Governmental Success

Seth Godin lists the points below under the heading "Small Business Success," but it's something we could all take to heart.

Three things you need:

1) the ability to abandon a plan when it doesn't work
2) the confidence to do the right thing even when it costs you money in the short run
3) enough belief in other people that you don't try to do everything yourself

Specifically, I would love to see government applying these. Government is typically very good at the 2nd rule, but usually at the expense of rules 1 and 3.

I'm not so libertarian as to think government serves no purpose. There are some "right things" that government should do, and when it is doing them it should spend money. But when things aren't working as planned or when there are existing market solutions to problems, the government needs to step back, re-evaluate, and either exit gracefully or reorganize (generally the former).