Government can solve our problems–all of them–if only we have the good sense to get out of its way.

We've been going at this the wrong way. Government isn't the problem, its the answer..to EVERYTHING.
Commentary well done from Acton:

...We have posited that our current difficulties derive from a combination of moral turpitude and government bumbling.

We were mistaken.

Personal conviction of right and wrong is unnecessary, so long as really smart and well-meaning people think very hard, deliberate long enough, and erect the right kind of rules (and lots of them). People like our representatives in Washington, who can be counted on to act solely with the public interest in mind and without regard to the 35,000 registered congressional lobbyists whose offices line the streets of the capital.

The Madoff affair could never have happened if all stock trading and investment activity were controlled by a government board composed of the nation’s finest financial experts. A Bureau of Investing and Finance (BIF) would take all the risk out of the market, and there would be no danger of unscrupulous crooks taking advantage of others by fraudulent schemes. Valuable investment dollars would be directed only to the most promising and viable private enterprises, just as federal transportation dollars are now targeted only to the most sensible and critical road-building projects.

Or take Fannie and Freddie. The whole mess could have been avoided if we had simply done away with the real estate market long ago. A federal Department of Residence, Architecture, and Building (DRAB) could supply the housing needs for the nation’s populace, abolishing private home ownership and all the problems that go with it. No more oily realtors, annoying school levies, or marital discord over living room decor. Painful decisions about relocation would be eliminated because we would be told where to live. That government can handle this sphere of the economy with dexterity and competence has been repeatedly demonstrated by such signal achievements as the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, the Pruitt-Igoe projects in St. Louis, and the beauty queen of Europe, eastern Germany’s Halle-Neustadt.... (more of this excellent April 1 offering here)