Morning Must-Read: Jonathan Chait: Why the Worst Governments in America Are Big Small Local Governments

Jonathan Chait: Why the Worst Governments in America Are Big Small Local Governments: “Police militarization bore only the faintest responsibility for the tragedy in Ferguson….

…Old-fashioned policing tools were all the Ferguson police needed to engage in years of discriminatory treatment, to murder Michael Brown, and to rough up journalists covering the ensuing protests…. Ferguson has exposed a genuine opening for thinking about public life in a way that cuts across traditional ideological lines. The problem is what you might call Big Small Government…. Ferguson… is an Orwellian monstrosity. Its racially-biased Police Department is the enforcement wing of a predatory system of government described in scathing detail in a recent report by ArchCity Defenders… an instrument of fiscal (in additional to social) domination. Court fines account for a fifth of the city’s revenue. Police officers disproportionately search black drivers…. The city issues three warrants per household, and its draconian justice system appears designed to bleed its victims. The report notes, ‘A Ferguson court employee reported that the bench routinely starts hearing cases 30 minutes before the appointed time and then locks the doors to the building as early as five minutes after the official hour, a practice that could easily lead a defendant arriving even slightly late to receive an additional charge for failure to appear.’…

There are not many people who find their freedom so unjustly impaired by the government in Washington as the people of Ferguson are by their local government…. Big Small Government is all around us. We simply haven’t trained our minds to notice it… both right and left have exhibited forms of this mental block…. Why do coastal states lack affordable housing? Because regulations prevent dense construction…. Here is a genuine case of onerous regulation with dire economic consequences…. Or consider occupational licensing. Some 29 percent of American workers need a state-issued license in order to legally do their job…. Income inequality isn’t just about low taxes for the rich and generous compensation for executives; it’s also about the difficulty working-class Americans have getting a job as a barber or a dental hygienist. These regulations don’t exist because of a popular outcry from voters terrified that the person they hire to help them pick out new drapes may lack formal training for the job. They exist because they serve the narrow interests of tradesmen…