{"id":33695,"date":"2016-10-26T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=33695"},"modified":"2016-10-27T09:56:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T12:56:59","slug":"research-debunks-the-myth-of-reduced-government-leading-to-prosperity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=33695","title":{"rendered":"Research Debunks Myth of Reduced Government Leading to Prosperity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

During the TV\u00a0debate between mayoral\u00a0candidates Marcelo Crivella<\/a> and Marcelo Freixo<\/a> on October 7, Crivella<\/a> indicated he aims to dismantle public\u00a0offices\u00a0and pursue a limited government stance that is highly uncommon to Brazilian politics: \u201cI see the role of the state as smaller and leaner. I would not like to see a larger city government with more jobs, more departments and more companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

While campaigning on the premise of cutting public spending is rare in highly-bureaucratic Brazil, it is a common trope for\u00a0conservative economic policy-makers and supporters of undisturbed\u00a0capitalism around the world. Though the plans Crivella\u00a0has made publicly available<\/a> remain vague, he\u00a0has advocated for public-private partnerships<\/a> in public security<\/a>, healthcare<\/a>, and education<\/a>.\u00a0The ideology is fairly simple: decreasing public spending and regulation, and increasing the flow of resources to the\u00a0private sector increases efficiency and produces economic growth.<\/p>\n

However, a new body of research<\/a> by American political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson suggests this link between limited government and prosperity is deeply flawed.<\/p>\n

In a recent study of US states,\u00a0the duo found that the states that scored highest across various metrics of prosperity\u2013median household income, life expectancy, patent rate, percent of adults with a college degree, and more\u2013were the states that most utilized regulations\u00a0and invested most in\u00a0public education, infrastructure and human services, typically financed by progressive state taxes<\/a>. The states regularly scoring the worst\u00a0across all of these metrics were typified as being conservative strongholds where cuts to public spending had been the norm for decades.<\/p>\n

In their work, Hacker and Pierson debunk the myth that economic growth and prosperity are the result of small government, arguing that “the key drivers of growth are science, education and innovation, not low taxes, lax regulations or greater exploitation of natural resources.”<\/p>\n

In the context of Rio’s already stark economic inequality<\/a>, such\u00a0policies could be all the more devastating. Diverting resources away from already struggling public sector programs and\u00a0urgent, core services like health and education will likely only exacerbate the economic slowdown and wealth disparity.\u00a0Reducing the role of government in public services could have detrimental effects on the city for years to come. Instead, whichever candidate is elected\u00a0mayor of Rio de Janeiro this coming weekend should invest intelligently and transparently in public services. Sanitation<\/a>, health<\/a>, education<\/a>, and mobility<\/a> are all worthwhile investments that leverage greater improvements to the economy and citizens’ well-being.<\/p>\n

\"Marcelo<\/a>
Marcelo Crivella (left) advocated for reducing public spending at the mayoral debate against Marcelo Freixo (right) on Oct. 7<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas During the TV\u00a0debate between mayoral\u00a0candidates Marcelo Crivella and Marcelo Freixo on October 7, Crivella indicated he aims to dismantle public\u00a0offices\u00a0and pursue a limited government stance that is highly uncommon to Brazilian […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":33698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,1282,1329],"tags":[2234,427,397,107,2225,630,545,374,703,141,149,740,535,1353],"writer":[2142],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-policies","8":"category-research-analysis","9":"category-by-international-observers","10":"tag-2016-mayoral-election","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-marcelo-crivella","15":"tag-marcelo-freixo","16":"tag-mobility","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-private-sector","19":"tag-privatization","20":"tag-public-private-partnership","21":"tag-research-findings","22":"tag-sanitation","23":"tag-usa","24":"writer-eli-nemzer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33695"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=33695"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=33695"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=33695"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=33695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}