What Is Government Good For?

In the past weeks since the election, I've been surrounded by news of the incoming administration and all the people who hope to take charge of government, many of them hoping to change it profoundly.  At the same time, I've been seeing so much evidence of how government can work well:

--Last night I went to the public library.  I have lived in a variety of places across the southeast U.S., and the public library is always such a delight.  I have saved a bundle on books I would have otherwise bought, but the public library is so much more than books.  There are meeting spaces and presentations and English language classes happening.  Every so often, there's voting.  There are lots of children, who are so happy to be in the presence of so many books.  There are computers that anyone can use, and there are often people to help those who need to use a computer but don't know how.

--The city of Asheville restored potable water a month before expected.  This happened in part because of local experts who work for city government and also because of the Army Corps of Engineers.  The government experts gave daily briefings to explain what was happening and the progress of restoration.  I now know so much about what it takes to give us safe and clean drinking water, and I am grateful for government water projects that have made it possible.

--The devastation of the water treatment plants is hard to fathom.  It could have been much worse.  At the North River water treatment site, there was a shut off feature that was installed, a shut off feature that didn't rely on a human to hit a switch.  If that hadn't been there or if it had failed, the dam would have failed, and everything and everyone in the thirty miles between Black Mountain and Asheville would have been destroyed by water.  It was the government that approved the money to add that shut off feature.

--I know that it is government agencies that keep our food safe, as well as our water.  I am planning my American Lit survey class, and the Norton Anthology has a selection from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which I'll probably assign.  My students need to remember/learn what it was like before we declared food safety as a common good, worthy of regulation. 

--I am thinking of my years of public schooling.  With the announcement of the death of the man who invented the BASIC computer programming language, I thought about my own experience programming a computer in the 7th grade, about the computer that took up a small room, and our delight in learning how to write simple code.  I'm thinking of the shop classes I took and the home ec classrooms that had stoves and refrigerators and equipment of all sorts.  I'm thinking of the pottery studio that had a kiln.  I'm thinking of band rooms and instruments and all sorts of sports.

--Public schools and other public programs keep children fed.  Summer camps run by local governments keep children safe.  I realize how much can go wrong and how much does go wrong.  But so much goes right, in community and community, across the U.S.

I will conclude by saying that I am hopeful, even in the face of a new administration that has vowed to cut government.  Maybe they will get rid of waste, and that can be a good thing.  Maybe they will create new approaches, and that can be a good thing.

I've been alive long enough to know that if an administration tries to get rid of an institution that enough of us value, it won't happen.  Let that continue to be so!