Government fixes bring their own new problems

The Aug. 13 front-page article “A debate over the role of government” by Washington Post writer Dan Balz raises an intriguing proposition regarding the health care debate.

In essence, it may be that the friction now encountered by the administration's reform agenda results from a national “saturation” with dramatic governmental fixes.

Following half a year of breathtakingly aggressive power grabs, Americans are becoming increasingly weary - and wary - of them; suddenly the presidential “golden tongue” is less artful in inveigling an increasingly skeptical public.

It certainly is, as Balz writes, a battle over the size and power of government.

But what he omits is notable.

The so-called “rescues” emanating from Washington are purported solutions to economic problems largely of its own making. Indeed, the crises in the financial, automobile, energy, housing and medical care industries are all traceable, as

unintended consequences, to politically driven tampering with the free market.

Each “Band-Aid” treatment creates new problems, sending economic ripples everywhere, and requiring more layers of treatment. Mount Band-Aid is simply repackaging the mess for our descendants.

Dale Fitzgibbons

Cedar Rapids