Living in a tea party fantasy
Thursday, June 2, 2011
So, the space race took off, and the United States stayed behind. John Kennedy had great ambitions for it and for us, but as 50-year-old tapes now reveal, he was concerned that budget hardliners would shoot it down.
And so they did, and the Soviets draped the heavens in red.
It was the same with Richard Nixon and the Environmental Protection Agency — opposed by spending hardliners and states-rights devotees. So, when time can to declare Lake Erie dead, they just mixed its ambient solids with asphalt and paved it. It’s all as the anti-government crusaders of a future century would have it.
The Centers for Disease Control? Never happened. The Public Health Service, the umbrella organization under which the CDC was established, didn’t happen, because anti-spending forces said that disease control was best left up to Doc Jones down the road.
So, when diphtheria and malaria swept the country, Americans attributed it to God’s vengeance for the outbreak of rock ‘n roll.
The interstate highway system didn’t happen, either. Too costly and federal. Roads would be left up to each state and berg. If they connected, they connected. And they didn’t. States like Texas that didn’t want to be a part of the whole weren’t, literally.
Dwight Eisenhower called the interstates essential not just for commerce but for military readiness. But of course, they weren’t. They were just more big government from Washington.
Airports? No need for federal involvement. Local governments could take care of that — if they wanted to face the wrath of taxpayers. And most city council members and county commissioners didn’t run to do that.
All of these things the federal government didn’t have to do, according to the Constitution: fly to the moon; build highways and airports; protect the air, water and soil; guard against epidemics.
John Young Column: Living in a tea party fantasy