The Responsibility of Government

Statement

The Responsibility of Government
by Mark Lawrence

I spoke with my niece this week. She is working in New Orleans as part of the Teach for America program. She described her work at a school in the 9th Ward teaching high school students who are returning to the city after their families had been displaced, many of them for two years. A good number of these returning students have not had a consistent education curriculum in two years as they have been moved from place to place around the country.

Our conversation reminded me what a great tragedy the Bush Administration's response to hurricane Katrina was, and how it exposed this administration's misplaced priorities and philosophy.

From the earliest settlement of this country, it has been a principle of our culture that people and communities pulled together to help each other respond to natural disasters. This is the very essence of what popular government is: an extension of our communities that works to meet challenges that no one individual can meet alone.

Yet the Bush administration seemed incapable or unwilling of understanding and accepting this fundamental principle of our society. Hurricane Katrina, and its aftermath which is still being felt, exposed decades of failed ideology that rejects our government's responsibility to provide for the general welfare of the people it represents.

Let us hope that never again will our government fail so dramatically in its fundamental responsibility to its citizenry.

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