BILL MOYERS: Are you agreeing with Ronald Reagan that government is not the solution; government is the problem?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Well, there are lots of problems with the government. I’ve spent my life exposing all sorts of problems with government. But government is fundamentally essential. Government is what creates for us civilization. We created this country so that we could be free, so that we could pursue our lives the way that we want to pursue them. And wealth is a byproduct of that. But the government is being turned into a vehicle not to ensure our liberties and create a level playing field but instead into a vehicle to take from the many to enrich the few.

Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS (The above quote is from 12:00 into the video)

While I can certainly take issue with the “We created this country so that we could be free, so that we could pursue our lives the way that we want to pursue them. And wealth is a byproduct of that.”,  what follows is describing the outright, brazen distortions of that idea,  perpetrated by the rich upon the rest of the country,  using their power to dispense favors and benefits to those who will do their bidding.