Tea party fights “socialism” against weak opposition

The political battles over the role of government continue.

The U.S. House of Representatives, where conservative Republicans set the agenda, voted for a farm bill that dropped the food stamp program.

And the House voted for the fortieth time to repeal the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare.

Soaring Medicare and Social Security costs brought calls for cutting back on these programs.

On these assistance programs, affecting the elderly, the poor and the uninsured, the battles have heated up, heading toward the 2014 elections.

The conflict has been caused by the strong and cohesive tea party movement.  Though only about a quarter of voters say they support the tea party and its demands for less government, it exercises great influence.

In Republican contests across the country, especially in GOP areas, tea party candidates either win party primaries or force more traditional Republicans to adopt their positions to avoid defeat.

The result is that the tea party view dominates the U.S. House and strongly influences what happens in the Senate, thanks to the GOP filibuster.

Obamacare could obviously stand some improvement before it goes into full effect. But any bill to make changes to the program would lead to an effort to repeal it.  So nothing happens, and the complex new program lumbers forward.

Because some focus on its imperfections or simply because some believe that government should back out of health insurance, opposition persists.  And it is far easier to oppose Obamacare than to propose an alternative that will cover almost everybody.

Much the same is true of Medicare.  The Affordable Care Act included some limits on its escalating costs, but the combination of an aging population and weak cost controls keeps pushing up its demands on the federal budget.

Food stamps were devised by farm-state legislators as a way of disposing of government financed surpluses while helping the less fortunate to have decent diets.  That’s why they have been part of the agriculture bill.

The tea party movement wants to cut government spending, so the House of Representatives voted to reduce farm supports and to eliminate the food stamp program. 

Then, there’s Social Security.  Right now, there are sufficient funds from previous contributions and current workers to finance the benefits.  But we can readily foresee that the program will run short of money during the first half of this century.

To keep Social Security going as long as possible without general tax dollars, there’s increasing talk about cutting benefits to current recipients.  The first step would be reducing annual inflation increases.

The opponents of these so-called entitlement programs say that by government providing such assistance, the country is moving toward “European socialism.”

In Europe, where such programs have long existed, they have been strongly supported by conservative governments that clearly oppose socialist objectives like nationalization of some industries.

The issue between the European (and Canadian) approach and the American view, pushed to its extreme by the tea party movement, relates to the proper role of a democracy.

In the European view, the people expect the political system to address the needs of the community as a whole.  They accept a role for government to provide or assure certain services – old-age support, universal health coverage, and help for the poor.

They do not see this role for government as “socialism,” but rather as the best practical way to ensure the welfare of the entire community.

In the American view, the purpose of the political system is to protect individual freedom.  One major way to achieve that goal is to limit government’s involvement in the lives of the people.

In the image of the free society, the non-governmental sector should be able to provide many essential services, possibly with government incentives.  It leaves open the question of what happens to vulnerable people if those services are not provided.

The European system may lack the efficiency and economy that is supposed to result from competition, while the American system may lack the compassion and inclusiveness that is supposed to result from government assistance.

In the United States, the costs of assistance programs have risen as benefits have been added.  Reform has been blocked by the threat that changing any existing program may lead to its abolition.

Instead of a piecemeal legislative approach, perhaps the country needs a full-scale debate on the appropriate role of government in assisting the old, the ill and the poor.

It takes courage to engage in such a debate, and right now only the tea party seems to have it.  There’s a need for the alternate case to be made.