The US government is trying to disassemble.
President Donald Trump has directed the executive to “significantly reduce the size of the government.” This includes deep cuts in federal funding for scientific and medical research and freezing of federal grants and business loans. He ordered the conversion or elimination of the provisions of medical insurance companies and other businesses and tried to fire thousands of federal employees. These are just a few dozens of executive orders that seek to deconstruct the government.
More than 70 lawsuits challenge these orders as illegal or non -constitutional. Meanwhile, the chaos obtained prevents the government from performing its daily functions.
The administration accidentally fired civil servants responsible for protecting the country’s nuclear weapons, preventing an epidemic of bird flu and the nation of the national supply of electricity. An employee of the veterans administration told the NBC: “This leads to paralysis and nothing is done.” A spokesman in a national program that provides food to the elderly, wheels that the government helps funding, said: “The uncertainty is currently the creation of chaos for local bicycle suppliers who do not know if they should serve today.”
Our recent book, How the Government has built America, shows why the purpose of the administration eliminates the government can lead to America, which people in the country have never survived, in which the free market economic forces act without any accountability to the public.
A combination of regulation and freedom
The US economy has started in the colonial era as a combination of state regulations and market forces, and since then it has remained so. History shows that without government regulation, the markets left on their own devices have made the country more poor, kills and wounds thousands, increased economic inequality and left millions of Americans, sunk in desperate poverty, among other economic and social disorders.
For Example, Approximately 23,000 People Died from Workplace Injuries in 1913 In 1971. Similarly, The Rate of Deaths in Vehicle Crashes Per Mile Driven Has Decreased 93% Since 1923, Which Can Be Mainly Attributed to The Ways Government Has Made Vehicles and High
Government funding and regulation led to countless economic benefits to the public, including the launch of a lot of effort, later capitalized by the private sector. Government funding has delivered the Covid-19 vaccine at record time, many of the technologies-GPS, sensory screens and internet are key to the functioning of the mobile phone in your pocket and the highway system that allows you to travel across the country.
Government management of the economy prevented economic downturns and allowed for faster recovery when they occurred. Government regulations prevent private business not to participate in reckless economic behavior that harms everyone, as happened in 2008, when the rules and implementation doors allowed the banking industry to invest billions of dollars in useless securities. The government then spends trillions to prevent the collapse of big banks and to stimulate the economic restoration of the nation.
Most recently, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the government spends $ 3.1 trillion to keep the economy healthy.
Food and water are safe because the food and medicine administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are acting to prevent people from getting sick.
Due to government supervision, Americans can safely take the medicines that doctors prescribe to make them better. They can safely invest money for verification and savings accounts, knowing that the Federal Corporation for Input Insurance and the National Credit Union administration reduce the likelihood of a bank or credit union failure – and ensure that they do not lose everything if problems arise.
The Federal Trade Commission works to ensure that the advertising that Americans see is not fraudulent, and the securities and exchanges Commission guarantees that companies investing that they do not make false claims for their financial prospects.
Americans know that their children can receive free public education and student loans for colleges or trade schools to develop economically. And the government has helped millions of Americans pay for homes, food, medical care and other life needs, even if they work full -time or cannot because of age, illness or disability.
Not a perfect recording
Indeed, there are wasteful costs – up to $ 150 billion a year in the wrong payments. It’s a lot of money, but it’s a tiny slider – only 2.2% – from $ 6.75 trillion, which the federal government spent in 2024. And the government was also not always a positive force in society.
As we describe in our book, for a very long time the Federal Government supports and supports slavery and then racial segregation. It also codes the treatment of women as second -class citizens and discriminates against members of the LGBTQ community.
Still, the government has contacted these failures as Americans’ understanding of equality has evolved. Over the past century, the rights of women, racial and ethnic minority groups and people with a number of sexuality and sexual identities have been recognized in the amendments to the Constitution, Federal Laws, State Laws and Supreme Court’s decisions.
As our book shows, the answers were not always immediate, but the President and Congress have turned to political mistakes and an incompetent administration, making appropriate adjustments to the combination of government and free markets, sometimes at the request of court cases and more often through congress actions.
So far, however, it has never been a government policy to exclude government wholesale through defense agencies such as the US Agency for International Development or Threat to do so with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Ministry of Education.
Many Trump voters have cited economic factors as a motivation of their support. And our book documents how the policies supported by the two political parties – in particular globalization that led to the flood of production jobs that went abroad – have contributed to the economic struggles that many Americans have been burdened.
But on the basis of the history of how the government has built America, we believe that the most effective way to improve the economic prospects of these and other Americans is not to completely eliminate parts of the government. More recently, it is to adopt government programs that create an economic opportunity in de -industrialized regions of the country.
These problems – economic inequality and loss of opportunities – were caused by the reaction of the free market to the lack of government actions or insufficient or incorrectly directed actions. The market cannot be expected to repair what it has created. And the markets do not meet the American people. The government is doing and can take action.
This article is reissued by the conversation, a non -profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and a reliable analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It is written by: Sydney Shapiro, Wake Forest University and Joseph P. Tomamen, Cincinnati University
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Sydney Shapiro is connected to the Center for Progressive Reform.
Joseph P. Tomin does not work, consults, holds shares or receives funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article and does not reveal a corresponding connection beyond their academic appointment.