This has been one of the mantras of the RNC and the waldenbush crowd, smaller government is best, business can do it better, get government out of the way and the problems will get solved. This attitude of contempt for government is, by extension, contempt for governing; leading to corruption, ineptness, and cronyism. This is a big country with diverse people and geography and needs, it takes serious attention to deal with this. There are a whole lot of things the government is the only source for, for example: disaster management. No locality or state has the resources to deal with a Hurricane Katrina, this falls to the Federal Government and disregard of the system and its operation leads to further disaster.
The practice of handing projects to the "Halibutons" of this nation does not ensure businesslike competence, it creates a lobbyist's dream and no incentive to do reasonably priced excellent work. Businesses are by definition about making money, a great thing in a competitive market, a disaster in a cronyism market. Competition forces a business to either cut prices or produce a clearly superior product, an end result Americans can be happy with and what we don't get from the waldenbushes.
No, it's not the government's job to wipe your nose for you, but it also is not the government's job to create corporate behemoths and spoon feed them with our tax dollars. The government is a monopoly and placing a business into that situation creates the kind of monster that the anti-trust and monopoly acts were intended to bury. Good government requires respect and the people involved should inspire admiration. Look what we get instead.
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