what did the us government do to protect its citizens
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — "The government is the problem," they say. "The authorities can't create jobs." Or: "The government should merely get out of the way." How many times over the past three — or thirty — years have you heard conservatives (and even a few liberals) say that there's no function for government in fixing our economy?
They're wrong, but this constant refrain is having an impact on our political organization; it's narrowing our options as nosotros struggle with excessive unemployment, crushing debt and wasted lives.
Since its founding, the U.S. has viewed providing gratuitous, public education equally a basic duty.
Dorothea Lange, Department of AgricultureEvery bit often as this anti-regime platitude is repeated, few politicians actually believe it. Republicans are just as quick as Democrats to ask for federal funding for local projects — funds that they know improve the lives of voters. Despite what they say for political effect, anybody knows that the authorities can do a lot to create the correct conditions for prosperity. There are very few true libertarians in America, people who believe that the best government is no government at all.
Look, don't get me wrong: I don't think the regime is perfect. Any institution that tin can execute an innocent human, or fight an immoral state of war, or steal a whole continent, or reward failed banks can certainly be improved. Government wastes lots of money. Governments tin can make things worse by introducing perverse incentives for the states to practice things that are inefficient and idiotic. Governments tin can be corrupt, heavy-handed, even evil.
Only the idea that the American government can do nothing right has become so pervasive that I feel compelled to point out what used to be obvious to anybody: Our democratic regime — forth with you, me and our ancestors — created the weather that accept allowed private citizens and companies to build a great nation. This land was made by you and me.
Here are the 10 best things the government has washed to improve our lives.
one.) Protecting our freedoms. Our political and economic rights are the foundation of our democracy and backer economy. Without them, nosotros'd be nothing.
We often think of our rights equally a protection against the heavy hand of regime, merely we shouldn't ignore the contribution that the people through their government have made in expanding those rights since the early days of the republic, when they applied but to white men with holding.
Liberals who look fondly upon the authorities every bit a chivalrous force often do so because the federal government was on their side in the great battles to abolish slavery and to extend rights to African-Americans, women, Native Americans, immigrants, workers, gays and many others. Liberals don't like big government; they similar a good and just regime. For their part, conservatives want a authorities that enforces property rights and protects us against tyranny.
Slide Show: What the U.Southward. government has given united states.
two.) Giving away the land. The United States developed as one of the most egalitarian nations in history, more often than not because the government gave away millions of acres of land and sold more at rock-bottom prices to regular people who worked that land and made it productive. From the State Ordinance of 1785 correct on to the Homestead Act of 1862, the government offered inexpensive or free country to people who would have been serfs or indentured servants in any other society. The authorities gave poor simply hard-working people a stake in their state. Other government programs gave away valuable mining and timber state for a pittance. Many a fortune owes its genesis to the government.
3.) Educating everybody. Our economy and democracy would be incommunicable without an educated, skilled populace. From the offset of our nation, offer free and universal public pedagogy has been 1 of the nearly of import functions of government. The federal government has always had a role, from the 1785 Country Act and the land-grant colleges established under Lincoln to the GI Bill and beyond. It's no accident that America leads the world in technological innovation.
4.) Helping us retire with dignity. Social Security and Medicare keep millions of Americans out of poverty, assuasive them to live out their lives in dignity. And these essential programs are provided past government at far less cost than would exist possible from the private sector.
5) Improving public health. Many of united states owe our lives — literally — to the authorities. The greatest advances in longevity are due to public-sanitation measures such every bit water treatment, sewer systems and trash disposal. The Food and Drug Administration, the Ecology Protection Agency, and thousands of federal, state and local agencies continue us safer and healthier than we'd be in their absence. In addition, public dollars fund most of the basic research that individual companies turn into life-saving drugs.
half-dozen.) Building our transportation networks. Every major mode of transportation — from canals to airports — has received disquisitional financial support from the government. Transportation networks are hugely expensive, and individual investors have had a difficult time justifying investments that mainly benefit others.
Taking a page from the Roman Empire, state governments in the early 1800s invested heavily in roads and canals. The state of New York built the Erie Canal, and the federal government congenital 600 miles of national road that are driven on even today. Almost all U.Southward. highways and airports have been built with public coin.
Early railroads were financed past private corporations, true, but building a transcontinental railroad was beyond their power. So Congress offered the railroad companies massive tracts of land for every mile of track laid as they raced toward the ultimate meeting indicate in Utah. Backing the railroads was and then important to Congress that the United States actually bought a part of what is now Arizona and New Mexico from United mexican states just to obtain the railroad right-of-way.
vii.) Investing in communications. Communications networks, similar transportation systems, create lots of external benefits that cannot be easily recouped by the builder. That makes them perfect for public investment. At the beginning, the mail part was a authorities monopoly that was broken only gradually as technology advanced.
The federal regime funded the early evolution of the telegraph in the 1840s and laid the first transatlantic cable. Broadcasting — both radio and television — was subsidized through the granting of spectrum rights that kept competition at bay. Cable TV took off later the development of communications satellites. The Internet, of course, was invented past the Defense Department and was supported by federal enquiry grants in the early years, before commercialization was incommunicable.
The telephone was funded by the individual sector, just the launching of communications satellites massively lowered costs for long-distance calls, particularly overseas calls, which initially cost more than $ten per minute. The government besides sparked the mobile communications revolution by auctioning off freed-up spectrum. That is, in fact, 1 great example of the government doing expert by getting out of the way.
8.) Building our energy supply. Almost energy investment comes from individual companies, merely the government has played its role. Government-built hydroelectric dams provide a lot of power in the Northwest and Southeast, and all nuclear-ability plants can trace their lineage to the Manhattan Project. Most forms of energy enjoy a public subsidy of one kind or another, including having the U.S. Navy and Air Strength protect and guarantee our supply of petroleum.
ix.) Inventing the time to come. The space program and defense enquiry continue to spin off benefits to our economy. Because NASA and the Pentagon demanded (and paid top dollar for) highly reliable and lightweight components, advancements in medicine, electronics, communications, materials and manufacturing were accelerated by decades. Thousands of products in everyday use are spinoffs from the space program, from titanium golf clubs and running shoes to GPS and MRI.
And last (just not least) ...
10.) Defeating totalitarianism. The U.s.a. has faced few serious external threats in its 235 years of independence. When it did, the regime spent trillions of dollars to defend us from the forces of fascism and communism.
View the consummate MarketWatch Slide Show: From the Golden Spike to Little Rock to, literally, the moon, much of what makes America nifty could never have been delivered solely through private enterprise.
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Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-10-best-things-government-has-done-for-us-2011-09-26
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