It’s not government; it’s conservative government

July 23, 2007

I remember hearing this argument a bit in 2005, but it may be poised for a comeback.

“Barack Obama said we’re going to have to have the government take over health care. He at least had the integrity to say he wants to raise your taxes,” Romney said. “The right answer is not a government takeover, it’s not socialized medicine. It’s not Hillarycare.”

At a town hall meeting in Exeter later Sunday, he said, “I don’t want the guys who ran the (Hurricane) Katrina cleanup running my health care system.”

Even if we put aside the unusually stupid assessment of Obama’s healthcare plan — which isn’t even close to a “government take over” — Romney’s punch-line was a fairly common talking point on the right in the wake of the Katrina fiasco: this proves government is not to be trusted.

On a related note, a GAO study apparently found that over the course of seven years, including all of Bush’s first term, the Department of Agriculture distributed $1.1 billion to the estates of deceased farmers. What’s more, the agency had regulations in place to ensure the payments were properly made, but they were ignored.

It prompted at least one far-right blogger to use a Romney-like line: “And this is the government Hillary! wants to run the US health care system.”

This is wholly unpersuasive.

I’d hoped this would be obvious by now, but the problem with a breakdown like Katrina is not with government; it’s with incompetent government. P. J. O’Rourke once joked, “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work — and then they get elected and prove it.”

The point isn’t that FEMA, for example, is incapable of responding to a natural disaster. Bush helped turn the agency into a joke, but FEMA used to be extremely well run and fully capable of helping areas in need of assistance. To hear Romney tell it, government can’t respond to a hurricane, so it certainly can’t bring access to quality healthcare to Americans.

In reality, it can do both. The former governor may not realize it, but he’s actually attacking Bush far more than the dreaded Big Government — the federal system used to respond to hurricanes just fine.

Indeed, I wonder how far Romney is prepared to take his little comparison. Does he want “the guys who ran the Katrina cleanup” running Medicare? Or would he support privatization? Does he want “the guys who ran the Katrina cleanup” running Social Security? Or should that be privatized, too?

Maybe some enterprising political reporter might ask for a clarification.

You know what, CB? Lighten up slightly.

  • “I don’t want the guys who ran the (Hurricane) Katrina cleanup running my health care system.”

    Good! I don’t want them running Guantanamo, or running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or making energy policy, or enforcing the law, or building embassies, or appointing judges.

    The simpering fascists took our shoes, our car keys and our wallets in broad daylight in front a crowd. Maybe it’s time we wised the fuck up.

  • I read a Gingrich comment of recent that made the same claim about Katrina, and he also threw in the “failure” of public education. Apparently he sees Bush’s NCLB pogram as a failure, too.

    And I blame Big Government for Iraq.

  • Hey, I don’t want “the guys who ran the Katrina cleanup” running any part of government. Can Oven Mitt get the Bush sAdministration to leave now?

    This strikes me as foolishly simple to hit back on.

    “One of the Republican candidates has disparaged trying to have the government help ensure quality, affordable health care for every American. Speaking of Democratic plans, he said ‘I don’t want the guys who ran the Katrina cleanup running health care.’ I couldn’t agree more. That’s why we need to elect a Democratic President and a Democratic congress so we don’t have those conservatives, those crony-hiring Republicans running the clean up for the next hurricane. I want better for our citizens in places like New Orleans. We don’t want Republicans running health care – they care more about big insurance and pharmaceutical companies than about uninsured kids. We don’t want people like the Bush administration and its supporters running the Justice Department with the likes of Alberto Gonzales. And I can’t imagine anyone wants these loose cannons, these go-it-alone no matter the cost neo-cons, running our foreign policy. We can do better, and we will, once we get the party responsible for the Katrina clean-up out of power. Then we can show America what government for the people, not just for the Halliburtons and Enrons, looks like. The problem is not government – the problem is Republican governance. Its time to clean house.”

  • The answer is simple.

    “Nobody does. That’s why people need to vote for Democrats!”

  • This is the person who killed their parents, in front of a judge, asking for mercy because they are an orphan.

    I’m thinking that the 26%ers (to whom Mitler is pandering) should adopt Fleetwood Mac’s “Lies” as their theme song. “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.”
    And it’s a lie that they are either sweet or little.

  • Bush has run several companies into the ground too. Is it any wonder he has run our government into the ground?

    Question for Rommey: if he doesn’t think the government is capable of providing basic services – and health care is a basic service – why is he running for President? Does he even think he’s capable of running an effective government or is he going to continue to run it into the ground like Bush?

  • In true Orwellian fashion, every failure of Republican governance somewhat represents a success for DeLay-style mutated pseudo-conservatism. When they screw things up–and it generally is a “when,” not an “if”–they get to argue that the whole exercise is futile.

    Of course, for a would-be heir to George W. Bush to make this argument might be enough to explode some thinking heads. In essence, The Mittster is saying, “Since we fucked up so badly, you should keep us in power because we’re too humble to try any other big projects. You can only keep Big Guv’mit in its cage by returning to office the party that showed how badly government can fail.”

  • I don’t know why “JKap” wants CB to Lighten up. That the right-wing always seems to eventually be distilled down to a bunch of apologists, cheerleaders, and enablers for the few and the greedy, certainly isn’t news. On the other hand, frequently repeating that reality isn’t a bad idea. It’s too glibly and too conveniently and too often ignored.

  • The government we have is the government you get when the people who ‘hate’ government run it. They have nothing to lose by screwing everything up because screwing up only proves their point. Talk about self-fulfilling prophesies. They’re telling us they’re control makes no difference. It’s a monster out of control. Nonsense, as FEMA under Clinton demonstrated. Competence matters. So does incompetence. And are they ever incompetent.

  • Jeesh I wouldn’t want the FEMA team running my healthcare either….so we better make sure we do not reelect corrupt corporate cronies who give FEMA oversight to unqualified…but politically loyal individuals.

    They are making a mockery of our democracy which is turning into a feeding trough for all the cronies out there.

    In the past each admin. appointed qualified rather than political unqualified individuals. But Bush&Cheney set the standard for neocon incompetency…that raises money for BIG OIL.

    It is so great to have a place to vent.

  • “I don’t want the guys who ran the (Hurricane) Katrina cleanup running my health care system.” — Mitler, aspiring

    They won’t; the Dem prex will put *competent* people to run things, not hacks, whose only “virtue” is loyalty to the party.

  • You know, that’s the tragedy of all this rhetoric. Romney doesn’t know what he’s actually saying and no calls him on it, so he continues to spout about government being incompetent when in fact it is Bush’s government that is incompetent.

    If Republicans refuse to oil an engine or put water in it or tune it and just throw dirt on it then of course it won’t run. Government can be perfectly capable of being extremely efficient if republicans would stoop trying to destroy it. It’s their job as elected officials to make it run right not sabotage it and then complain that it doesn’t work. Why do reporters never point that out to them when they make such ridiculous statements?

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