What People Want

The Senate passed major financial reform legislation yesterday, but do the people care?  That was the way the story was portrayed by some of the media, which eschews any kind of triumphalist reporting of the administration's many triumphs, instead expressing the mounting dissatisfaction of the American people about just about everything.  It seems the administration just doesn't understand what the people want, otherwise they would easily be able to fix everything.

It's simple really.  Americans want to punish Wall Street, but we don't understand this financial reform bill.  So that makes people perfectly qualified to criticize the bill both because it doesn't go far enough to punish Wall Street, and also because it creates too much government interference with the private economy.  Just like Americans want the government to improve the economy, but we don't want to increase the deficit.  We want the government to reduce unemployment, but we don't want to spend money on any bills to create jobs.  Just like we want the government to make sure health care is available and affordable for everyone who needs it, but we don't want to be required to pay for health insurance until we get sick.  As far as foreign policy, the task is equally simple.  Americans want the world to be made perfectly safe for Americans, but we don't want to make any sacrifices to achieve that goal.  On the environment, the Administration's marching orders are also clear.  Americans want clean air and clean water, and we don't like big oil spills polluting our beaches, but we do not want to pay more for gasoline, and we don't like to be told to conserve energy.  In fact, gas prices should be lower, and Americans should be able to drive as much as we want.  Americans also want to eliminate crime, but we don't want to pay for more prisons.  We want to send our kids to the best schools, but we don't want to pay teachers more.  We want to make the government smaller, but we don't want to cut Social Security or Medicare or the military.  We hate the whole idea of raising taxes, but we also don't want to cut any government services that affect us.  Did I mention that we also don't like deficit spending?

All the President and the Congress have to do is give us what we want, and we'll stop complaining.  Is that so hard?


(photo from Washington Note)