The New York Times editorial that Jonathan referenced this morning is really quite an amazing document, a window into the utter policy bankruptcy of modern-day liberalism. It’s a classic example of the somebody-somewhere argument. Any change in entitlements or federal government largesse to states and cities, this argument holds, will mean that somebody somewhere will be hurt by the change and that therefore everything must stay the same, even though the world has not stayed the same.
To give just one example, the Times writes, “Mr. Ryan plans to take away their new sewage treatment plant, the asphalt for their streets, and the replacements for retiring police officers and firefighters.” Why any of that is a federal responsibility I know not, but anyway, do we need as many, say, firemen as we have had in the past? The number of house fires has fallen by half during the last 35 years, thanks to better building codes, smoke alarms, the decline of smoking, etc. Firemen these days spend much of their time responding not to fires but to accidents and medical emergencies to which the police and EMS also respond. That’s make-work. Firemen are heroes, for sure, but fire departments are not WPA projects. They exist to fight fires, not employ firemen. Budgetary discipline forces governments to look for ways to do the job at lower cost. Is there any fat in government? Is there any water in the Pacific Ocean? The federal government has 47 different job-training programs run by 9 different agencies. But the New York Times and the choir to which it preaches want none of it changed.
