightly touched by the mortgage disaster. So if somebody asked me, "What is the most significant cause of our mounting national unease?" I'd answer: "We have the feeling that profound and unsettling change is afoot because we are living through the worst economic downturn since World War II."

And once you say that, your mind travels in a very different direction from that indicated by Yuval Levin's essay, or at least my mind does.

Where did this crisis come from? Why was it not prevented? How can we minimize the suffering consequent to the crisis? How can we accelerate recovery from the crisis?

Perhaps I am speaking only for myself, but when I ponder those questions, I come to feel that the libertarian ideal championed these days by so many conservatives has become at least as drained as the social democratic idea.

I don't believe that Yuval Levin, whom I know to be a compassionate person, deplores the existence of unemployment insurance and the ability of Congress to extend insurance payments during a serious crisis.

Are we sorry that the stimulus plan included aid to assist the unemployed with their COBRA payments to continue their health insurance?

Do we condemn food stamps?

Is it a national weakness that the now-substantial government/education/health/military sectors of the economy continued to provide some source of stable demand, unlike the situation in 1931?

When we think of the most immediately urgent failures of government, do we really think of the failure of government to adequately fund the Medicare needs in the next decade - or of the failure of government to act to prevent systematic misrepresentations by rating agencies in the past decade?

Do we truly regret that the Federal Reserve had discretionary power to create new money after October 2008? Wouldn't it make more sense to regret that the Federal Reserve did not use its discretionary power to crack down on predatory lending activity in 2003?

If anything, as we review the record of the past three years, I'm moved to revise my own opinions of a lifetime and adapt the words of Yuval Levin's mentor, Irving Kristol to say: "two cheers for the welfare state."

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