There are very few things that the government does better than the private sector. Schooling, healthcare, and helping the poor always work better privately than the public counterpart. The job of the government is to protect its state's sovereignty, not protect people from themselves. Every attempt at helping the people is almost always a failure, if it involves the government providing goods of any sort.
Publicly funded institutions are dangerous and unreliable due to how our country is run, it's one of the few drawbacks of our republic. For 4-8 years, someone can rely on a government program just to have it taken away. Not only is the possibility of a program being eliminated, but most programs being fought for are worse when run by the government.
The government is not good at anything it does. Anything. The government is atrocious at everything whether a Republican or a Democrat is in charge. Quite frankly, it is not even up for debate whether the government is good or bad at the things it does. Rather, there could be a debate for which activity it is the worst at carrying out.
The war on poverty is one of the ultimate government failures that encapsulates how truly atrocious public programs are. According to this article on Forbes, the poverty rate today is 2% higher than that of 1967. Trillions and trillions of dollars have been poured into the welfare state and the sad attempt to eliminate poverty through public policy. Welfare is continually abused and the system never changes, and shockingly enough there are still poor people at every corner. The numbers on the war on poverty are shell-shocking, but the number of people in poverty is not.
You cannot rely on politicians and public programs to help save the poor and rid our streets of poverty. However, charity and being decent people is something that could be very consistent if we build our cultures that way. Treat people how you would want to be treated and help those in need. It is really that simple. However, relying on our government did not get us anywhere in the over 50 years of the War on Poverty, so why would anyone continue to rely on it?
One of the biggest issues in our nation is undoubtedly healthcare. The debate in healthcare nowadays usually consists of volatile lies from both sides and no real debate. However, despite what Bernie Sanders will tell you, a single-payer government run healthcare system would be as much of a disaster as other government programs.
Giving the entire nation’s healthcare over to be handled by the government would work out very similarly to a different program already run by the federal government. The Veteran Affairs healthcare system has been a total disaster for years and is detrimental to the nation’s veterans. Giving the federal government the task of ensuring healthcare for everyone would turn out very similarly, and people would actually die.
In fact, every single time the government gets involved in healthcare, prices seem to go up. The only way to truly help those that cannot afford healthcare is to give to charities that help those stricken by unfortunate illnesses. It is impossible to coerce people into giving healthcare at a financial loss and have the quality continue to be what it is in the United States.
Not only would the government be awful at distributing drugs that citizens need, it has also failed to stop the illegal use of narcotics across the country. The government tasked itself with stopping serious drug abuse, and instead has wasted over a trillion dollars arresting people for things like marijuana possession; the war has created a dangerous black market ruining lives and incarcerating absurd amounts of people.
In America, drugs come with serious penalties, even marijuana. The fight for just medical marijuana is still raging, with newly appointed AG Jeff Sessions pointing a condescending finger at any and all forms of marijuana.
Somehow, many lawmakers fail to recognize that marijuana is not a problem, but a solution. The opioid abuse in young people is on the rise and ending prohibition of marijuana could easily decrease the opioid epidemic that is now raging in our nation. But alas, the war on drugs continues and helps make up a list of things the government is inept at.
The constant government intervention that has made this country deteriorate in some areas is almost never necessary. While Bernie is shouting to publicize everything, private efforts always work better.
The Washington Post estimated that 4,157,894 different people went on a women’s march across various states in 2017. The federal government gave Planned Parenthood a little bit more than 528 million dollars. That means, if every person that went on one of those marches donated just $127 they could fund Planned Parenthood for a year. That is not even mention all the avid defenders of Planned Parenthood that did not attend a march.
This is not to say we should defund Planned Parenthood, I do not believe in that. However, clearly public funding is not necessary.
Another way we trust the government too much is with our children. Many parents are not able to take care of the children they have, and put them up for adoption in the local foster care system. The foster care system has done nothing than hurt children and open them up to government funded abuse.
I personally have witnessed the failure that the foster care system has become. Privatizing such a thing would be just as dangerous, because children are not products and moving kids for profit violates human rights. However, making a difference by adopting children in our own country is an easy solution. People have this obsession with adopting children overseas, and there really is nothing wrong with that.
However, our government-run foster care system has kids literally being kept in cages and children in our own cities need our help. To end such a program would be simple, adopt locally. Adopting locally is cheaper and will help American children first.
The government is not and will not be good at anything. Legislation is not passed based on what anyone believes, it is passed based on where the money infusions are coming from and what those people want. Hence why the mental health system has been neglected after Bill Clinton and on. The bigger the government, the more special interests will play a role in legislation.
Despite being the greatest country on Earth, the United States has its problems. However, we cannot rely on the government to fix them. In the past, the government has not been able to alleviate pain and suffering. Big government policies have created crises all over the world and at home. In America, we ourselves must invest in the things we believe in, because politicians will never be fully invested in us.
