What Should Government Accomplish?

We have considered what Americans should reasonably expect from their country and how opportunity, security, prosperity, and fairness can serve as broad goals for society.

That brings us to a central question:

What should government actually accomplish?

The answer is not simply "more government" or "less government."

Government is one of several institutions through which society organizes itself. Individuals, families, businesses, communities, charities, and voluntary organizations all have important roles to play.

The challenge is determining which responsibilities are best handled collectively through government, which are better left to individuals or other institutions, and how government can perform the responsibilities it does take on effectively.

Protect Rights and Maintain the Rule of Law

One of government's most fundamental responsibilities is to protect the rights of its citizens and maintain a legal system in which people can live and conduct their affairs with reasonable security.

This includes enforcing laws against violence, theft, fraud, and other serious wrongdoing, while also protecting the rights of people accused of crimes.

It includes protecting property rights, enforcing contracts, and maintaining courts capable of resolving disputes.

Government should also be subject to the law itself.

A society governed by laws rather than by the arbitrary decisions of individuals requires public officials and institutions to operate within established legal boundaries.

Protect the Country

National defense is another responsibility that is difficult for individuals to provide on their own.

A country needs the ability to protect itself from external threats and maintain its national security.

This does not mean that every military action is justified simply because it is undertaken in the name of security.

Military power involves enormous costs and consequences. Decisions about its use therefore require careful consideration of the threat, the objectives, the costs, the risks, and the likely consequences.

But maintaining an effective national defense is a responsibility that cannot easily be delegated to private individuals.

Provide Essential Public Goods

Some things are difficult to provide efficiently through individual action because many people can benefit from them at the same time.

Roads, bridges, public infrastructure, emergency services, certain public health measures, and other shared resources can fall into this category.

These are sometimes called public goods, although the exact economic definition is more specific.

The important practical question is whether a service or resource is something that society benefits from providing collectively and whether government is an effective way to provide it.

Government should not automatically provide everything that is useful.

But when a necessary public function cannot reasonably be provided through individual or voluntary action, collective provision may be appropriate.

Create a Framework for a Functioning Economy

Government does not create all economic activity. Most economic activity takes place through individuals and private organizations making voluntary decisions.

But government establishes many of the rules within which the economy operates.

It defines property rights, enforces contracts, establishes standards, regulates certain activities, collects taxes, and provides infrastructure.

It also has a role in maintaining conditions in which businesses can compete and people can participate in the economy.

The goal should not necessarily be to direct economic activity in detail.

Rather, government should establish a stable framework in which people can work, invest, start businesses, trade, innovate, and build wealth.

Provide Opportunity

Government also has a role in helping maintain the conditions necessary for people to develop their abilities and participate in society.

Education is an obvious example.

A society benefits when children have access to a good basic education regardless of the circumstances into which they were born.

The same principle can apply to infrastructure, access to essential services, and other foundations of economic participation.

This does not mean government must provide every service directly.

The relevant question is whether the system as a whole gives people a meaningful opportunity to develop their abilities and pursue productive lives.

Provide a Measure of Security

Government can also provide some protection against risks that individuals and families may not be able to manage adequately on their own.

Programs addressing retirement, disability, unemployment, healthcare, poverty, or other forms of hardship can serve this purpose.

But the existence of a legitimate need does not automatically determine what government should do about it.

Important questions remain:

• How much assistance is appropriate?

• Who should qualify?

• How should it be financed?

• Should government provide the service directly or help people obtain it elsewhere?

• How can assistance encourage independence rather than unnecessary dependence?

• How can the system remain financially sustainable?

These questions matter because a program can have a worthwhile objective while still being poorly designed.

Correct Problems That Markets Alone May Not Solve

Markets are powerful mechanisms for organizing economic activity, but they do not solve every problem.

Businesses generally respond to the interests of their customers and owners. When those interests align with the broader public interest, markets can work remarkably well.

But there can be situations in which the costs of an activity fall partly on people who are not involved in the transaction.

Pollution is a familiar example.

There can also be situations involving natural monopolies, information problems, fraud, or other circumstances in which ordinary market mechanisms do not produce the desired result.

Government can sometimes address such problems through regulation, taxation, public provision, or other approaches.

But intervention itself can create costs and unintended consequences.

The fact that a market has a problem does not automatically mean that government intervention will solve it.

Protect Competition

Government also has a role in maintaining competitive markets.

Competition can encourage businesses to reduce costs, improve products, innovate, and respond to consumers.

When competition is substantially weakened by monopolistic practices or other barriers, those benefits can be reduced.

This is one reason governments establish and enforce competition laws.

Again, the objective should not be to punish businesses simply for becoming successful.

The goal is to preserve conditions under which businesses have meaningful incentives to compete and consumers have meaningful choices.

Build and Maintain Infrastructure

Modern society depends on infrastructure that individuals could not reasonably construct and maintain on their own.

Roads, bridges, water systems, electrical infrastructure, communications networks, airports, ports, and other systems form part of the physical foundation of the economy.

Government has an important role in ensuring that essential infrastructure exists and remains functional.

That does not necessarily mean government must own or directly operate every piece of infrastructure.

In many cases, public and private organizations can play complementary roles.

The important question is whether the infrastructure people and businesses depend upon is being maintained and developed adequately.

Protect the Environment and Shared Resources

Some resources are shared by everyone and can be damaged when individuals or businesses are allowed to use them without accounting for the effects on others.

Air, water, wildlife, and other natural resources can present these kinds of challenges.

Government may therefore have a legitimate role in establishing rules that protect shared resources.

But environmental policy involves trade-offs as well.

Regulations can produce important benefits while also imposing costs on households and businesses.

Good policy should therefore consider both the environmental benefits and the economic and practical consequences.

The goal should be to protect resources without unnecessarily imposing costs that produce little additional benefit.

Make Government Itself Accountable

Perhaps one of the most important responsibilities of government is to govern itself responsibly.

Government controls substantial public resources and has significant authority over people's lives.

That makes accountability especially important.

Citizens should be able to understand how public money is being spent, how major decisions are made, and who is responsible for them.

Government programs should be evaluated based on whether they actually accomplish their intended purposes.

When a program does not work well, the appropriate response should not automatically be to defend it simply because it has existed for a long time.

It should be possible to modify it, replace it, or eliminate it when evidence shows that a different approach would work better.

What Government Should Not Try to Do

There are also things government should be cautious about taking responsibility for.

Government cannot guarantee that everyone will be successful.

It cannot eliminate all risk.

It cannot make everyone agree.

It cannot create prosperity simply by passing laws.

And it cannot substitute for the initiative, judgment, and responsibility of millions of individuals.

Trying to make government responsible for every desirable outcome can produce an enormous bureaucracy while weakening the role of individuals and other institutions.

A useful principle is therefore:

Government should do what people need to do collectively, while leaving as much room as possible for individuals and other institutions to do what they can do effectively themselves.

How Should We Judge Government?

The existence of a government program is not itself evidence that the program is working.

Likewise, a small government is not automatically an effective government.

The more useful questions are practical ones.

Does the government accomplish its intended purpose?

Does it provide benefits that justify its costs?

Could the same objective be achieved more effectively in another way?

Does the policy create unintended consequences?

Does it preserve individual freedom where possible?

Does it encourage personal responsibility rather than unnecessarily replacing it?

Is it financially sustainable?

Can its results be measured and evaluated?

These questions provide a basis for examining government without starting from the assumption that government is either inherently good or inherently bad.

Government as a Tool

Perhaps the most useful way to think about government is as a tool.

A tool is neither inherently good nor bad. Its value depends on what it is used for, how it is designed, and how effectively it is used.

Government can protect freedoms, maintain order, build infrastructure, provide public goods, expand opportunity, and protect people from risks that individuals cannot reasonably manage alone.

It can also become inefficient, intrusive, expensive, or counterproductive.

The answer is not to assume that one side of this equation is always correct.

It is to ask what problem we are trying to solve, what alternatives exist, and which approach is most likely to produce the desired result while respecting individual freedom and responsibility.

The Standard We Should Expect

Americans do not need government to solve every problem.

They do need government to perform the responsibilities that society has entrusted to it.

That means protecting rights, maintaining the rule of law, protecting the country, providing essential public goods, maintaining the foundations of a functioning economy, supporting opportunity, addressing certain shared risks and problems, and managing public resources responsibly.

Just as importantly, government should recognize the limits of its own role.

It should not assume that every problem requires a government program or that every government program should continue indefinitely.

The standard should be simple:

Government should do what needs to be done collectively, do it effectively, remain accountable to the people, and interfere with individual freedom no more than necessary to accomplish legitimate public purposes.

That standard does not tell us every policy answer.

It gives us a way to evaluate those answers.

And that is the next step in building a better America: moving from broad principles to specific questions about how our institutions actually perform.