Civil War Anniversary: Another View

Seattle Times staff columnist Jerry Large has also written about our 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s beginning. In a column entitled, “Our future is again at risk,” Large more directly echoes sentiments expressed by filmmaker Ken Burns when he bemoans how too many children are “born into poor families, lacking adequate health care and living in neighborhoods where a good education is hard to come by.”

Large explains:

Efforts to address those issues are suffering, and in some cases dying altogether, because of . . . an aversion to paying taxes that is driven by . . . attitudes that haven't changed since the Civil War.

Some people don't want their tax dollars educating the children of immigrants, or providing health care to poor people. Americans today aren't faced with putting their lives on the line in a Civil War. But governments won't risk asking citizens to sacrifice by paying for social services. . . Yet we know unaddressed inequality. . . drags out problems that ultimately affect all of us.

In other words, the Civil War’s not over; we still need big government backed by higher taxes to solve our problems.

Comment: Large is right. 150 years on, we have big problems. But the solution isn’t more government. Instead, we need economic growth--jobs. And when it comes to economic growth, government’s not the solution, it’s the problem.