Why Doesn't Our Government Actually Do Anything?

The fundamental problem here is demosclerosis - any low-hanging fruit have long since been plucked. Essentially every plank in the Socialist Party Platform of 1928 has already been enacted into law. Nowadays many of the issues government tries to address were caused by the previous round of government efforts to solve problems.

But the longer you apply patches on top of patches, the more rickety the whole structure becomes. Eventually you reach a point where you'd be better starting over with a complete rewrite from scratch. It happens for software languages and OSes; it happens for governments too.

As for what to do about it, I always liked Heinlein's suggestion (in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) that there should two houses of congress: one whose job is to pass new laws, another whose job is to repeal old ones. Without that second house, the legal code invariably becomes a cancer or an impenetrable thicket.

Another idea is Seasteading. Basically there needs to be some way that brand new from-scratch ideas of how to govern can be tried out and demonstrated. The same way stodgy old companies can learn by stealing ideas (and people) from tiny new startup companies, the stodgy old governments need a way to learn by stealing ideas from tiny new startup governments. Any change that helps big old countries break up into smaller new ones or allows brand new smaller ones to come into existence would be a big help. Seasteading (forming new societies in international waters) is one such option; another is the "charter cities" movement, where existing governments are convinced to voluntarily allow other legal systems to flourish in small areas that would otherwise be in their domain.

>>- Eliminated all gold, and replaced it with unredeemable “greenbacks”

They confiscated the gold. The war on terror is a new phenomenon and it should meet the criteria for a significant undertaking.

The reason is that government has valid things to do, but these have been frozen in place since the mid 70's.

Right now, the big debate appears to be a 5% taxation difference on the top 10% of wage earners.

The only other things that change are fear-based, such as the creation of "Homeland Security".

Well, I'll try to keep my point simple. Our constant need to complain is corrosive. Visionary thinkers shaped our society for the next generation.

I didn't enjoy reading this since it was a large complain fest, and that is the corrosive thing that has made our government do nothing. If you imagine a future in which you have a government that is effective, that "does" things, somehow you are able to accomplish that goal. You need visionary thinkers, not complainers. And you have to offer up some idea of where you see the future of government, instead of complaining about how it does not do anything. The people who shaped our societies future knew the kind of society they wanted to live in. We rarely talk about what we want our society to look like, what we value as a society. Start talking about these things.

Why doesn't our government actually do anything? Because no one can agree on anything to do. The examples provided all were projects with widespread approval. But today, there isn't a lot of agreement. It will take more visionary politicians than what we have today to convince people their policy is the policy to follow. Yesterday, we had politicians that envisioned a future where Americans could drive across the country or put a man on the Moon. Today, what?