Government is Not the Problem

Dr. Errington Thompson

Governor Bobby Jindal gave the Republican response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. The governor told us a story about Hurricane Katrina, the punch line of which was that we can’t and shouldn’t depend on government. If this were a court of law, I would jump to my feet and yell, “I object, your Honor. Counsel for the Republican party is making an unfounded conclusion which is not based on the evidence.”

Let’s use a medical analogy. Say you come to the Thompson Clinic needing a complex operation like a Whipple procedure. This is removing a portion of the pancreas, distal stomach, and common bile duct and then stitching the result back together (most likely the operation Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had back in January).

The people at the desk tell you that the clinic doesn’t have any surgeons to perform your surgery, but there is a dentist available. The dentist botches the surgery. Does that mean the operation itself does not work? Does it mean that the Thompson Clinic model doesn’t work? I would argue that if you want the best results from this complex procedure, you should get the best trained cancer surgeon you can find. The problem isn’t with the model. It is with the personnel.

Under President Clinton, FEMA evacuated over 3 million people from
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina ahead of Hurricane
Floyd. FEMA worked very well. Under President George W. Bush, Michael
“Heck of a job, Brownie” Brown was in charge of FEMA. Brown had NO
training running a large organization. He had no disaster management
experience when we had the largest disaster in our nation’s history.
There is no question that he was overwhelmed — and that he failed, just
as a dentist would fail at a Whipple.

I would go a step further and suggest that it was NOT a mistake,
nor was it an accident, that President Bush placed Michael Brown at the
head of FEMA. I think Bush and his friends did it on purpose. When you
have a party that truly believes that government is the problem, they
do not respect most government agencies, especially those that work
well and efficiently in doing what they’re supposed to do — like FEMA
under Clinton. They want to see those agencies fail. Similarly,
Republicans hate any agency that regulates business. They placed their
“best” people in agencies that they respected — Department of Commerce
and Department of Defense.

I know you do not believe me. Consider the FDA. Over the last
two or three years, we have had problems with spinach, with bacteria in
lettuce, issues with tomatoes from Mexico and… may I offer you some
Salmonella-laced peanuts? My memory may be bad, but I don’t recall so
many problems with our food supply — ever. In this case, we have the
regulations necessary to inspect the food, but we, the Bush
Administration, chose not to.

Finally, before I rest my case, let me serve up Bernie Madoff.
This guy was a financial insider. He was no fly-by-night hustler. Harry
Markopolos, a whistle-blower, warned the Securities and Exchange
Commission back in 2000 that there was something fishy about Madoff.
Remarkably, Madoff never really had any down months or down years. His
returns just kept flowing. Even when the economy slowed he was still
cranking the returns. Markopolos sent the SEC five different mailings
over seven years before a real investigation was started. Why did it
take so long? If you believe in business and in the doctrine that
states that business needs to be free of regulation and free of taxes,
then enforcing regulations is not going to be your strong suit.

We need enough regulation and regulation enforcement to prevent
guys like Madoff from taking Americans for $50 billion. He should have
been caught when his scheme was only a million- dollar baby. Government
is the only protection that we as customers have against businesses
willing to cut corners in order to increase their profit margin.