Is Government Too Political?

Since the 1994 congressional elections, Americas central political debate has pitted big against small government. This is a sterile dichotomy that captures the concerns of few citizens. Americans abhor paying taxes and are constitutionally incapable of favoring big in the abstract. Nevertheless, I suspect that voters want more government, not less, in certain key areas?crime prevention, environmental preservation, job security, and education, to name just a few. Naturally, they want less government elsewhere. The real source of the current estrangement between Americans and their politicians is, I believe, the feeling that the process of governing has become too political. Americans increasingly believe that their elected officials are playing games rather than solving problems. Political debate has too much spin and too little straight talk. The system is too argumentative and tied up in partisan and procedural knots. Most important, government appears excessively beholden to those with political clout, often at the expense of the public interest. In return for these perceived vices, citizens exact retribution from professional politicians: witness the romanticized yearning for a man on a white horse (first Ross Perot, then Colin Powell), the meteoric rise and fall of the anti-politician Steve Forbes, and