Getting in the the way of good government

“America’s commercial and military competitors are nations that have far fewer qualms about using government to promote their goals and that view government and the market as partners in a common project of national development. At home, the future of the economy depends on public investments in R&D and infrastructure by the federal government as well as state and local governments. And the most efficient parts of the American safety net are those that are purely federal, like Social Security and Medicare, not crippled and dysfunctional federal-state hybrids like Medicaid.” – Michael Lind (from John Stoehr interview in Boston Review)