Why government involvement often fails: 5 examples

Dec 1, 2025 by AFP

When faced with community challenges, the government often steps in with well-intentioned solutions.

However, these well-intentioned government programs create new issues or exacerbate existing ones.

This is because America is made up of millions of people with different goals, needs, and experiences. Each person knows what works best for them, their family, and their community. When the people closest to the problem come up with the solution, it’s most effective.

By contrast, Washington takes a one-size-fits-all approach.

That is why lasting change comes from empowering people and communities, not top-down solutions.

Why government health care fails patients

Government health care is a perfect example of why top-down solutions fail. The Affordable Care Act, the government’s latest foray into health care, is characterized by:

Mandated coverage requirements, increasing the cost of premiums for many individuals and families
Reduced competition with regulations and compliance costs that drive out smaller providers
Exploded administrative overhead with increased reporting and regulatory requirements, which has increased costs
Limited incentives for cost control because its structure does not encourage providers to find innovative ways to reduce costs, which can perpetuate unnecessary spending within the system

Biden’s Covid subsidy expansions just made the program more expensive and enriched insurance agencies.

You see, Washington is too far from the problem to create a viable solution.

There’s hope, though.

A Personal Option agenda for health care would mean better access and lower costs for Americans, while giving you control over your insurance.

The One Big Beautiful Bill helped by increasing access to direct primary care and health savings accounts, but there’s still work to be done.

Public schools miss the mark

Trusting a distant administration in Washington to know what’s best for your kid’s education is silly, since you know your child better than any bureaucrat could.

Even worse, public schools perform remarkably poorly. Inflation-adjusted per-student spending is up 140% since 1971, yet national test scores have remained flat or even declined.

More funding and one-size-fits-all solutions can’t match up to the benefits of student-centered learning.

Instead of focusing on government solutions, Washington should:

Let families direct education funding so dollars follow the student
Allow open enrollment across public schools, removing geographic requirements
Provide students in alternative or home schools access to public courses and extracurricular activities
Award ingenuity and nontraditional learning

Government spending isn’t value creation: Rejecting Bidenomics

It’s no secret that Washington’s spending is out of control.

The national debt is over $38 trillion, but the government just can’t stop spending.

It spent $7 trillion in Fiscal Year 2025 alone, which is more than triple what it spent in 2001.

That’s not the whole story, though. Washington doesn’t collect enough taxes to make up for its spending hikes.

When it wants to spend more money, the government either:

Raises taxes, which discourages growth and shifts money around rather than creating prosperity
Creates money out of thin air through borrowing and printing, which leads to inflation and ultimately harms the country’s most vulnerable

You see, government spending as a solution fails because government doesn’t create new value.

The solution to this spending problem is serious budget reform, like:

Audits and increased transparency to improve accountability and efficiency
A balanced budget amendment, forcing Washington to spend only what it can collect in taxes
Performance metrics for expensive government programs

The PRO Act hurts independent workers

The PRO Act is a government “solution” marketed as a means to protect workers.

This proposal includes measures that will expand union power and add new workplace regulations, while disadvantaging self-employed people.

Some of its provisions sound good, but it has unintended consequences:

Freelancers could lose schedule and client flexibility
All workers would have to pay union fees
Startups and small businesses face higher costs
Industries that rely on flexible labor may experience slower innovation under stricter labor laws

To embrace the American Dream, workers need flexibility and choice, not Washington’s solution of control.

Congressional gridlock makes the border problem worse

Far from helping desperate immigrants or keeping Americans safe, the Biden administration’s solution to the border crisis was rife with unenforcement, contradictory signaling, and changing standards.

Rather than helping immigrants, it was humiliating for the United States and confusing for noncitizens to navigate.

Unfortunately, America’s immigration system is notoriously broken as Congress refuses to address the border problem, instead allowing presidential administrations to enforce the law selectively.

America needs both immigration and secure borders.

Today’s system is confusing and overregulated, and it incentivizes bad actors while penalizing law-abiding immigrants.

Securing the border requires Congress to act and do its job:

Modernize and clarify immigration laws
Fund border enforcement
Reward legal immigrants

The One Big Beautiful Bill takes essential steps to fix the crisis by investing in Border Patrol and upgrading technology, but ultimately, Congress has to make meaningful reforms to America’s immigration laws as a lasting solution.