This is an important project: Demos, the Council for Excellence in Government, and the Frameworks Institute are conducting a project called How to Talk about Government.
Over the last 30 years conservatives have relentlessly worked to destroy the image of government (with one important exception -- see below). They have constantly portrayed government as inefficient, ineffective, and corrupt, and over time the public has come to believe these stereotypes.
The one exception is the military. Over that same period there has been a concerted effort to beef up the image of the military. The public image of the military was quite low in the 1970's, but due to strategic organizational changes and effective advertising and PR techniques (including embedded journalists), public perception of the military has improved fairly steadily over the last 20 years.
The combined effect of these two public image trends has allowed conservatives to gradually cut social programs and environmental protection, while at the same time justifying higher and higher military expenditures. The tarnished image of government was also used as a justification for cutting taxes. "Why should people give their hard-earned money to the goverment if the government will just waste it on social programs," said many conservatives. With lower taxes and higher military expenditures, congress has had its hands tied, and invariably it has gone along with social program cutbacks.
The How to Talk About Government project aims to study this problem and find solutions. We really do need to improve the image of government, and help people understand the critical importance of the relationship between the public and private sectors. I wish them luck, and I think progressiveU should do all we can to help this cause.
David King at Harvard has published a lot on the image of the military. Here's one good article summarizing his points. He points out that the pentagon agressively worked with Hollywood to upgrade it's image, through films like Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun, along with TV shows like JAG.
Almost all of us have a tendency to dislike paying taxes, even if we are very progressive. Especially now, because (as a friend recently said to me) "our tax money is buying bombs."
We do need to improve the image of government and lessen people's aversion to taxes. But it won't happen as long as people perceive that most of their tax money is going toward the military.
If a new president came along who promised to reduce the size of the military-industrial complex and use tax money for more useful things, maybe s/he could convince people to put up with higher taxes? I think this would be especially effective if the taxes didn't directly come out of the paycheck -- e.g., higher taxes on gasoline, tobacco, alcohol, corporate taxes, etc.
It isn't the image of government we need to improve - it is the actual government itself.
For all the dipshits with yellow-ribbon SUVs and pick-up trucks, their image of the gov't is just fine. But I don't really care if "these colors don't run." That's not good government.
I want better results than a daily death toll from the gov't. Imagine that.