Government is the Problem, Not the Solution

Ronald Reagan once claimed “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Over time history has been able to back up what Reagan once asserted. In a nation rich in history such as the United States, it is easy to go in either direction with this debate yet the state of the nation usual depicts which direction the people choose. A time such as now, where our great nation has been less fortunate in its last decade yet has found a way to climb out of the dust, it is a perfect time to debate on such a topic. Looking back on the past 80 years, history has many points in which exposes the flaws in our government making it a problem.
A government must be popular within its citizens to succeed yet one problem is the public’s disappointment with American democracy. An excellent example of such a problem would come from an African American soldier writing to President Roosevelt in 1944. In a time where racism was running rampant in America, many felt like the government was failing the greater good. “But the picture in our country is marred by one of the strangest paradoxes in our whole fight against world fascism”(pg. 277). The soldier is telling the President that while we are fighting for a world “based upon freedom, equality, and justice”(pg. 277), we do not practice what we preach. At home and within the ranks, the government was letting racism run free. In a time where segregation was not being opposed by the government but embraced, many people thought that the government was the problem. Democracy is where all men are looked at as equal. Well that was the war cry as American soldiers; well mostly white American soldiers, fought for freedom for all while fighting tyranny. This soldier was trying to brin...

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...a clear case where the government was the problem.
Looking back on the past 80 years, history has many points in which exposes the flaws in our government making it a problem. There are more examples that are looked throughout this essay but most certainly made an impact in history. As said before, it is easy to go in either direction with this debate yet the state of the nation usual depicts which direction the people choose, it is just how people choose to view events. While studying the history of the United States the past 3+ months, the U.S. government has shown to be the problem in most scenarios. With that being said, President Reagan made the correct statement in saying “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Works Cited

Major Problems in American History, Volume 2, 3rd ed. by Elizabeth Cobbs-Hoffman, Cengage Learning