Government is part of the problem....because the government in the USA has merely become an agent of a cartel of rich corporate interests. Thus it is serving them, not the public. An honest government that genuinely served the public could do much good, but a dishonest government that serves special interests is a disaster.

As for Reagan, his "small government" rhetoric differed radically from what he actually did while in office. The USA national debt took 198 years to reach the mark of 1 trillion $...but it only took the next 12 years from the inception of the Reagan administration to reach the incredible total of about 4 trillion dollars! So it was quadrupled by presidents (Reagan and Bush senior) who pretended to be in favor of small government and reduced public spending. It increased further under Bush and is increasing further under Obama.

All of these presidents, whether posing as conservatives or as liberals, are enlarging the government, increasing the national debt, bailing out corrupt banks and giant corporations who have proven utterly fiscally irresponsible, and robbing the public while so doing.

Why? Well, the $ySStem is built to work that way. It's not what the architects of the Constitution intended, mind you, but that's what it has become. The $ySStem functions at the behest of the largest international banks and the largest multinational corporate entities and it does what benefits them.

Needless to say, that does not benefit the general public which is going deeper and deeper into debt year by year.