Another fruitful theme is the way the federal government has helped make the United
States uniquely prosperous and innovative. Nearly two-thirds of Americans own their
homes thanks to the FHA, Fannie Mae, and other entities that are run, or were founded
and nurtured, by the federal government.^240 Our scientists make breakthroughs important
for people throughout the world, due to support from the National Institutes of Health
and National Science Foundation. The Agricultural Research Service developed strains of
super-grains that have helped the poor the world over escape starvation, and the
Cooperative Extension Service gives America’s extraordinarily productive farmers the
know-how they need to produce abundant food.
Two-thirds of Americans say government has a negative effect on the ways things are
going in this country. But 56% believe the same thing about large corporations.^241 This
suggests a potentially useful theme for people interested in restoring faith in government.
Americans need government to protect them against overweening corporate power.
Without the federal government, bankers would refuse affordable loans to working-class
kids for college, and to vets who want to get an education or buy homes. Without
government supervision, insurance companies refused to give health insurance to
hardworking Americans with preexisting conditions. And banks jacked up secret fees
until the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau required the banks to pay them back.^242
The appetite for a fairer playing field is out there. Arlie Hochschild found that Louisiana
Tea Party members were also outraged by what scholars call “regulatory capture”—
when regulators become more favorable to the industries they’re supposed to be
overseeing than the ordinary people they’re supposed to be protecting. Said a Tea Partier,
“The health unit came down on my nephew for not keeping his hogs away from the bad
water, but they didn’t do nothing about the bad water .” Said another, “The state always
seems to come down on the little guy” while letting large corporations off the hook.
Notes Hochschild, “It was becoming easier to understand why energy refugees were so
furious at the state government.”^243 (By energy refugees, she means Louisianans driven
out of their homes due to pollution or other externalized costs of local energy industries.)
Yes, government regulation can be a pain. If you run a small business, which many
working-class people do, regulations can pose a bewildering series of hoops you have to
jump through, administered by those professionals the working class often resents. And
corporations will always loudly blame government regulation for an unpopular product
(energy-efficient lightbulbs) or to deflect attention from corporate failures. Americans are
going to hear, and experience first-hand, ways in which government regulation is vexing.
But this makes it all the more important to have a counter-narrative. Because if we have
- Why Don’t the People Who Benefit Most from Government Help Seem to Appreciate It?