Howard: GM failure proves government unable to handle health care

The nation’s media has meticulously recorded the material effects of the recession on… The nation’s media has meticulously recorded the material effects of the recession on Americans, as journalists search for alternately depressing and uplifting stories across the country.

While these material stories of immediate economic hardship are the most emotionally evocative, the recession’s impact on our nation’s ideological disposition will be far more lasting than the material setbacks of today.

Rasmussenreports.com published a poll in April that examined the ideological impacts of the recession.

It said, “Only 53 percent of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism.”

According to the study, 20 percent of surveyed adults in the United States believe socialism is better and another 27 percent are unsure. Though indefinitive, the poll indicates that the recession has tarnished capitalism’s public image and prompted some Americans to seek a new direction.

While the recession has shaken some Americans’ faith in the free market, I experienced a somewhat different ideological revelation as a result of our latest economic crisis.

Before the recession, I was an ardent socialist. Committed to the far left of American politics, I dreamt of an America governed by European social-democratic ideals in which health care was universal and the government directed the economy for the betterment of society.

Today, as I stare into the abyss that is President Barack Obama’s plan for the “betterment” of society, I recoil from the ideals I once held. For although I was a firm socialist, my political identification has always been informed by a belief in an America in which competence and intellect command success. I turned to socialism as a logical aspiration when it appeared that global capitalism was an impediment to this belief’s realization.

Yet, where I once saw the downtrodden majority as a reservoir of potential and untapped ability, the recession, its causes and the public’s reaction to the crisis have proved me wrong.

For instance, it baffles me that so many Americans signed adjustable rate mortgages without understanding the terms of the loan — that they then sought the intervention of the government to cushion the blow of their own ignorance. It’s shameful.

The mortgage crisis prompted my disillusion with the American majority, but the subsequent government interventions made my position on the left untenable and prompted me to adopt a conservative ideology.

Whereas I believed in necessary government direction of industries with a bearing on public interest, the Obama administration’s intervention with General Motors made little sense to me. The company’s bureaucracy and its union workers have consistently failed to modernize and become profitable. The government’s intervention has only harmed private investors and left both the bureaucracy and union in control, even giving the UAW a 17.5 percent stake in the corporation.

Tying billions of taxpayer dollars to a failing company to preserve the outmoded jobs of constituents proved the government’s inability to intervene competently in the economy. For this reason, I cannot support the planned intervention into the health care industry. Although private health care is deeply flawed and has failed millions of Americans, I now believe that the government could only make things worse.

The recession could have been a positive turning point in U.S. history where restraint and responsibility were adopted as a solution to our economic woes as a nation. We could have turned around our national debt and begun living within our means. Instead, the American people found comfort in relinquishing responsibility to the government.

Responding to these developments was as materially difficult for me as it was for many Americans my age. Jobs are harder to find and tuition and rent are harder to pay. But in dealing with the new America created by the recession, it has been more difficult for me to come to terms with the changes in my ideology and political alignment.

I realized that more important than any prior political identification is my belief in an America that rewards intellect, hard work and competence. This belief necessitates that I reject government intervention on behalf of GM, that I oppose nationalized health care and that I self-identify as a libertarian.

E-mail Giles at gbh4@pitt.edu