Government is our friend. Do you believe it?

It’s trendy these days to knock anything and everything about the people we have elected to lead us, and the people appointed to help run the government.

And yet … there is more to the story.

Based on our experiences in the past 16 months during the COVID-19 pandemic, government has been our friend.

In that period, during two very different administrations and two sessions of Congress, our federal government has somehow managed to adopt three stimulus packages. The federal funds pouring forth have propped up individual finances, state and local budgets, and small businesses.

Without that aid, we might well be mired in a second Great Depression. With its help, our country is experiencing an economic recovery. Without it, the historic drop in revenues suffered one year ago might have continued.

At the county level, our localities have taken the federal funds and applied them to helping their own institutions weather the viru...