The other day, I tweeted: You know who I blame in part for the oil spill? Everyone who bought into "government is the problem" and "era of big government is over."
Much of this oil spill tragedy, say nothing of the financial crisis, can be traced directly back to Republican free market deregulation. The Reagan Revolution sounded nifty when delivered by a rosy-cheeked grinning grandpa, but in execution and reality it's turned out to be a nightmare. And by the way, notice how I quoted President Clinton as well. Too many Democrats acquiesced to this crap and, in fact, enabled it.
Dennis G. at Balloon Juice wrote:
Do you really think that you could have Anti-Government Republicans in charge for 30 plus years and actively working to destroy the infrastructure of government without causing system failures? If you do, then you are living in candy land (or a tea infused lotus dream).
The oil spill in the gulf is is just another result of snorting deregulation fairy dust with a Markets-Are-God hi-ball chaser night after night for decades. When you let industry capture regulators and dismantle effective governance, you guarantee a catastrophic failure. The spill is evidence of this, so was that mining disaster in West Virginia, same thing when it comes to that financial meltdown and the same thing will be true when the next system fails.