You know, nature hates vacuums - and so does government.

The Republicans appear to have won the debt-limit debate - successfully getting trillions of dollars in spending cuts - and bringing us all closer to their vision of a miniature-sized pocket government.

But one thing everyone seems to forget is that as government power shrinks - something else has to fill that power vacuum.

And that something has always historically been the power of either great wealth or corporations.

Since the birth of our nation - corporations have slobbered at the idea of replacing government.

They were hungry for the billions they could skim off the top of a privatized Social Security - or the money they can make from a voucherized Medicare - or the massive profits they can make if they don't have to follow pollution limits anymore.

And in 1980 - these power-thirsty corporations backed Ronald Reagan and set out to smear the good name of government.

They figured if they could just get the American people to buy into the idea that government was broken and ineffective - then they could wiggle their way into power - and feast.

And today - many Americans have also bought into this idea - and - surprise - the corporations are moving in.

Today - far too many of us see this theater of ineptitude on Capitol Hill - and think that government has never worked and never will - and therefore we should starve the government and scrap it altogether.

And it’s not just what’s going on in Congress - it’s what’s going on everywhere.

Failing public schools - the debt-ridden United States Postal Service - the near bankrupt Amtrak - failed regulators on Wall Street - incompetent oversight of oil rigs - mismanaged disaster relief - black-hole Pentagon spending - soaring Medicare prices.

We see government programs failing all around us.

And nobody trumpets these failures like the Republican Party whose members can barely spit out 5 words without pointing out a government program that they've broken so badly that it's no longer working.

That’s why people hang tea bags from their tri-cornered hats - and scream about government.

That’s why droves of young people flock behind Ron Paul - and lap up every word about dismantling federal departments.

And that’s why the frame of debate in America has shifted from “what should we be spending money on?” to “what should we be spending LESS money on?”

That's why this debt-limit deal is all spending cuts - not because cuts are good for the economy - but because we've all bought into the same idea - the strange notion that government not only doesn't work, but can't ever work.

But it's the wrong idea. It's not even the idea that this country was founded on.

The truth is... it's not government that doesn't work - it's when Republicans run government that it doesn't work.

I had historian Thomas Frank on my show recently to talk about Republican-run government - here’s what he had to say:

Cynicism pays massive dividends to conservatives, and what's creepy about this is that it's sort of self-fulfilling. So conservatives tend to deal in very bad government. They govern very poorly. ...

There's one line from "The Wrecking Crew" that I always like to repeat because it can never get out there enough. And it's from a guy who was the president of the US Chamber of Commerce back in the 1920's. And he said in an interview that I found in a very popular magazine that I found from the 1920's: "The best public servant is the worst one." ...

Nobody's ever said it quite that bluntly since then but you can find echoes - and I do in the book - I find echoes of this remark right up to the present day. I mean, conservatives say this sort of thing all the time. You don't want competent people in government. You don't want, because if government works, if you have smart people in government, people that know what they're doing and government works, then the public will trust government. You know, you won't have the cynicism, things will work, and then Democrats will be elected.

That’s it right there - If people find out that government programs work - then Democrats will get elected.

So for the last 30 years - since Reagan - Republicans have been busy running government's good name into the ground - hiring inept bureaucrats and corporate cronies to convince people that the government can't do its job - and give the Republican Party exactly what it needs to keep getting re-elected - a platform that government doesn’t work.

So they can de-fund government, and replace functions like Social Security with their buddies on Wall Street.

But it wasn't always like this.

REPUBLICAN president Dwight Eisenhower presided over a time in America when government programs worked.

And as he told his brother in a letter in 1954:

Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things...a few...Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Eisenhower knew government worked and that it enriched the lives of everyone in America - and that anyone who wanted to get rid of it was just plain stupid.

But after 30 years of bad government courtesy of the modern Republican Party - we've all gone stupid.

Even President Obama - who was just barely 20 years old when Ronald Reagan won the White House - can't remember the days when government worked and the American people would revolt against those who were trying to dismantle it.

That's probably why he's gone along with the Tea Party nearly every step of the way - bowing to their demands - rather than just calling them stupid like Eisenhower did.

What the Tea Party and Ron Paul fanatics fail to understand is... government is the only thing that stands in the way of corporate power.

What do you want between you and your doctor - to paraphrase the eternal question from the health care debate - the government you can petition and elect or un-elect, or a for-profit health insurance corporation whose CEO will have you arrested if you try to visit his office to talk with him?

Who do you want keeping an eye on our environment - government scientists working for you, or ExxonMobil's lobbyists working for them?

The reason why Republicans won this debt-limit debate - is the same reason they've won nearly every single economics debate in the last 30 years in America.

And that reason is... we've all forgotten the America of the middle 20th Century - a time when government actually worked.

And if we don't remember it soon - if the Tea Party zombies and Ron Paul worshippers don't wake up from this collective amnesia - then the corporations WILL take full control of America.

And I can promise you whatever problems you may have with Uncle Sam today - will pale in comparison to the institutionalized crimes of a United States of, for example, Enron or ExxonMobil or Goldman Sachs.

That's The Big Picture.