Rich Belzer’s recent guest column titled “Americans should show that they can still dream big” is a glossed-over vision of big government’s virtues.

I, too, grew up in the 1950s, but have a far different experience in how government has allowed Americans to dream big.

Belzer is right to credit government with projects that private industry never would have launched because the size and scope of those efforts were far beyond any industries’ financial or logistic capabilities.

He correctly credits the government, in 1955, with the development of the interstate highway system as a major factor in this nation’s safety and economic success.

The interstate highway system took 35 years to build 47,000 miles of highway. But is that possible today when a nesting bird can halt a multimillion dollar highway project, or water runoff from a storm is classified as protected wetlands by our government’s heavy-handed regulations?

He also is right to credit the government with funding the development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network in the early 1960s as a way to change how voice and data communications could be understood by computers and networked digitally over a common network. This allowed government agencies to network their computers with universities that were supporting government-sponsored research.

But, to be objective, it was the vision and investment dollars of private businesses that took ARPANET’s road map for networking computers and pushed it into the hands of the consumer. It helped that in 1982, AT&T, a regulated monopoly, had to divest its Bell Operating companies into independent, competitive companies. This action accelerated competition into the network and communication marketplace, opening the door for the Hewlett-Packards, Microsofts and Apples of the world that started in a garage to become global leaders.

One could make an argument that government-sponsored space and Department of Defense projects create spin-off technologies that benefit Americans: new composite materials, electronics and communications devices are just a few that improve the quality of our daily lives. That’s true, but the government pays a high, untenable debt premium for that success, because there is limited competition to drive costs down. That luxury is not sustainable for a United States that is rapidly moving toward a European-style welfare state.

I have no argument that government plays an important role in our lives, but only on a limited basis to protect our safety as a nation, provide judicial fairness and ensure we have an unfettered, lightly regulated free market.

Throughout history, there has been one simple concept that stimulates a free market economy and empowers its citizens to “dream big.”

It’s the principle of “faster, cheaper, better.” Entrepreneurs and investment capital always pursue productive, innovative ideas that make services and products faster, cheaper, better. The automobile replaced the horse; the flying machine led to jet power; the analog slide rule led to digital computers; and yes, as Belzer noted, the internet led to Amazon, Google and Facebook. However, those companies were not government-led successes. They were private companies led by private citizens, who happened to have the government as a customer.

The fact is, nothing in government is faster, cheaper, better. Name one federal agency that is — the IRS, VA, Department of Defense, Medicare, Education, our legislative branch? Belzer offers Obamacare as a prime example of big government putting American tax dollars to good use. Really? What part of Obamacare is “faster, cheaper, better?” What part is productive and innovative? If anything, it illustrates that big government’s intrusive, dependency-driven agenda is not good for America’s future.

The real benefactors of a faster, cheaper, better free market economy are everyday people who gain access to products and services that only the wealthy could have previously owned. It’s a truth held throughout history, and a main reason why our president’s free market tax and regulatory policies have jump-started the economy to benefit all Americans.

— Roy Fullerton lives in Bend.