“The nine most terrifying words in English are,‘ I’m from the government and I’m here to help. ’With that famous line, uttered by Ronald Reagan on August 12, 1986, during his second term as president, he was born. the mantra of the Republican Party for decades to come.
In fact, this philosophy even found a home in the Democratic Party. President Bill Clinton in his 1996 State of the Union address stated that “the era of great government is over,” explaining that “we have worked to give the American people a smaller government and less bureaucratic in Washington. ”
And during an October 2000 presidential debate between Al Gore and George W. Bush, experts at the time noted that the two appeared to be competing for the title of “the candidate for a smaller government.” Gore even boasted that his campaign to “reinvent the government” as Clinton’s vice president had reduced the government to its lowest level in terms of jobs since 1960.
Those days, thankfully, are gone, at least for now. Even a good chunk of Republicans acknowledge that during this pandemic, the federal government offering aid is not “terrifying.” Rather, it can save lives in terms of health and finances.
In fact, moments after President Biden ended his national speech on Thursday, one year after the virus was declared a pandemic, Trump lovers Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee and others complained that Biden did not thank Trump on launch of Operation Warp Speed the $ 18 billion federal government program designed to “accelerate the testing, supply, development and distribution of safe and effective vaccines.” Even these staunch conservatives implicitly admitted that this federal government program was effective in helping Americans.
Another body blow against Reagan’s philosophy that government is intrinsically bad can be seen in the remarkable level of support for the massive COVID relief packages. Last March, when Trump signed the $ 2.2 trillion CARES Act – the first relief bill – he received the support of 77 percent of Americans, including 76 percent of Republicans.
As of December 2020, two-thirds of Americans believed the federal government had not done enough to “provide economic relief during the coronavirus pandemic,” including 46% of Republicans by a PBS / Marist poll. This was similar to the support of 70% of Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion aid package he signed Thursday into the law that will provide direct stimulus checks, funds to reopen schools, unemployment benefits , aid to state and local governments, etc. the second state aid with more than $ 27 billion.
Yes, this is a unique moment for our nation facing a deadly pandemic that still carries nearly 1,500 lives a day; last week, more than 20 million Americans were still receiving some form of unemployment benefit. Were it not for the pandemic, it is unlikely that we would have seen this level of great support for high government spending and new programs, especially among Republicans.
But this is still the perfect time for Democrats to introduce more programs to help Americans on a range of issues, from the minimum wage to health care. In fact, both issues receive widespread support among voters. For example, most Americans support raising the minimum wage to $ 15, and even 51 percent of Republicans support raising the minimum wage by some amount, but not up to $ 15. When it comes to health care, 63% of Americans in a September Pew poll believe the federal government is “responsible” for ensuring that all Americans have health coverage, slightly more than 59 % of 2019.
“The pandemic has made it clear that Reagan’s philosophy that the federal government is intrinsically “terrifying” no longer resonates with most Americans. ”
The hardest part is how to enact policies supported by the majority of Americans, even with Democrats who control the House, Senate, and White House? Not only is the Senate filibuster intervening, but also the ghost of the last major program of government enacted by Democrats, the ACA, which many saw as a reason for Democrats to lose control of the House in mid-2010. .
In fact, in 2014, Chuck Schumer, then the third Democrat in the Senate, directly blamed the ACA’s passage of hurting Democrats in the medium term, saying the party “exploited the opportunity the northern people gave them. American ”. He added a line that could still be in his thought process today: “After passing the stimulus, Democrats should have continued to propose middle-class-oriented programs and build on the partial success of the stimulus “.
Of course, Schumer knows, while the ACA was an albatross in the midst of Democrats in 2010 and 2014 in the medium term, protecting him was one of the main reasons Democrats won the House in 2018. In fact , ACA approval has increased by 38% in the mid-2010s to the mid-1950s. This could very well be seen as an indicator of how public opinion has evolved over the last decade, and Americans now see that government is useful.
Democrats in Congress know they have to comply. As Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), president of the Progressive Congress, explained to me, if Democrats don’t meet issues like the minimum wage, “people will stop trusting us”. Jayapal has promised to push through a broad progressive agenda, and my hope is that Democrats will take the victories wherever they can, even if that means a compromise, given the filibuster.
The pandemic has made it clear that Reagan’s philosophy that the federal government is intrinsically “terrifying” no longer resonates with most Americans. This is the time for the Democratic Party to bravely defend programs that make it known to our fellow Americans that the federal government can help them beyond times of great need, because yes.