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GOVERNMENT IN QUESTION

Government in the United States has many important achievements, yet it still remains the butt of many jokes and, as Douglas Amy notes, is the target of a group of conservatives, libertarians, and tea partiers who are "government bashers and tax haters." Notes Amy, "[Conservative] Grover Norquist has always made it clear what the ultimate aim of all of this activity is: [Norquist has said] 'My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.'" As a result, students in the United States are growing up with an increasingly negative view of the national government's competence. This, of course, includes the executive branch's ability to deal with the societal problems that a separate branch, Congress has given it the power and funds to solve. Young adults are the very group whom government will most need in the future as tax payers and, possibly, employees. Their attitudes mirror the attitudes of adults in the U.S. According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of adult's do not think highly of the government's capacity in general although, when asked about specific programs, their opinions are more positive. These programs, past and future, are profiled below.

The Public's Trust in Government

The University of Michigan's National Election Studies (NES) unit shows that trust in government measured since 1958 reached a high in 1963, then began a rapid descent during the Vietnam War. Trust in government in the time series again plunged following the aftermath of Watergate. (In Watergate thieves broke into the Democratic Party's headquarters in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The break-in had been at the behest of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) operating on behalf of Republican President Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974)). The trend reached its nadir during the Iranian hostage crisis debacle when Iranian revolutionaries held American Embassy personnel in Tehran hostage for well over a year from 1980 to 1981. After a brief respite, trust in government reached another very low point after Democratic President William J. Clinton's (1993-2001) failure to convince Congress to enact the Clinton health care plan of 1993. The political result of this failure was the 1994 Republican Revolution that led to a Republican majority in both houses of Congress for the first time in 40 years. The voters did not seem to separate out the parties' responsibility for the failure, which could be attributed to Republican ads that had substantially undermined public support for the reform.

Why Do Critics Say the Government is Useless?

Since then trust has risen slightly. In the meantime, the conservative movement of the 1970s and 1980s took hold in the United States. The movement was able to capitalize on the failure of Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, and began a multi-pronged attack upon the government that included a range of new actors from think tanks to talk radio. Many analysts believe that these attacks, publicly justified by government failures, were actually privately motivated by the government's successes. In fact, there are many documented successes of the U.S. government. Fifty sets of laws representing separate initiatives have been identified by Dr. Paul C. Light using a combination of his own analysis supplemented by a survey of more than 900 historians and political scientists. The initiatives include the Interstate Highway System, and the Food and Drug Administration. These top fifty government achievements are listed below, and the analysis by Dr. Douglas Amy has been added. The starred programs are those which were also identified as successful by Douglas Amy. Analysts believe that these successes will lead to the public's demanding more government action, which is exactly what the critics do not want.

Top National Government Achievements

• 1. Rebuild Europe After World War II: This endeavor was begun in 1948 with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948 and supported by the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1945. Also known as the Marshall Plan, this policy was an obvious success by 1960.
• 2. Expand the Right to Vote: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the foundation for this initiative and was extended in 1970, 1975, and 1980. This endeavor was enhanced by the Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments banning the poll tax and decreasing the minimum voting age to 18.
• 3. Promote Equal Access to Public Accommodations: Three basic laws support this government effort: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Open Housing Act of 1968, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. (Paul C. Light notes that the Civil Rights Act is the most important of the 538 laws that he studied in making his top fifty list.)
• 4. Reduce Disease:* This government endeavor is primarily based upon the Polio Vaccination Act of 1955. In addition, the effort involves targeted research on heart disease, cancer, and stroke, bans on smoking, strengthening the National Institutes of Health, and lead-based poison prevention.
• 5. Reduce Workplace Discrimination:* Three main statutes support this initiative: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination Act of 1967, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
• 6. Ensure Safe Food and Drinking Water:* The statutes that support this endeavor include the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act of 1947, the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957, the Wholesome Meat and Poultry Acts of 1967 and 1968, the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, and the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996.
• 7. Strengthen the Nation's Highway System:* This is the most recently amended policy including the 1956 Interstate Highway Act, the 1991 Intermodal Transportation Act (ISTEA), and the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the Twentieth Century.
• 8. Increase Older Americans' Access to Health Care:* This is the only endeavor in the top ten that involved only one statute, Medicare.
• 9. Reduce the Federal Budget Deficit: A combination of caps, cuts, and tax increases enacted in 1985, 1990, 1993, and 1997.
• 10.Promote Financial Security in Retirement:* Brought about by 21 statutes aimed at reducing elderly poverty through benefits, pension protection, and individual savings including the enactment of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).
• 11. Improve Water Quality* See the Clean Water Act.
• 12. Support Veterans' Readjustment and Training* Legal support includes The Veterans' Readjustment Benefits Act (amended by the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 and the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998).
• 13. Promote Scientific and Technological Research* U.S. National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency also known as DARPA, and the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy
• 14. Contain Communism: See Containment
• 15. Improve Air Quality:* As a result of air quality programs, lifespans are longer.
• 16. Enhance Workplace Safety:* Workplace safety programs have reduced the number of workplace injuries.
• 17. Strengthen the National Defense:* Over the past half century, national defense in the U.S. has grown stronger. See the United States Department of Defense.
• 18. Reduce Hunger and Improve Nutrition: See the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
• 19. Increase Access to Post-Secondary Education:*: See the Commission on the Future of Higher Education
• 20. Enhance Consumer Protection:* Consumer protection has greatly reduced product injury to consumers.
• 21. Expand Foreign Markets for U.S. Goods: U.S. import numbers have been helped by the creation of foreign trade zones (FTZs).
• 22. Increase the Stability of Financial Institutions and Markets:* New Deal Programs implemented in the 1930s and 1940s stabilized the economy by reducing the highs of inflation and the lows of unemployment in the economic cycle. However, as a result of new laws and new players, that stability was endangered and resulted in the Late-2000s financial crisis that caused a long period of unemployment from which the United States has yet to recover. However, while still controversial, many aspects of the U.S. government response to the recession have been evaluated positively. The stimulus has been credited with saving jobs.

Keynesian economics assumes that disruptions will occur and that these shocks to the system will be endogenous. [need citation] The ups and downs in the cycle or the booms and busts will occur as a result.

With regard to the 2007 economic crisis, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has argued that the various actions taken by "big government" prevented the U.S. economy from falling into the abyss, a great depression. He said, "In addition to having this “automatic” stabilizing effect, the government has stepped in to rescue the financial sector." The automatic stabilizing effect Krugman refers to is government's continuing its regular operation such as providing social security checks and continuing to pay government employees as well as the stimulus titled: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Furthermore, the government provided financial stability to the banking system with the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Many economists view the government's fiscal stimulus and monetary policy as having been a success. However, Stanford Economist John Taylor says that the recession was caused by the government and that government's efforts have heightened the chance of inflation.

• 23. Increase Arms Control and Disarmament: Modern arms control began with the ratification of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Recent treaties have reduced the nuclear weapons in the possession of the United States and Russia. See Arms control.
• 24. Protect the Wilderness: Major wilderness areas have been protected by the National Wilderness Preservation System.
• 25. Promote Space Exploration: Advances in space exploration have been overseen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, /ˈnæsə/).
• 26. Protect Endangered Species: Endangered species have been protected and their numbers have grown as a result of the Endangered species Act.
• 27. Reduce Exposure to Hazardous Waste: Hazardous Waste laws have reduced the ignitability, corrosiveness, and toxicity of waste.
• 28. Enhance the Nation's Health Care Infrastructure: Health care in the United States is primarily provided by the private sector, with the exception of programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Veterans Health Administration.
• 29. Maintain Stability in the Persian Gulf: These efforts involve the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and CIA activities in Iran.
• 30. Expand Home Ownership:*
• 31. Increase International Economic Development: International development policies have resulted in greater opportunities for those living in economic developing countries.
• 32. Ensure an Adequate Energy Supply: U.S. {{Energy policy]] has resulted in a stable supply of the energy needed to fuel cars, houses, and business.
• 33. Strengthen the Nation's Airways System: The U.S. Airline industry was the result of the Post Office using airline services provided by pilots who fought in WWII. Since then the government has sought to regulate the industry with "air worthiness" directives from the FAA.
• 34. Increase Low-Income Families' Access to Health Care: The U.S. government is a major player in providing Health care in the United States.
• 35. Improve Elementary and Secondary Education: Education in the United States has benefitted immensely by the involvement of the U.S. Government in providing universal education at the elementary and secondary levels.
• 36. Reduce Crime: Crime in the United States has been greatly reduced in large part by the incarceration of criminals who would likely repeat their crimes if allowed to remain on the streets. More education is the most recent proposal for preventing crime (see NAACP Calls to Shift Funds from Prisons to Schools from an April 7, 2011 PBS broadcast).
• 37. Advance Human Rights and Provide Humanitarian Relief: {{Human rights in the United States]] are quite high and the United States has been active in advancing international human rights for many years. See also displayed text
• 38. Make Government More Transparent to the Public: Corruption ranking
• 39. Stabilize Agricultural Prices:* See Agriculture for information on crop subsidies.
• 40. Provide Assistance for the Working Poor:*
• 41. Improve Government Performance:
• 42. Reform Welfare:
• 43. Expand Job Training and Placement:
• 44. Increase Market Competition:
• 45. Increase the Supply of Low-Income Housing:
• 46. Develop and Renew Impoverished Communities:
• 47. Improve Mass Transportation:
• 48. Reform Taxes:
• 49. Control Immigration:
• 50. Devolve Responsibility to the States:
• Added by Amy: National Weather Service: The National Weather Service has prevented the death of many persons with their early warning systems for floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes.