We have what we asked for. And New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are the consequences of our choices. American voters have been listening to the seductive talk of politicians who tell us they will cut our taxes. Government is too big. All you need are a few essential services. We don't want all those people in those agencies. Washington is meddling in our lives. Elect me and I'll cut your taxes and shrink the bureaucracy, to the point, as Grover Norquist suggested, "It can be drowned in a bathtub."
It took a hurricane, though, to accomplish the drowning. The water has washed away the scales from our eyes and now we have seen where our decisions have led us. Every vote we have ever cast for every charlatan selling tax cuts and less government has had an affect on lives in New Orleans. No one wants big government in America; nor should they. But they want a government that is big enough to help when help is needed. They want functional institutions and a enough money to make them responsive. Instead, particularly with the Bush administration, we have institutions that have been turned into political organs. Every position and appointment is based on patronage and the agency's job is to shrink and do as little as possible. And that's exactly what they have done along the Gulf Coast.
The fault is ours; those of us who gave two terms to the PR president by casting our votes and believing we could get something for nothing. These are the people we have been listening to for decades. And we keep choosing them. They tell us the problem is entitlements and welfare moms driving cadillacs. We vote for people who take the underprivileged off of state health programs. Our silent support and inattention to detail makes possible illegitimate wars and corrupt contracts. People who follow the party line get promotions and jobs of influence. Companies that make political donations are purchasing future influence, lucrative government business, and relaxed regulations that will enrich their shareholders. A federal regulation called the "Healthy Forests Initiative" is really a license to clear cut old growth forests. And a reduction of emissions controls from factories is accepted by each of us as the president's "Clear Skies Initiative."
Our democracy has been broken for many years because we have not been active participants. The current Republican administration has succeeded by developing communications that comfort us, regardless of the truth. "Freedom is on the march." "Mission accomplished." "I think you can come up with better ways to spend your money than the federal government." They took power while we were taking our children to soccer games, worrying about retirement, how to pay for health care, or mowing the lawn. They knew we were too busy to read a 3000 word story in the newspaper about the risks of a tax cut. "I run every campaign as if people were watching television with the sound turned off," Karl Rove once told me. Because, it turns out, they were.
In New Orleans, we got what we paid for. While people were dying, trapped in their homes as floodwaters rose or becoming victims at the New Orleans Convention Center, the head of Homeland Security was holding a news conference in Washington to keep up the spin. A lot of resources were on the way. This presidency operates on the premise that you only need to say something; it need not be true. The FEMA director, whose qualifications for the job were that he was the college roommate of the former FEMA director and a major fund-raiser for the president, will likely end up in the Rose Garden with a Congressional medal around his neck instead of a noose. "Brownie, you're doing a great job," the president told him as the body count rose faster than the water.
As they do with their federal mandates and various efforts to pay for tax cuts, the Bush administration has pushed responsibility downwards to the state and local level. It's the governor's fault. No, wait, it's the mayor's. It's anyone's but theirs. But it was the Bush administration that took the money for levee improvement and dumped it into the war in Iraq or tax cuts or something else. Too many troops in Iraq meant the strained National Guard had to travel from other states to reach significant numbers in New Orleans. And now those states are exposed.
New Orleans is a symptom of something far greater than simply inadequate federal response. Our government, and all of the great institutions that have maintained our democracy, is dying. And we have let it. We have not listened for the truth. We have voted for those who made us impossible promises. We took our knowledge from 30 second campaign ads and sound bites or we completely ignored the importance of our citizenship. We vote for people who tell us government is an evil beast that rides our backs and feeds off of our wallets. Our own democracy has been turned into an enemy within. Washington, we have been convinced, isn't the seat of history's greatest democracy any more and a place where freedom is protected by public servants. It is a cesspool that takes our money and destroys our hopes. Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Iraq, Plamegate and other scandals have taken away our trust. And we have never gotten it back so it becomes easy to support those who are going to Washington to take on the enemy.
The question remains unanswered as to whether men make history or history makes men. But there is no longer any doubt about the Bush administration. It is in a state of collapse and total failure. The responsibility for the future once more moves in the direction of the public. How will we choose to remake ourselves and our government? We have now seen what can happen when we leave things to the liars and the politicians. It can be fatal; and not just for people in the path of a storm. It can be a disease that rots a great democracy.