[malcolmgreaves]

Yup -- this idea, championed by Regan and the Republicans at the request of billionaires -- is the reason why we have the disaster of Trump in the WH right now. Like any institution, it being helpful or not rests entirely on the kind of people that run it. If you have criminals running the show, it's unsurprisingly going to harm the population.

The Republicans pushed this idea so hard in the 80s. But it's so telling that government is only not here to help when the Republicans are in power. They keep repeating this cycle: they get into power by unscrupulous means, then they purposely make government worse, then they say that the government is ineffective and its only harmful, then they sell off pieces of the government's responsibility to their billionaire handlers, then they do an even worse job, providing fuel for another destructive cycle. And some folks *actually believe them*, even after 40+ years of this nefarious behavior.

[seanhunter]

It’s such a weird pitch when you think about it. “Vote for us to be the government because: 1) governments are useless so we won’t do anything to help you. 2) you don’t really want the government to help you anyway because we’d just mess things up. 3) The other guys would try to help you. Do you want that? Of course you don’t. That would be socialism probably. So what we’ll do instead is just help our rich friends, because that’s what capitalism and fiscal prudence is all about.”