“In his first Inaugural Address, Ronald Reagan remarked that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” While the quip has provided Republicans with a cheap slogan for two decades, the philosophy behind it is beginning to box them in. If they govern effectively, they invalidate their own antigovernment ideology. And when you elect people who believe that government won’t work, you shouldn’t be surprised when government stops working.” — Markos Moulitsas in “Make the Bush Record the Issue”, Newsweek, November 26, 2007.
This quotation helps to explain the unrelenting incompetence of the Bush administration.
Later in the essay, Moulitsas says: “Democrats, on the other hand, believe government can be a resource for promoting the common good and thus are invested from the beginning in governing competently, efficiently and fairly. Their ideology demands it.”
Understanding these two basic ideological truths makes choosing a political party to support simple.