Reform and Legacy: Good or Bad all depends

 There are a couple of words out there that seems to be in vogue but their meaning in a political context puzzles me. I used them but until I thought about it this morning, the terms do not really mean precisely what we may all think they mean.

 

The first word is “reform”. According to my dictionary, and I do use the book version, reform is defined as a transitive verb:  to put or change into an improved form or condition or to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses. And finally,  “to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action”.

The word reform is used for such things as “health care” reform, “tax” reform, and ”immigration” reform. However, the real questions are these really reforms or merely changes to the current way. Do they improve a condition? Or are they just political jargon dressing up something. I mean, how could one be against reform?

Let’s just take “health care” reform enacted in 2010 in the all time legislative partisan political hatchet job. The “reform” is still very unpopular and with its implementation lunching forward-raising insurance premiums, creating further regulation and costing hundreds of billions of dollars- one could wonder if this is reform at all. Maybe, it is your perspective.

Tax reform is a big issue and there is no doubt the current tax system is almost irretrievably broke. However, what will replace it and will it be better? At the end of the day, if changes drastically increase taxes and force taxpayers and business into a more dictatorial corner by the government then, it would seem reform is a misnomer. Again, how can anyone be against reform?

One man’s reform does not make it reform, I suspect. My conclusion is not all reform is good and I shall be careful how I used the word. 

The other word is legacy. There was an article today discussing the need and desire of Mr. Obama to have his legacy, leaving something significantly good left behind.

Is legacy a good thing or a bad one? Turns out it can be either. If someone invents a vaccine, that is a good thing. However, in another context a legacy can be bad, as say the legacy of war caused by despotic leaders is destruction and suffering.

In the context of Mr. Obama, it is what he will leave behind. So his legacy could be one-in-five children now in poverty, increased debt burden to be born by generations to come, or the creation of a subclass of people dependent on government to illustrate a few.

The point being legacy is not always a positive as being used in the political jargon today. Visualize Mr. Obama's legacy as you choose but use the word carefully.