The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s March 2016 TV interview explores how a vibrant and effective public sector can serve the public interest.
For a several decades – especially since Ronald Reagan’s era – we have been hearing anti-government rhetoric from politicians and other powerful interests who want to cut taxes in order to starve and shrink the public sector. Sometimes voters have gone along with that, cutting taxes and cutting governments’ abilities to meet needs.
Those powerful interests also have pushed governments to sell public resources to private corporations (to “privatize” them) so they can reap private profits from activities that should focus on serving the broad public interest. They have also “de-regulated” many functions so businesses could reduce their accountability to the general public.
This month’s interview explores questions such as:
• Which services should be owned by the public instead of by private businesses?
• Even if something is owned privately, how can it be regulated to serve the broad public interest?
• How should we make these kinds of decisions?
Two guests help us explore many interesting aspects of this topic. They share insights and apply their fresh thinking to many sectors, including education, health care, parks, and more. Both guests have many decades of experience helping our local community make smart decisions about a variety of public policy issues:
• Jim Lazar has decades of experience as a professional economist, especially focusing on energy issues.
• Bob Jacobs had a long career as a public policy analyst for state government, and he was widely appreciated as the mayor of Olympia.
To watch this interview, CLICK HERE.
To read a thorough summary of what we said during the interview, Program Description — March 2016.