Should Government Pamper Its Citizens?

Apropos of yesterday's item that touched on public expectations for what government should do, apparently among the things we as Americans expect government to handle for us is diaper rash.

I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing--we have a Consumer Product Safety Commission for a reason. But it's just one more piece of evidence that for better or for worse, we're at a stage in the United States where the range of issues we expect government to handle ranges very far and wide. And unless people actually get serious about actively demanding less out of government, by necessity we're going to have a very large federal apparatus that will be very difficult to manage centrally.