Pure, unregulated capitalism leads to endless series of boom and bust cycles; this seems documented beyond doubt through detailed historical analyses. The bust cycles always cause serious economic hardship, which is bound to fall on the poorer members of society more harshly - if rich folks lose a greater percentage of their wealth, they can usually afford it as long as they have reserved a proportion to cover their basic needs. The obvious corollary is that ONLY governments can mitigate such hardship. The issue therefore is whether one believes in such mitigation or not, not whether "states" or the "private sector" can step in - demonstrably the private sector cannot. The republican agenda is that governments simply should ignore the suffering of the citizens. This is economic elitism at its most ugly and mean. I am not saying that endless government spending is the solution to everything. It is also clear that public debt has to be managed; at some point too much debt also causes hardship. The weakness of the republican platform is to decry current levels of US debt. Levels are high, but not as high as many other countries'. Furthermore, given that the dollar is still the international currency of last resort, there is no evidence that high debt is causing any immediate fiscal weakness. It has serious impact, because the financing costs of the debt still come out of the federal budget, leaving less money for other things. What I am saying is that the extreme reaction against federal government should be viewed clearly - it is a desire to return to a "simpler" life, which has a BIG downside notwithstanding the romantic idealism it seems to induce.