DAVE: I am one of those people who actually believe that health care reform is necessary to save the United States from becoming like California. Or worse. So, although it may seem dramatic, people like me (and there are many of them) fear that any major obstacle to Obama and his agenda will cause this country to never, I repeat, never come out of this recession, but rather probably continue to get worse. Now, I know that a lot of people don't want to hear that, that the great United States of America would never let that happen. But GM and the great model for the rest of the country California have already gone down. What's to stop the whole country from imploding? Ah. Except astronomical income taxes. Yes, that might save us from ourselves in the short term. And we all know how much people like tax increases, no matter how small. How will they react to their income taxes doubling, I wonder.

JIM: Yeah. Only the government can solve all of our problems.

DAVE: Well, I don't think "we" are doing a very good job, so who else is left to do it?

JIM: Fine. You win.

DAVE: No, damnit, I don't win. We all lose.

JIM: Especially people on welfare, for one example, who are incentivized to sit around on their asses and wait for that government check every month that makes their lives so much better and solves all of their problems. Can't wait until we're all like that.

DAVE: I would love to continue this conversation, because I think it has genuine merit, but I have to get ready for work. I understand what you are saying. And no one wants to hear the doom and gloom that I sometimes espouse.

JIM: There are obviously big problems in this country. And there are no easy solutions to most of them.

DAVE: Agreed.

DAVE: Okay. Back from work. I thought about our earlier conversation a lot while I was at work. I have a lot of time to think at work. Which is not always a good thing. The thing about the government is that it has the power to "manipulate" certain aspects of our economy that the "free market" may not be able to do in a favorable way for citizens and the economy. This is the kind of manipulation that you don't hear too many republicans or businesses complaining about because it favors the country.

For instance, since the real estate bubble has burst, as you know, the government bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Well, rather than kick every person who can't afford their mortgage out into the street, thus causing a tremendous flooding of the housing market with available homes and thus, causing the prices to go down much further than they already have, the mortgage companies have taken over the properties, but are now "renting" the homes to the buyers to keep the market stable. The government is very purposely and intentionally trying to control the housing market. Without their involvement, the market would be oversaturated with available properties all over the country, and we would all likely see our property values plummet. Plummet. Our recession as we know it would be a full-blown depression with soaring inflation, increased unemployment, and, as I said, no property value. But the government is "controlling" that. In addition to other, pretty important aspects of our economy. Unfortunately, the government can't magically create the vast amount of jobs necessary to get people back to work. But, they still try.

I have heard the arguments against "big government" ever since I was a republican myself. Should we have to depend on government to take care of us? No. But as a country, I think that we have more than demonstrated that if left to our own devices, we will screw over everybody we can for our own personal gain. Bernie Madoff is not a unique individual in our society. He is emblematic of our society.

JIM: Like I said before, you win.

DAVE: Fine.


I probably should win.