The Common Good Depends on Government

For many years the United States has witnessed a contest over the proper role of government. On one side are those who think government should be smaller and do less, looking to market forces as the source of prosperity and well-being. On the other side…well, is there another side?

To be sure, many civic and political leaders vigorously show their support for their favorite government programs and speak out against tax cuts that would make it impossible for the federal government to pay for essential efforts. However, who speaks out for the beneficial role of government as a whole?

Even among Democrats, it is hard to find a public figure who focuses on defending the government institutions on which we depend — those that provide for the common good, finance crucial services, protect us from threats we cannot avoid ourselves, undergird commercial transactions, and plan for the future.

There was a time when no such defense was necessary. Substantial majorities of Americans recognized and appreciated an active and engaged government that intervened to restore fiscal health and confidence in the banking system during the Depression, pursued a war (World War II) that the country considered righteous, built the interstate highway system, ended poverty among the elderly, and began the long march to environmental conservation. But this positive attitude toward government has been eroding for several decades now. The defining moment came when Ronald Reagan declared: “The nine scariest words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

Almost all accounts draw attention to three reasons for the decline. One is the disillusionment brought on by the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the numerous perceived policy failures in the years since. The second is the oft-documented inefficiencies of government itself. The third is the sustained attack by conservative think tanks, politicians, and foundations, which have presented government as a problem that has to be overcome, rather than as a key institution on which all Americans rely.

But there is another reason for the seemingly unchecked retreat from a proactive government. It is that the very people one would think most likely to be defending government have tended to be silent: the leaders of the nation’s mainstream foundations and nonprofit groups.

In a recent study we conducted with more than 90 nonprofit officials, it was notable how little direct attention these leaders gave to the erosion of the role of government. One would expect that people who dedicate their professional lives to helping others would recognize the importance of a government with the capacity to act in support of their concerns, and would have made defending government an essential part of accomplishing their charitable missions.

Of course, we are not suggesting that foundation and other nonprofit leaders defend the activities of particular public officeholders or inefficient programs that do not work. In any period, the incumbent government may displease many people, make mistakes, or demonstrate incompetence. The current administration in Washington is surely no exception.

Rather, what has been missing is support for the proposition that government has a fundamental role to play in our lives. What has been absent is a coherent voice reminding Americans that we depend upon government to work with businesses, nonprofit groups, and other key elements of society to confront and resolve critical social problems.

This silence is troubling, especially at a time when a veritable army of critics derides the notion of government as problem solver and investor in the future. It is also surprising, considering that virtually every important interest in American society depends upon government.

Consider how the relations between government and foundations have changed.

Just a few decades ago, foundations could be considered the research-and-development arm of society. Foundations routinely financed innovative social experiments in anticipation of their adoption by governments if they proved cost-effective.

Those days are long gone, but the values underlying the social-welfare commitments of most mainstream foundations still can best be achieved when a strong government works in partnership with the nation’s charities and foundations.

It is true that mainstream foundations have strongly supported organizations whose activities depend upon and advance the work of government in particular public-policy areas. They finance myriad organizations that advance child health, for example, or promote adequate funds for public schools. But only in rare cases have they made it a priority to support efforts to inform and educate the public about the role of government itself in a good society, about the need for an effective government that works for everyone.

Many mainstream foundations support activities directed toward encouraging civic engagement, but that is not the same thing either.

Grants to expand voter participation or experiment with new forms of citizen participation are critically important, but they do not deal with the underlying question of the values represented by government, or the strength and capacity of government.

Another critical source of support for an active government is the legion of advocates for public policies that can only be carried out by robust federal and state agencies.

These advocacy groups (environmental groups or mental-health activists, for example) regularly endorse and work for particular government solutions to particular societal challenges. But they generally do not engage in the critical effort to defend government overall, even when conservative legislators and their allies advocate that government spending and taxes be cut.

This dynamic can be seen especially clearly at the state level. Across the nation, pretty much every legitimate interest is represented at the statehouse. These interests are often quite successful in making claims upon government for a share of government resources.

But during the 1990s, when the total available for all types of spending (save, perhaps prisons) was being ratcheted down by budget cuts in hard times and tax cuts in good times, the advocacy groups mostly limited themselves to defending the particular pots of money in which they were interested.

Advocates for child welfare, education, public universities, environmental quality, the arts, and many other government-supported programs increasingly ended up competing with one another for a share of the pie. Hardly any of them focused on the pie itself, which was getting smaller and smaller.

There is another reason that most advocacy groups have not turned their attention to supporting government, even if they acknowledge that their interests depend upon a strong government. For many of them, government has been either a focus of complaints or incredibly disappointing.

Environmentalists are chronically discontent with the adequacy of regulations and their enforcement. Civil-rights leaders have spent their careers striving to expand the government’s commitment to equity or lambasting government for not enforcing hard-won laws more vigorously. The performance of specific government agencies and actors has left some advocacy groups ambivalent at best about supporting the government in general.

However, the tide may be turning.

The hurricanes of 2005 provided striking evidence of the need for capable government to protect lives and physical property and to plan for unforeseen exigencies. Several leading figures, including the journalist Bill Moyers and Diana Aviv, president of Independent Sector, a coalition of charities and foundations, have begun to devote public speeches to the theme of restoring respect for government.

Moreover, some advocacy groups have started working together to oppose continuing losses of revenue for government coffers. They have been mobilized by revenue crises in the states and by the irresponsible federal tax cuts that are forcing cuts in safety-net programs and creating burgeoning federal deficits.

This resistance to unwise tax cuts is a start. The right’s small-government, low-tax approach is a formula for greater personal insecurity, reduced consumer and environmental protection, greater inequality, and a decreased capacity for pursuing the public good.

But we can and must do more. Nonprofit groups can lead an effort to restore widespread appreciation of the critical role of government as a protector of public values. We can promote widespread understanding that government is the place where Americans come together to solve our most pressing problems.

We may not be able to predict the next challenges we will face, just as we didn’t know that Katrina and Rita would be so brutal. But prudence alone requires us to make sure we have in place a government that is capable of mobilizing America’s best thinking whenever we need it and allow us fully to deploy national resources for the common good.

Michael Lipsky is senior program director of Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action, a New York group, and a former senior program officer at the Ford Foundation. Dianne Stewart is the director of public works at Demos, and former executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, Tex.