Generational Attitudes toward Government

On a recent EconTalk, Russ Roberts interviewed Tyler Cowan.  Cowan's latest book is The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream.  He posits that a slow down in social change, a diminishing mobility, and a growing aversion to risk is causing the US to become less innovative and productive.  It is a really fascinating discussion and recommended.

 

What really got me thinking was a comment he made about how Millennials have a very different cultural view of government:

 

So, whereas I grew up with the space program, which put a man on the moon, maybe they grew up with the second Iraq War or the Financial Crisis.

 

This is a significant observation that deserves deeper consideration.  The government won praise for its successes and was trusted with more tasks based on those successes.  However, a string of failures is what has followed and yet the government wants to be trusted to do even more.  It cannot accomplish the basic tasks of government (e.g. maintain the borders, balance the budget, win wars, etc.) but still wants more money and authority to do even more.  Where are the great successes to justify more responsibility?  Republicans blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans but the end result is continued failures and poor governance which is always explained away by intransigence by the other party.  BS!  Based on performance, the scope of the federal government should be severely curtailed.

 

The greatest success of the Obama years was his neglect of NASA.  At first, I was aghast even though the dynamism of NASA from the 1960s has ossified into a bureaucracy that hasn't been able to put an astronaut in space since 2011.  But I didn't see other options.  Then SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin started launching rockets and developing new technologies.  Spacecraft haven't been this exciting since the Apollo Program.  More of government would benefit from the NASA treatment.