Of course some on the Left are troubled by all of this reduction of the role of government in areas where it was once the preponderant supplier. "It's sort of influence-peddling writ large," complains Richard Brodsky, a former Democratic state assemblyman, when discussing the education system. "The notion that society is better served by the super-rich exercising their charitable instincts is in the end anti-democratic."

In fact, far from being anti-democratic, this dynamic, can-do attitude is quintessentially American, and it wouldn't be happening if the democratically elected politicians of both parties had not for so long put their petty partisanship before their country's best interests.