While you are correct with this statement in this context, I would say it applies to most things in government in general.
The vast majority of lawmakers have zero experience solving any real world problems and are content spending everyone else's money to play pretend at doing so.
The reality is, most government "solutions" cause more problems than they solve, after which, they blame their predecessors for all the problems they caused and the cycle continues.
The "reality" is that propaganda heavily encourages you to ignore the government successes and only focus on the failures. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine who benefits from that.
Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tangibly better.
I can list a billion made by businesses.
Please, go for it. Just one.
Medicaid
The National Park System
I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but
Oh, there's more: Medicare, Social Security, the highway system.
The whole food/medicine regulatory system is also a big one, and it's the reason a lot of US (and European) products like baby formula are imported into China, because they can be more trusted.
My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language. The flawed assumption there is the government should be conceptualized as just another company selling in the market, when the government's actual role is very different.
Medicaid - funded by the government, meaning people are not willingly paying for it
The National Park System - funded by the government, meaning people are not willingly paying for it
Medicaid is hardly a competitive market, but medication pricing alone says it is a failure. On Medicaid, my FIL can’t get his prescription for G7s filled by anyone.
Human genome - J. Venter was the first to sequence the human genome, privately funded.
the entire space industry - Liquid fuel rockets were pioneered by Goddard, through private funding.
Radar - originated from late 19th-century experiments on radio wave reflection, pioneered by Heinrich Hertz in 1886. While Christian Hülsmeyer patented a "telemobiloscope" for ship detection in 1904
The proto-Internet - Pioneered by Samuel Morse, see "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage. Privately funded.
Optical data storage - Invented by D Gregg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paul_Gregg, at a private company.
Nuclear energy - a very long list of contributors. See "The Making of the Atomic Bomb".
And so on.
Things work here and nobody seems to be passing the "oops my unintended side effects and clueless regulations messed things up horribly." Or, if they do, it is at something like 1/10th the level.
We didn't start warning label spam everywhere. We don't have weird propositions that are causing run-away housing prices. There aren't bar codes on our 3d printers, or cookie banner requirements on every website. Well, ok we do, but that nonsense all came in from other places.
We did pass laws to lower PFAS/PFOAS. That seems reasonable. Government can work.
I wish I was joking. They get audited yet? Pretty sure that was a ballot measure that passed by a huge margin years back and last I checked they were stalling...
Most of those are a reaction rather than the cause. People want to move to california, it creates a different set of problems for california vs Massachusetts
The sheer size, economic volume and cultural diversity of CA presents a pretty unique set of issues.
Zero basis in fact. We’re in the wealthiest nation on the planet. Most of us live better than any previous generation. To claim all that success is completely in spite of government is ridiculous.
Who do you think printed it. Who signed the bill?
The US can just print money and receive goods in exchange of literal paper. Or just put an extra zero in a bank account and receive goods in exchange.
And if a certain yahoo decides they want in the money printing scheme...who do you think is going to send the goons with guns to prevent the government monopoly in creating literal wealth.
U. S. by far the largest current-account deficit (over $1.2 trillion).
U.S. has the largest goods trade deficit (over $1 trillion).
