You Can’t Have Healthy Businesses Without Strong Government

This Constitution is supposed to be for our benefit — all of us. The economy is supposed to be for the benefit of all of us. For our general welfare, not for just a few. And to protect us from the wealthy and powerful, government has to be big and strong.

When Government Is Weak

Conservatives, funded by the already-wealthy — the 1% and their giant corporations — say we need less government, smaller government, government out of their way. They say they want our government to be small enough that they can “drown it in a bathtub.”

Think about what they are saying when they say they want less government: they want less decision-making by We, the People. They want less protection of our general welfare. They want less infrastructure for our smaller businesses to thrive in. They want less enforcement of laws that protect our wages, safety, environment and rules against scamming, scheming, and defrauding us. That is what “less government” means in a country where the government is We, the People..

When government is strong we have more enforcement of a level playing field for all of us, more education for all of us, more security for all of us, more protection of our environment, more infrastructure so our own startup businesses can flourish and compete, more parks, more promotion of the general welfare.

And when government is weak we end up with a very few greedy, ruthless billionaires and their giant corporations controlling the economy, stifling competition, scamming and defrauding us, and consuming the environment and resources for their own short-term profit.

What Government Does For Us And Our Smaller Businesses

Protect:

• Law.
• Police.
• Courts.
• International agreements.
• National Security.
• Regulate and balance business activity.

Enable and empower:

• Education.
• Infrastructure.
• Define and regulate money.
• Redistribute – keep the top from having too much and the rest of us from having too little money, power, etc.

Invent and innovate:

• Public universities.
• Scientific research, esp. basic research for our businesses to apply.

Sustain:

• Protect the environment and resources from those who would use them up for their own profit.
• Fight monopolies so new businesses can innovate and compete.

Help me fill in this list. Leave a comment.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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