There's a famous Abraham Lincoln quote that I always used to start off my high school government class by reading and discussing. In his July 1, 1854 fragment on government, the 16th president admonished,
The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do for themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities. [But] In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like for men like Lincoln to observe and comment on the state of modern American political largesse. What would a man who thought government should make every effort to stay out of the way of private citizen interests and community enterprise think about a story like, say, this:
You're not misreading that. They're building a $1.7 million toilet on the taxpayer dime, and will be taking between 2 and 3 years to complete it. And before you're tempted to blow off the example, chalking it up to "crazy California" doing something outrageous again, keep in mind that the governor who presides over the state is the immediate frontrunner for the Democrat Party's presidential nomination should Joe Biden's caretakers convince him to not seek re-election.
If you want an indication of just how far we've come in our understanding of good government, there it is. A man whose administration can't keep human feces off the streets of once pristine American cities, whose administration is so fiscally irresponsible it manages to run sky-high deficits even while presiding over the most resource-rich state in the union, is on the shortlist to fill the same office as Abraham "government ought not to interfere" Lincoln.
Thankfully, not all is lost. While Democrats play footsie with wasteful incompetents from California, Republicans have the most popular governor in America who appears far more committed to limited, efficient government.
He's not spending money building $2 million toilets as though that's a legitimate role for government. Instead, he's doing this:
This is a perfect example of what Lincoln was talking about. By its nature, government has the size, organization, and ability to mobilize quickly to reconstruct a critical causeway – a literal lifeline – for its citizens in the wake of a natural disaster. That, as opposed to toilet construction, is the very thing government should do and do well. It's why leadership matters.
Think back to the horrifically slow rebuild that took place after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Louisiana gulf coast. The state and local government permits alone took more time to clear the first of hundreds of hurdles in the same amount of time it took Florida to reconstruct the causeway.
That isn't to say that DeSantis always strikes the perfect, Lincolnian balance. It's not to say there isn't waste and mismanagement in Tallahassee. But with all the incessant talk coming out of Washington these days about "building back better," which to this point has translated to large amounts of taxing, massive amounts of spending, and nothing actually being "built" besides inflation rates and gas prices, it's nice to see a governing entity actually doing its job.
Now, imagine the improvement that could be made if Governor DeSantis was put in a position to bring that same approach to effective and efficient administration to Washington, D.C.
