Big Government/Bad Government

I'm trying to collect a list of things the federal government has done which have benefited the country. It's a little like trying to think of the things mother did to benefit the family--where do you begin?

When it comes to doing research for which there is no immediate benefit, no clear prospect for financial gain, that gets left to the government. So radio, the internet, the polio vaccine, radar (with a big help from the Brits), nuclear power (which some may say was not such a net plus), Medicare, Social Security, the development of technology to harvest natural gas (which is fast replacing dirtier coal, a private industry despoiler of the environment), protection of the food supply from taint and infection, basic medical research into AIDS, which is closing in on taming a truly horrific epidemic, space exploration (for what it's worth), clean up of contaminated soil and water by polluting industry (Love Canal), the interstate highway system, the saving of American automobile companies (more than once), the GI bill which educated an entire generation and allowed millions to move up into the middle classes and beyond so their children could take the next step up, keeping all the 6,000 flights up in the air and not running into each other (the FAA), allowing many people who otherwise could not afford homes to get mortgages (until recently--but remember during the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's the federal government's mortgage programs worked very well--until the avarice and wheeling and dealing of Wall Street and private bankers stabbed it in the back.

That's just off the top of my head. 

Add your own.

When we face the Frank Guinta's and Kelley Ayotte's of the world, those Tea Party darlings who want to strangle the government in its bed, who have taken a pledge to never vote for a tax, well, we ought to be able to respond by saying--actually, that government you want to kill, that's an old friend of mine, a friend I owe a lot to, a friend I want to see live and thrive, even if it means--Oh, Heaven Forbid--I have to pay taxes.

Here's another thing to think about:  In most states you pay sales tax, property tax, both on real estate and cars, and state income tax. Here in New Hampshire, we do not pay enough taxes, and we pay the wrong sort of taxes, but go to any town meeting and you get the whiners raising a howl any time a candidate intimates she is not going to cut taxes and may just consider re-structuring our tax scheme. "Oh, then you're for an income tax," the whiner shouts, as if he has just unmasked a vampire.

Here's a reality check New Hampshire--doing things, improvements, life costs money. Only wimps whimper at every mention of the cost.  In the Granite State too many of us see the price of everything and the value of nothing.