Victim of our own success

I was reading this post the other day on National Review by John Derbyshire and it got me to thinking that maybe the problem with government in America is that we are victims of our own success. Since 1969 we have heard over and over "if we can put a man on the moon then we should be able to ...". Maybe if we hadn't put a man on the moon there would not be much confidence that we could do anything else. Last century we won two world wars, moved from an agrarian to an information based society, became dramatically less helpless in the face of random diseases that have always plagued us, created air travel for the masses along with inumerable other advances. Since the American government is inextricably linked with the greatness of America, in many peoples minds, any credit for the great successes of our society goes correctly or incorrectly to our government as well. Not sure where I am going with this other than to say people have come to have great expectations and confidence in our government to accomplish great things. Perhaps too much confidence. I am glad we walked on the moon though.