I'm talking about the voter base, not the crooks in Washington.

Private industry should be able to profit off the sun and it's disturbing that you think asserting this is a dunk. Steinbeck's temporarily embarrassed capitalists quote (not "millionaires", that is a misquote of what he actually wrote in 'A Primer on the 30s' for Esquire magazine in 1960) was referring to well-off liberals involved in socialist activism in the 30s and having a naive, self-interested understanding of what policies would actually help the proletariat. The government often can't be trusted to run efficiently because the government is insulated from having to actually make a profit delivering services people want to pay for, and is often being used for other poltical ends by people who do not care about wasting taxpayer money. Communal infrastructure is often not something everyone benefits from because infrastructure that is legally required to serve everyone by law often has a bunch of compromises that make it practically unusuable for some group of people who can't do anything to change it because they are a numerical minority.