In the book That Used to Be Us, authors Friedman and Mandelbaum argue that the United States won at every major historical turn because we followed what Friedman called "the 5 Pillars":

1-"Educate our people up to and beyond whatever the level of technology is...

2-"Immigration. Attract the world's most talented and energetic people...

3-"Have the world's best infrastructure...

4-"Have the right rules for incenting, capital formation and risk taking...

5-"Government-funded research."

Note that these five form a powerful private society where the government maintains the right rules and incentivizes free enterprise.

 

All five have significantly decreased since the year 2000, really since 1989, and today the Right is strongly against 2 and 5 while the Left is adamantly against 4.

 

Both are caught in the trap of trying to accomplish 1 and 3 using the same old methods that haven't worked for over two decades.    

 

No wonder we're facing decline.

 

We've stopped doing the most important things that brought America's original and lasting successes.

 

The Left pushes too strongly for government-only solutions while the Right rejects any government answers.

As journalist Paul Gigot noted on Meet the Press,

 

"The irony is, of the past thirty, forty years, that the prestige of government has collapsed most rapidly when government has tried to do...far more than it is capable of doing.

 

"Government prestige increased under Ronald Reagan, the great supposed enemy of government, because he showed when you focused on a couple of things and did it well, and got the economy growing, that people said, 'You know what, they're competent there. It's working.'"

 

We need government.

 

We need it to protect equal rights for everyone and maintain a system where all are treated equally before the law.

 

This encourages free enterprise, economic growth and improved prosperity.

 

Societies without such governments have little freedom.

 

Of course, the danger is that good government can become overbearing and put a damper on economic growth and success.

 

Today we have government that has clearly over-reached in a number of ways, and a backlash from the Right that wants little or no government.

 

We need to adopt a middle approach, good government that is, in a phrase used in the American founding, "strong and limited."

 

Actually, in The Federalist Papers the term was "vigorous and limited."

 

We want a strong government, and at the same time we want a limited government.

 

That is what constitutional government is all about.