I'm of the belief that government should provide the public with essentials instead of leaving them up to the private sector.

Electricity, Water, Roads, Sewage.

Do Internet/Telecommunications belong in that group? I'm not completely convinced yet that that's the case, but we're definitely headed in that direction for the future.

If the government does not provide these essentials, and instead leaves them up to privatized corporations, then eventually a greedy, self-centered set of individuals could wreak havoc on entire economies just to make themselves richer.

Just look at what happened to the world economy with oil. Can you even imagine if that huge price fluctuation would have happened to electricity, or worse yet, water?

The Republican philosophy (small government, let the private sector handle everything) would work if people were actually decent human beings and did the right thing when they got into powerful corporate positions. But that's just not the way of the world.

HOWEVER;

That doesn't mean I agree that we should leave everything up to the federal government. State and Local government should bear the vast majority of all this responsibility. The federal government was only created to serve as an arbiter between states when disputes come up.

We need to get back to that formula.

(obviously the federal government needs to continue with foreign policy and military duties as well, but it seems that lately the federal government is taking away responsibilities from State and Local government that it has no business taking.)

That's my 2 cents.