Maybe in the '90s—during our longest continuous boom and the Soviets collapse—those "Vote Clinton, Vote Republican" bumper stickers made sense (MAYBE.) "If it ain't broke, don't fix it;" more than a few people wish Bush the Younger had obeyed that dictum during the Clinton boom and balanced budget.

Things are dramatically different now. Facing myriad serious crises at home and abroad (e.g. growing anti-US terrorism, resurgent Russian militarism, Chinas emergence as a world economic, political and strategic power, SS running on IOUs, Medicare projected to go bankrupt a decade before SS, debt equal to GDP, rampant downsizing and outsourcing, economic inequality at record levels as the middle class shrinks and lower class grows) we can no longer afford to sit on our hands: A decade-and-a-half of that was FAR too much, but continuing risks falling from the dominant global economic, military and diplomatic superpower to just another regional power, like the UK before us. The difference is no one as benevolent as us would take our place; it would either be the KGB colonel running Russia or Chinese autocrats so brutal they make Putin look like Albert Schweitzer.

In this present crisis, ending government is not the solution to our problem; ending government is the PROBLEM. Are you better off now than you were 40 years ago?