The Problem Isn’t Government—It’s How We Make It Work

The enduring debate over the role of government in American life has long been distilled into a binary: should the state be an active force shaping markets, communities, and infrastructure, or should it step back, allowing private enterprise and individual initiative to chart their own course? This question animates our politics, fuels ideological rifts, and too often leads to a paralysis that serves neither efficiency nor liberty. But the premise itself is flawed. Government’s role is not merely to exist at the margins, moving out of the way when its work is deemed done. Rather, government’s essential function is to pave the way—to lay the foundations for markets to thrive, for communities to prosper, and for innovation to flourish.

To say that government should “get out of the way” suggests that progress is a naturally occurring force, emerging organically when bureaucratic burdens are removed. This is a comforting myth, but history tells a different story. From the railroads to the interstate highway system, from the internet to the space race, the most transformative advances in American economic and social life have not come from the absence of government but from its deliberate action. Left alone, markets may indeed generate wealth, but they do so unevenly, inefficiently, and often without regard to the broader public good. Government provides the rules, the infrastructure, and the incentives that shape markets toward better outcomes—not just for those at the top, but for everyone.

Take the internet, an indispensable engine of modern commerce. The foundational technologies that make it possible—packet-switching, TCP/IP, and fiber-optic transmission—were not the product of unregulated free enterprise. They were nurtured in publicly funded laboratories, tested in government agencies, and only later unleashed into the private sector, where they could be refined and expanded. To insist that government should now “get out of the way” of the digital economy is to ignore the very means by which it was created. The same story is true of countless industries, from pharmaceuticals to renewable energy, where government investment provides the crucial first push before private innovation takes over.

And yet, an overreaching government can stifle as much as it enables. The challenge, then, is not choosing between regulation and deregulation, intervention and laissez-faire, but in determining how and when government should act to maximize its ability to build and sustain systems that serve the national interest. A government that paves the way is not a government that micromanages, nor one that merely reacts. It is one that anticipates, invests, and catalyzes. It is the government of the Erie Canal and the Homestead Act, of the GI Bill and the Apollo Program.

Critics of this vision often invoke the specter of government inefficiency—of bloated bureaucracies stifling enterprise, of public dollars wasted on doomed projects. This is not an unreasonable concern, and the solution lies not in dismantling government but in improving it. Institutions must be structured to be nimble, accountable, and transparent. Regulatory regimes should not merely impose burdens but should set clear, predictable rules that allow businesses and individuals to operate with confidence. Public investment must be made with an eye toward long-term returns, not short-term political gain.

Nowhere is this principle more urgent than in the realm of infrastructure. The United States, once the world leader in visionary public works, has allowed its roads, bridges, and transit systems to decay under the weight of deferred maintenance and political inertia. Calls to shrink government’s role in infrastructure are tantamount to surrendering the nation’s competitive edge. A modern economy does not run on nostalgia for a bygone era of frontier self-sufficiency; it runs on high-speed rail, on resilient power grids, on broadband access that reaches every community. None of these things will build themselves, and the private sector—rationally—has little interest in undertaking projects that require vast investment with uncertain profit potential. That is the role of government, not as a competitor to business, but as its enabler.

Beyond infrastructure, government must also pave the way in areas where markets alone cannot be expected to solve pressing societal problems. Climate change, for example, is an existential challenge whose costs are not borne solely by those who create them. A functioning market economy does not naturally account for externalities like carbon emissions, just as it did not account for the cholera outbreaks of the 19th century before public sanitation became a priority. Government’s role is not simply to tax and regulate pollution but to steer investment toward a cleaner future—through subsidies, research funding, and market-shaping incentives that make decarbonization the rational economic choice.

Government, at its best, is an architect of possibility. It builds the roads—literal and metaphorical—upon which individuals and businesses travel. It does not dictate the destination, nor does it drive the car, but without its guiding hand, the path forward is left to the uneven terrain of chance. The choice is not between freedom and control, but between an active, forward-looking government and one that abdicates its role entirely. To pave the way is not to impose; it is to empower. And in that empowerment lies the true foundation of progress.

For all the expectations placed on government to solve society’s most pressing challenges, its failures too often reinforce skepticism about its effectiveness. When programs are rolled out with poor execution, when infrastructure projects balloon in cost without clear accountability, and when bureaucracy stifles rather than enables, it feeds the perception that government is inherently inefficient. And if government cannot deliver results, then calls for its expansion become politically and socially untenable.

This is a problem of competence, not ideology. People do not reject government because they are philosophically opposed to it; they reject it when it fails them. The rollout of major healthcare reforms, for example, has been plagued by technical failures that overshadow long-term benefits. Public transit projects in the U.S. cost exponentially more per mile than in other developed nations due to inefficiencies that have gone unaddressed. Even ambitious climate initiatives, while crucial, are often bogged down by administrative hurdles that prevent funds from reaching the projects they are meant to support.

If government is to be a tool for progress, it must prove itself to be an engine of efficiency, innovation, and responsiveness. That means streamlining permitting processes, reducing bureaucratic redundancy, holding public agencies accountable for cost overruns, and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are used effectively. Until this happens, arguments that government is a bloated, ineffective force will continue to resonate—not because they are necessarily true, but because lived experience will make them feel true.

The challenge is not just to advocate for government’s role in solving problems but to make it work. That requires hard decisions that create momentum for progress rather than more barriers. If government is to regain public trust, it must not only promise solutions but demonstrate the competence to deliver them.