Times are tough — at least, that’s what any presidential candidate not running as an incumbent (i.e., all of them) has to acknowledge during the next 15 months. And most will be proposing all sorts of government fixes for the problems we all face.

College is too expensive? There’s a plan for that. Need more reliable child care? Here’s a federal fix. But voters should maintain a healthy dose of doubt — the federal government, by nature, isn’t really very good at solving problems.

“Most Americans think that the federal government is incompetent and wasteful,” notes Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute. “Their negative view is not surprising given the steady stream of scandals emanating from Washington. Scholarly studies support the idea that many federal activities are misguided and harmful. A recent book on federal performance by Yale University law professor Peter Schuck concluded that failure is ‘endemic.’ What causes all the failures?”

Partly, it’s by design. The framers of the Constitution never intended to create a state that met all the needs and desires of its citizens; rather, they sought a minimalist government that got out of the way and let citizens find their own solutions.

But there are also some practical reasons why the federal government isn’t a great problem-solver.

“First, federal policies rely on top-down planning and coercion,” Edwards explains. “That tends to create winners and losers, which is unlike the mutually beneficial relationships of markets. It also means that federal policies are based on guesswork because there is no price system to guide decision making. A further problem is that failed policies are not weeded out because they are funded by taxes, which are compulsory and not contingent on performance.”

In other words, the wisdom of the many — seen in the natural tendency of people to devise solutions, often through the marketplace — is superior to the wisdom of the few — the dictates of bureaucrats.

“The government lacks knowledge about our complex society,” Edwards says. “That ignorance is behind many unintended and harmful side effects of federal policies. While markets gather knowledge from the bottom up and are rooted in individual preferences, the government’s actions destroy knowledge and squelch diversity.”

Another factor is simply the size of the beast. The federal government is huge and cumbersome.

“The federal government has grown enormous in size and scope,” Edwards notes. “Each increment of spending has produced less value but rising taxpayer costs. Failure has increased as legislators have become overloaded by the vast array of programs they have created. Today’s federal budget is 100 times larger than the average state budget, and it is far too large to adequately oversee.”

Finally, there’s little incentive for innovation within the federal government.

“Civil servants act within a bureaucratic system that rewards inertia, not the creation of value,” Edwards says.

There are of course many, many valuable and dedicated federal employees. And there are functions only the federal government can perform — such as national defense.

But the federal government is not a problem-solver, despite what candidates might claim.