What is Conservative?

Is it a conservative business management strategy to wait until disaster strikes and then clean up the mess? It would seem more conservative to act preventively in these matters. A ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That just sounds conservative doesn't it? What the Katrina disaster reveals more than anything else is that there is sometimes a conservative role for big government on the domestic front. If the residents of New Orleans had higher paying jobs and cars and a little extra cash, then none of this would have happened. Set aside who is to blame for issues related to preparedness and response. A more important question is why do people live this way? The answer in part is fiscal policies that deprive them of needed support.

While certain economic indicators have improved in recent months, poverty has increased every year since 2001. So when the next disaster hits, there will be another wave of impoverished victims that didn't need to be. What will happen to the 40 million without healthcare if we have a chemical or biological attack? Something very different than what happens to those who do, I would wager. And then we will have to spend billions to pick up the pieces. I believe in the conservative philosophy of good fiscal management. But sometimes good fiscal management demands money spent upfront, not just in reaction to crisis.

How would this have all played out differently if all the money we have spent in reaction and will spend in rebuilding had just been spent insuring these residents a decent life with a living wage and reliable personal transportation? This will hopefully dispel the cruel republican myth that only children and temps have to make due with minimum wage. Many Americans voted for compassionate conservatism. I think we assumed this meant some benevolence from the government. Instead, we have a government that doesn't believe in government. No one wants a return to big government as the end-all be-all. The government doesn't need to be an art sponsor, for example and anything else that can be done locally should be done locally. The feds can encourage the states to take on these burdens with incentives like matching funds rather than the unfunded mandates of past administrations. But only the feds can coordinate the necessary security blanket that we know now even our country needs.