That last question is just bizarre. If government isn't solving problems, what the hell good is it?
Gunking up the works. You have to understand the sheer size of the government. Ask ten different groups how much the US has spent this year and you'll get nine different answers. When you have that level of confusion and inconsistency, despite the fact that I think the government has good intentions, it blows up. It's like trying to turn on a dime in a Battleship. I mean look at the whole Obamacare website. I very much doubt anyone in the government wanted that to be the flop out of the gate that it ended up being. And it took what, 100 million dollars to fix? That **** happens in the Private Sector... that never happen, someone come up saying that's the plan, their fired. And who's bright idea was it to contract it out to like twenty different companies?
Well why don't you list some specifics? What should the government get out of?
The real question is what shouldn't the government get out of? I don't mean to be coy but really, when you talk to someone like me who is what I refer to as a "moderate libertarian". What I mean is that, I'll make no bones of it, the private sector would do whatever government does, but better and more efficient. We've seen this many times now with services like highway management, sewage, water treatment, and all these basic functions handled beautifully. There's many cases of neighborhoods that can't rely on police having to higher private security to handle to job. The reason is very simple after all, if an outfit doesn't perform up to snuff, then fire them. You can't really fire the government, specifically the bureaucracy.
However, I do believe there are some things that while the government wouldn't do it as efficiently, I'm fine with government doing it. For instance, I'm not for privatizing social security, not because I don't think it can't be done (money wise it's the best move) but because I accept that is something people just can't accept. But more importantly, and I think similarly with the Military, there are somethings that ultimately we want full control as the people, and by extension the government. Though I will say with the Military, we need to rethink our role in the world, at least so far as our military budget which is greater than the next I think eight or nine nations combined depending on when the number is counted.
A lot of what I would get rid of is the extraneous fat around the government and refocus. I'd phase out the Education department since it's clear it's not helping, I'd re focus the EPA to handling clean water and clear air and get them off of this Green crap being two that I can think of off the top of my head.