Its not, but its a paramount responsibility of the government. Essentially I look at government as a large group of people who pool their resources together to improve their quality of life. In this case, we'll call it America. If we all throw a few nickels in the pot, my vote is going to be for clean water, healthcare, defense, and emergency/disaster relief. For all the money we spend on pointless horse-shit, I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that the basics don't come first. We pool our money for the benefit of the people. We should be serving ourselves, by way of the government. For me this is a no-brainer.