Role of Government

Last week I watched an interesting discussion about the reform of the law relating to filibusters in the Senate. The filibuster is a technique used to force a “super majority” vote of 60 instead of a pure majority of 51 to enact any legislature. The Constitution specifies a few cases, such as ratification of treaties and overturning a presidential veto, which do require a super majority. Other than that the Senate can set its own rules. In recent couple of years the filibuster has been used more than in the previous two decades. This creates a situation where it is very difficult, if not impossible to pass any legislation.

One of the individuals on the panel, a Libertarian, made a very interesting point. He suggested that passing laws should be difficult since they are authoritarian dictates from Government. From a Libertarian perspective any intervention from government that does not involve physical protection of life or property or infrastructure is unwarranted and in fact unjust. From that perspective, seeing the legitimate role of Government as very limited, making it difficult to pass new laws makes a lot of sense and the filibuster indeed makes it difficult. Currently there are less than a handful of Libertarians in the Senate and the filibuster is not used to limit “authoritarian dictates” but to not allow the other side to pass legislation that does not advantage their patrons.

So this brings us to the question of what is the legitimate role of Government in a Free Market Democracy? At the Federal level we have three major branches of Government, the Executive, Judiciary and Legislative. The Legislative is divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate. From my perspective, the role of these three branches of Government is to uphold the Constitution, protect life and property, ensure that free markets remain free and work for the benefit of our society and finally to facilitate commerce. These major categories have within them many sub categories such as civil rights and the pursuit of happiness under the Constitution. Antitrust legislation come under keeping markets free and ensuring that markets benefit the general society. Social Security and welfare allow the markets to be innovative and dynamic without destroying the society within which they function along with its customer base. The military protect from foreign intervention and laws and their enforcers protect both lives and property. Roads, airways and the internet, as well regulations and the printing of money and managing its supply facilitate commerce. The Free Market is causing very rapid changes in technology and commerce. These along with the ever-increasing mobility of people and goods throughout the world are having political and economic repercussions and the Government needs to adjust and create policies to keep up with these.

Our Presidents and Congressmen take an oath to uphold the Constitution but since 9/11 it seems that though the oath has not changed, the rhetoric has. And now the primary role of the President is stated as keeping us safe from external harm, even at the cost of the Constitution as was demonstrated during the last administration. But I digress. The role of the President is to provide the vision for the direction of our Country going forward given the anticipated environment, take the position of Commander and Chief of the armed forces during war and to ensure that any laws passed are consistent with the Constitution and the well-being of the Nation and the entire population. I would like to see added to this making us all free from fear.

The House of Representatives is populated in proportion to the regional population and is charged by their electorate to make sure that they prosper and are not disadvantaged by policies passed that may favor other regions. The Senate, on the other hand is not staffed in proportion to the population. They are 100 members chosen, two from each state, based on their wisdom and charged with seeing to the well being of our total society and not the narrow interest of the States they were elected in. That is the Congressman’s role. They declare War, ratify treaties and make sure that policies proposed by the House will indeed benefit society on the whole.

Unfortunately this not the way our Congress works. Our system has evolved into one with multiple agendas and the well being of society, regional or national, unfortunately is at the bottom of that list. At the top is the quest for reelection followed by the loyalty to a political party. So a decision is tested first against its impact on reelection. Will it benefit the people who fund their campaign and be perceived as a positive by the people who vote for them? (Their concern is the perception and not the reality.) If it passes that test than the question is how does it fit with the party’s ideology? (In our two party system, this answer also impacts reelection at the primary stage.) Finally after passing the first two hurdles they get to the real question. Within their understanding of how the world works, will it help their total constituency in the case of the House and the entire population of the Nation in the Senate? In the case of the Senate, since voters are regional, they duplicate the Representatives role and often sacrifice the common good for the regional one. I don’t mean to imply that there are no politicians who have the order of priorities right, but I am afraid they are the minority.

The Supreme Court ensures that laws are within guidelines set by the Constitution. Long term they may perform the most important function in that they can and do use their political bias to interpret some laws as constitutional and others not and essentially determine which segment of society is best served.

The good news is that in a Democracy we can do something about it. However, it is not easy. The powers (read that as money) in positions of influence have great resources and given today’s “24 hour news cycle, and ability to communicate, they use these to distract and confuse us. There is talk of this one being a Communist and that one a racist, and the Muslims will force Sharia law on us or that terrorists with the ability to inflict major damage are lurking everywhere and white supremists training in the woods will overthrow the government and impose a Fundamentalist Christian Theocracy. All this chatter distracts us from addressing the root cause of the dysfunctional system and allows it to continue for the benefit of special interests and makes it ever more difficult for us, as a society, to grow, be happy and prosper. Further more, the energy and resources used creating these diversions then allows little work on issues of how we rise to the challenge of the twenty first century and maintain our leadership position.