Rolling Back the New Deal

Today's NY Times has an interesting editorial piece about the growing campaign among conservatives to roll back the powers of the federal government, and undo the New Deal.

As they say in the editorial, the dream some conservatives have of limiting the power of the federal government to something that existed prior to 1937 has always been around. The struggle over the extent of federal power began in 1776, and it continues today.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, generally I do favor states' rights and a diversity of solutions to the same problems. However, I also realize that only the federal government has the power to uphold many of the rights laid out in the Bill of Rights; we simply cannot trust every state to enforce those rights, though almost every state constitution holds that they will. So as I said before I favor federal power in upholding those rights, but would like to see it restricted when it comes to otherwise limiting the freedoms of individuals, associations and yes...corporations. As a result there are times when I might find myself those on the side of limited federal power, at least when it comes to making illegal the use of medicinal marijuana.

However, I cannot support their underlying goal, which as Grover Norquist put it in his now infamous quote, is to shrink the size of the government so one can "drown it in the the bathtub." There are various motives behind those who support this goal; many of them have a knee-jerk anti-government trend, many of them want to pay less in taxes, some of them think states' could do a lot of things better...but the underlying cause behind it all is to cripple the government's ability to regulate business and commerce. Most of them would like to roll back the clock to the time of the robber barons and industrial capitalist, because that's what they think is best for the economy...and to reassure us who oppose them they tell us that of course this doesn't mean the return of 16 hour work days, or removal of labor protection laws, though they can't explain how the current legal regime that offers such protections could possibly survive such a transition.

The truth of the matter is that many of those who support this goal have an overriding faith in capitalism that rivals the most die-hard socialists faith in Socialism. And frankly, they're not concerned about individual labor rights because those are subordinate to the larger goal of unfettered capitalism and growing the economy. They believe in a society that no longer exists, and that we have been gradually moving away from for well over a hundred years now.

I think though that what many people forget is that the Supreme Court in many of it's most significant decisions has not led public opinion, but rather has followed it. Those who support greater restriction of federal power hope to turn to the courts to achieve their goal, so that the Supreme Court can restrict the power of Congress, but I think they forget that the average American accepts a society in which the worker is protected, and they support the idea that workers should be paid a minimum amount, among other things. The Supreme Court will not simply roll back the clock to an earlier day, if they sense that would be moving to a society that most Americans no longer believe in.