I enjoyed Mr. Wan Lixin’s article of May 30 in which he reviewed the recent book by Peter Schuck, “Why Government Fails So Often.”

In contemporary America, it is hard to separate citizens’ expressed disenchantment with government from the increasingly severe and divisive ideological wars that seem to underlie every issue.

For well over thirty years now, a central theme of the Republican Party has been that government itself is the problem.

Behind this rather inane claim is the not too hidden goal of the right to weaken — if not dismantle — those federal programs established over the past 80 years to provide a safety net for the middle class, working poor, unemployed and disabled.

Americans desperately need to revisit these central questions: What is the fundamental purpose of government?

And, how do we achieve this in the most efficient, effective, and just way?

In America’s Declaration of Independence (1776), Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

As a key means of realizing these “truths,” the Congress adopted the United States Constitution in 1787. Its preamble includes this statement of intent:

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

While other nations might express this differently, the essential purpose of government is to provide the means to achieve such collective goods and services which people individually or in voluntary associations cannot achieve efficiently (if at all).  The larger the society, the more necessary is government.

There are a vast number of ways in which governments actually govern, of course, and they often reflect very different philosophies and priorities. Mr. Wan Lixin cites, for instance, Lao Tzu’s pronouncement wuwei erzhi (“Govern by doing nothing that goes against nature”), and also notes Henry David Thoreau’s endorsement of the principle “That government is best which governs least.”

The Catholic tradition contributes the important principle of subsidiarity — the idea that human affairs are most efficiently and justly handled at the lowest possible level. Other generally accepted goals of “good governance” in all societies include efficiency, honesty, transparency and accountability.

However, just as reasonable people often differ about the key purposes of government, so also can they disagree in the interpretation and application of these principles of good governance. Furthermore, citizen expectations change when the level of government moves from local to state, regions or national.

Clearly, local government offers the most direct, “hands-on” experience for both government officials and citizens. When I was a member of the Davenport, Iowa,  City Council, people were able to phone me, visit my apartment, or confront me in the street.

However, when I was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives, my legislative district included over 28,000 people, more than twice as many as with my previous city council position. Most of my time became focused on legislation that — from the point of view of my constituents — impacted them indirectly at best, for I had to consider the broader needs of the state of Iowa, and not just those of the city of Davenport. The net effect was greater responsibility for me, but much diminished transparency and accessibility from the citizens’ perspective.

And yet all of these pales before the challenge of holding federal elective office: in the United States House of Representatives every member’s legislative district encompasses 722,000 people. What does “representative government” mean under such conditions?

This helps explain why assessing any government’s “performance” can be so difficult. It should not be surprising, then, that Americans usually rate local governments much more positively than more distant levels of government, or that ideological bias against government in general, and the federal government in particular, negatively influences citizens’ feelings toward “big government.”

According to Mr. Wan Lixin, Mr. Schuck places great emphasis on inefficiencies and incompetence in the US federal government as a key reason for widespread citizen distrust.

While some inefficiency and ineptitude in implementing policy is to be expected in a government of a country as large and varied as the United States, the magnitude is greatly exaggerated by the incessant critical barrage from the right.

Under the control of the right

In fact, it is members of Congress under control of the right — that very faction that professes to not “believe” in government — which is responsible for blocking legislation intended to serve the greater good of the many.

The Congress has, in dismal fact, fallen under the effective control of the moneyed aristocracy. With recent rulings by the very conservative Supreme Court, the principle of “one person = one vote” has been replaced in reality by “one dollar = one vote,” effectively reducing the average citizen’s ability to influence federal policy to zero.

Funded almost exclusively by the 1 percent of wealthiest Americans, the right’s declared goal is to weaken all safety net programs for the majority of Americans (those providing unemployment assistance, food stamps, health care and retirement income) while strengthening the military and further reducing already low tax rates for the richest elite.

No wonder the average American is disgruntled. While not well informed in many instances, most are not stupid.

While the barrage of misinformation and outright lies by the right’s multiple hired spokesmen and “think tanks” has served to undermine their opinion of civil servants and of government in general, they also know that Congress no longer represents them.

Functional democracy

There is an urgent need for immediate efforts to restore functional democracy while promoting enhanced efficiencies and accountability. A few of the more important are:

1. Electoral Politics

A. Prohibit former members of elected offices at all levels from ever taking paid positions as lobbyists.

B. Severely restrict the amount of money any individual or group can contribute to a candidate, party or cause.

C. Require full transparency for all who contribute money to any of the above.

D. Guarantee the fundamental right of citizens to vote through federal law, overturning newly enacted restrictive state practices.

E. Establish federal standards for redistricting following the decennial census designed to eliminate gerrymandering and suppression of minority representation.

2. Governmental Reforms

A. Every 10 years, have citizen commissions comb through existing statutes to flag outmoded, less needed or ill-funded provisions.

B. Halt the practice of mandating standards or actions without providing funds for adequate implementation of them.

C. Review the appropriateness of existing allocation of duties among federal, regional, state and local authorities, and adjust where desirable.

D. Encourage local, state and regional cooperation in lieu of federal regulations.

E. Utilize more extensive legislative hearings on major issues, both as a means of gathering citizen input and of acquainting citizens of options and problems regarding these matters.

It is only by returning to the purposes of government envisioned by America’s Founders, and by recalling the egalitarian, justice-rich visions that insist that all Americans have an equal right to live in dignity and free from want, that we have any hope of stemming the ongoing takeover of America by the selfish, rapacious and uncaring.

(I am not, however, holding my breath for evidence of change.)

The author has been a college teacher of American history and political science, the director of the US National Catholic Rural Life Conference; he served as a member of the Iowa State House of Representatives, and retired from public service in the Iowa executive branch in 2004.