@philosopher what you really need, I think, is to start looking away from government to provide those things. Government is a hammer; it’s not a jeweler’s instrument. Governments are fine things for directing armies (well, not so good, really, but far better than individuals), building some roads, deciding where bridges should be and other massive things like that, including setting up the system of laws and courts that broadly govern our lives. After that, they really need to step back and let us contract and arrange for our own health care, home mortgages (or rent), working arrangements with employers and employees, and so forth. Government does not do these things well.
All of the American people (to narrow that focus) want what is best for “the American people”, but you and I may disagree on what you and I want. Should we expect government to provide it for us? I certainly don’t. That’s why I work. I’m sure that’s why you work, too. We would both be better off if the government left us alone (as much as that’s possible—I hate the responses that seem to think, “well, he wants limited government, so obviously he’s in favor of the Somali model”—that’s simplistic and wrong).
For example, why do we even need a NAFTA treaty among the nations of North America? What treaty (other than our own Constitution) governs trade between, say, California and Texas or Michigan and Indiana or any US state and any other US state? We can do with considerably fewer rules, I think. We should be able to fairly easily negotiate a “trade agreement” with our NA trading partners that takes into account national sovereignty and varying rules and sets up a system for adjudicating disputes between parties without having to account for things like “anti-dumping”, for example. (To my mind, if Canada wants to ‘support’ its lumber industry by having all Canadians pay a tax to subsidize American home builders, why should I cry about that?)