The decades-long war on government has left struggling Americans to fend for themselves.
ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT YOUNG
In 2005, I wrote a piece for
The Nation surveying the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I concluded it on this cautionary note:
We have to be clear that what happened in New Orleans is an extreme and criminally tragic coming home to roost of the con that cutting public spending makes for a better society. It is a shocking foretaste of a future that many more of us will experience less dramatically, often quietly as individuals, as we lose pensions, union protection, access to healthcare and public education, Social Security, bankruptcy and tort protection, and as we are called upon to feed an endless war machine.