Stuart, what you're advocating here is anarchy--an idea the Church has never endorsed. Do you really believe that?
When the Israelites asked Samuel to choose a king for them, it was because they needed a strong government to fight the Phillistines. Samuel told them what a burden the king would impose on them, as opposed to the loose, tribal confederation under the direction of charismatic judges. And, of course, he was right--there is a price to be paid for everything.
Now, why do we need government? Mainly for two reasons: to maintain law and order within society; and to protect society from enemies on the outside. Both are necessary because of Adam's fall. In both cases, the principal job of government is hurting people and breaking things. To do these very simple tasks, the government must collect taxes, which it does through the implicit or explicit threat of coercion (don't pay your taxes, you go to jail). Since these tasks are central to the existence of government, government does them well, or else it ceases to exist.
Now, whenever government attempts to do anything beyond this, whether it is providing health care or education, running a car company or a railroad, managing forests, or whatever, it invariably fails, because government's objective is self-perpetuation and aggregation of power, whereas private entities are responsible to their customers, and are (in theory) subject to competition.
The Founders of this country understood this, and thus they severely circumscribed the power of the central government, and then divided that power among the three branches of government. They left the bulk of governmental authority to the states, but even there, circumscribed what the states could do, and reserved ultimate authority to the citizens.
They would be aghast at the extent to which government at all levels has intruded into the private sphere, and would point to government excess as the principal cause of most of the problems facing the country today.
