Gongol.com Archives: March 2026
March 12, 2026
There may be more unlikely places to find the germ of a political philosophy than the top of a pizza box, but not very many. Yet the lid to a carry-out from Godfather's Pizza carries a wonderful slogan that applies well beyond pepperoni and cheese. "Quality and Abundance" says the box, in a reference that in the literal sense applies to pizza toppings, but in a metaphorical one may be the perfect encapsulation of America's political expectations. ■ "Abundance" is more or less a consensus point. Even among those inclined to favor redistributionist policies, there aren't many who would deny that what is good for the middle class economically is good for the country, and vice-versa. Particular targeted policies have their cheerleaders, but overwhelmingly, most Americans know they are best served by an expanding economy. And by comparison with our closest friends in Europe, America's economy has grown abundantly over the last several decades. The divergence is real. ■ But a 21st Century mindset has expectations of quality from the services one receives from one's government. Abundance alone isn't enough to satisfy; it's hard to look at government services and think that they have, overall, kept pace in their quality with private-sector experiences. ■ Not every private sector experience has gotten substantially better in the last couple of decades; some have gotten worse (or simply stagnated). But most of them have improved at least marginally, and many of them by quite a bit. Inevitably, these experiences become yardsticks by which public-sector encounters are measured. ■ Has your experience with any level of government become substantially better in the way that televisions have gone from cathode ray tubes to flat-panel TVs in recent decade. Has your experience with the IRS improved in the same way that your experience with online banking has improved? Does your experience with Medicare match your experience with Amazon Medical or Mark Cuban's Cost-Plus drug retailer?
