Nope, those aren’t my requirements. It has to ACTUALLY accomplish something, and it has to accomplish something that wasn’t being done by the private sector and seems rather unlikely to be done by the private sector (as much as you might wish it the private sector was NEVER going to make the highway system, much the the train system from the century before), and it needs to be a legitimate function of government as spelled out in the Constitution. That’s actually a limited scope. But one must be smart enough to understand that it is not an empty set, that indeed government CAN accomplish things the private sector can’t.
False characterizations. When the government gets in the way of the private sector accomplishing something, that’s a great evil. Speculating on the likelihood of the private sector taking the initiative when the government got in the way from the very start is just that—speculation.
The private sector did indeed build the rail system, especially from its beginnings, which is where their capital came from to begin with. It is when the government started regulating and taxing them punitively that they started to lose money. Same applies with the road system. This goes back a lot further than you imagine. It’s held the country back in many ways, and to a great degree it is the cause of the disaster we now face.