Over the past several weeks pundits from both the left and the right have been proclaiming the horrors of  “dysfunctional” government. I would argue to the contrary, it is functional government that has brought our country to its current state of affairs. Dysfunctional government, we are told, has given us gridlock in Washington, the sequester, the government shutdown, and has brought us to the brink of defaulting on the national debt. It is debatable whether all of these things are bad. Both gridlock and the sequester, I would argue, are good things. But let’s think about what functional government has brought us. Just in the last 5 years it has given us a national debt of $17 trillion, up from $10 trillion in 2008 (which was brought to you by previous functional governments); a nearly $1 trillion dollar stimulus package that didn’t stimulate but instead created a crony capitalist state where politics rules economics; Obamacare which is increasing health care costs and has employers not hiring while reducing work weeks to 29 hours; EPA CO2 regulations that will, if fully implemented, destroy the US coal industry and dramatically increase energy costs; and economic policies that have led to 1 to 2 percent growth rates and over 7 percent unemployment rates, to name just a few. And what of previous functional governments? Dare we forget the Viet Nam war and military draft? Price controls that led to the energy crisis of the 1970s? Totally unsustainable Social Security and Medicare systems? And monetary policies that brought us everything from the massive inflation of the 1970s to the dot com bubble of the 1990s, the real estate bubble of 2000s, and the great recession and financial collapse of 2008? And of course this list could go on for several blog posts. There is no question in my mind that, as citizens, we have much more to fear from functional government than dysfunctional government.