From The LA Times
By Rosa Brooks

We established its basic contours in 1789, half forgot about it until the Civil War and Reconstruction, practically abolished it during the Gilded Age, remembered it again during the Depression and then, during the reign of Reagan the Great Communicator, forgot about it once more.

The government, I mean. It comes in handy in times of crisis, but somehow we just keep misplacing it.

And now, with our economy teetering, we’re frantically searching for it again, finally hauling it out from the basement along with some dried-out duct tape and leaky batteries. But after all those years on the shelf, don’t be too surprised if it’s a little rusty.

On Monday, the House voted down the proposed $700-billion financial bailout. The Dow plummeted, and congressional negotiations collapsed. Though no one liked the bailout plan, no one appeared able to offer a viable Plan B.

But what did you expect? Liberals and conservatives alike suddenly want the government to fix our broken economy by doing something big and fast — but Congress long ago lost the habit of thinking big and moving fast. Since the Reagan era, prevailing leadership ideologies have encouraged members of Congress to think small, slow and stupid — to forget about regulating, to forget about governing and occupy themselves instead with trivia: debates about constitutional amendments to ban flag burning, for instance.

So even as many outside economists began to argue that there were dramatically different rescue packages that could be cheaper and better, congressional leaders of both parties seemed unable to do more than tweak the original package.

That’s a shame, because this is a time for thinking big.

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