With the meltdown we are witnessing around, unemployment persistently coming back with resounding vigor, financial institutions crumbling, inappropriate government policies, rising taxes, dollar losing its color, can the government find an answer and get things done? In his moments of frustration Richard Nixon in an official memorandum opened the can of worms when he wrote ‘government doesn’t work’. If the President of one of the most powerful democracies finds himself hapless isn’t it time for us to change the political system?
So where are the bottlenecks which make the process of getting things done sluggish? The number one enemy of the state is the structural makeup itself. Whenever the government wants to implement any policy, how much beneficial it will be to the people of the state, comes second, the first thought is can they win over the different lobby groups which have the veto powers to kill the policy.
In US there are 3 broad major powerhouses who can veto a policy, the President, Senate, and the House of Representatives. Then there are lobby groups within these centers of power, they further have their patrons in form of big corporate business owners and CEOs with whom they play golf during weekends and who during election fund raising campaigns pour in wad of dollars to back the candidate. With more number of interest groups, more chances are of the policy is getting killed. President Obama is physically and mentally a fit person, he is capable of catalyzing things but how can he, and other policy makers take decisions, which does not satisfy his fund raising campaigners.
You may recollect Danny Devito in Twins mumbling – Money talks bullshit walks. The policies, which are implemented, are mostly in the interest of big corporate, and anything, which tends to be unprofitable for them, is put in cold stores. The policies, which are implemented, are never beneficial for the general public.
After having the confidence of the policy getting through from veto holders, Money with a capital M comes next. Even a Noble Prize winning idea before it goes to the drawing board, the question arises whether we have the financial backing to implement it, in the current scenario we can’t say we do.
Complicating things is a wide division of thoughts and ideologies between the Democrats and Republicans, which has been rooted from their birth. One says right other says left, whoever comes to power implements its policy, which has led to distortion and disarray. Then, with history of boastful American economy and its acknowledgement as a superpower in the past, US has been riding waves of glory for too long. Now caught up in unfamiliar crisis, it finds it self fiddling in unknown territory.
The policy makers have become flabbergasted, they are short of ideas how to overcome the challenges America is facing. They are nervy and don’t want to take risk, they are adopting short-term policies, a quick fix to the precariously cash strapped American treasury to take the country back to the era when American dreams flourished.