You can't fall back on the private sector and say 'You take care of the nation's banking system.' That's a fundamental function of the government the Federal Reserve the Treasury and the FDIC etc. All of those agencies have a major role to play there.

Above all we should not forget that government is an evil a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind.

We Brits print banknotes out in Debden in Essex and have contracted it out to the private sector. Here in the U.S. it is a government operation right in the heart of Washington next door to the Holocaust Museum.

But I don't want massive layoffs of anyone - public or private. We are planning on shrinking government through attrition and reform not through random pink slips.

We've been so preoccupied with getting the government to behave in a fair and democratic way we were not able to focus on the private sector where most of the jobs are where most of the wealth and opportunities are.

History tells us that America does best when the private sector is energetic and entrepreneurial and the government is attentive and engaged. Who among us really would looking back wish to edit out either sphere at the entire expense of the other?

The fact is that America has been at her most prosperous when government and the private sector have been not at war but in a wary if often underplayed alliance. History is unmistakable on this point.

Our laws governing lobbying and campaign contributions have struck the right balance between the wishes of the people and those of private industry so why are we so quick to doubt that the same great results can be achieved by putting the government's justice-dealing branch on the same market-based course?

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion?

A world in which government is burdened by historic debt philanthropy has limited resources and the private sector is only interested in its own personal gain is simply unsustainable.