We’ve Got to do Something
There is a scene in the 2008 comedy flick Forgetting Sarah Marshall where a popular recording artist releases a music video for his hit song "We've Got to Do Something." You can read some of the lyrics below:
"So, Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. President:
You better see that it's not only me,
No, our mob is rising in size, and
They've been dying to scream out to you!
You gotta do something,
We gotta do something,
Sometimes I sit in my room and
I don't know what to do,
But we've gotta do something!"
While the song was written to be a farcical commentary on politics, it underscores an enormous problem in modern American culture: we expect and frequently demand that the government intervene to solve all of our social problems.
Besides the obvious issue of cost, the result is frequently not an actual solution to any problem but instead, what we get in return is a form of virtue signaling from politicians to demonstrate they "hear" us. To make matters worse, many of these "solutions" have led to a slew of unintended consequences that are often are worse than the social problem itself.
Take homelessness, for example. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the number of people experiencing homelessness in America in 2019 was 570,000, of which less than 100,000 are considered "chronically homeless." We can all agree that it is a problem for hundreds of thousands of people to live on the streets. What is more difficult to understand is how repealing anti-camping ordinances in our nation's major cities does anything to solve the issue of homelessness.
In Austin, unsheltered homelessness actually increased 31% in 2020 after the city repealed its ban on camping. While public policy decisions such as this may seem compassionate, they do nothing to solve the issue of homelessness. Instead, it exacerbates the problem while increasing crime, negatively impacting business and tourism, and harming public health through litter and pollution.
Just last week, President Biden put in place the first "we’ve got to do something" policies of his presidency, freezing new oil and gas exploration on federal lands and revoking the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Even if one buys into climate catastrophism, these policies neither reduce demand nor "transition" us away from fossil fuels.
If oil and gas production is limited or halted on federal lands, our nation will be forced to make up the difference in production by importing oil from foreign nations with lower environmental standards. Stopping the Keystone XL won't stop refineries from importing Canadian crude, it will simply result in the oil being transported in less environmentally friendly methods such as rail and trucks. Neither executive order will reduce the use of fossil fuels, but both will result in increased emissions and a loss of jobs and economic growth for America.
Are you noticing a pattern?
While it is true we need to elect leaders bold and brave enough to tackle the vexing issues of our day, it is also true those leaders need to be brave enough to be honest with the American public about which problems should and can be effectively solved by the government.
Rather than placing decision making in the hands of the public at large, our founders wisely chose to create a federal republic to allow our elected leaders to act on our behalf and in our best interests. Frequently, what is in the nation's best interest is for our elected leaders to understand that many problems cannot be solved by the government, or that the government solution would create more problems than it set out to solve. It may not always be the most popular answer, but it frequently is the correct one.
