The conventional wisdom has settled on the subject of this year’s presidential campaign: It’s about the proper role of government in our nation’s life.

This is a good argument to have, but don’t expect it to be resolved by the election. Americans have been debating the question since before the Constitution was drawn up, and we haven’t yet come to terms on it.

At the moment, we’ve got a Republican challenger who embraces the conservative conviction that government must be as limited as possible. In this view, much of what government spends is wasted. Ronald Reagan’s comment, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is our problem,” is the mantra. Conservatives want to reduce regulation, make cutting taxes the highest priority, propose handing Medicaid and other responsibilities to the states as block grants, and consider a more active government to be the wrong answer in almost every case. Privatization, contracting out and a private sector freed from the intrusive hand of government will be the engines of a stronger society.

Against this view, we have a Democratic incumbent, backed by liberals who see value in government’s role. They are concerned about social inequality, support a publicly funded safety net, and are prepared to levy the taxes needed to pay for it. In this view, public spending is necessary to stimulate the economy when needed, and regulation is vital to checking the excesses of the market. There are times, this side would argue, when a muscular government is indispensable to our national fortunes — properly deployed, government can expand opportunities to achieve the American dream.

The gap between these views seems unbridgeable — especially in the midst of a presidential contest between two parties whose interest lies in highlighting their differences. Yet in the end, this fundamental political gulf is not as wide as it appears.

This is because the real question in governing rarely is, “What is the ideologically proper thing to do?” Instead, it’s how do we run the country day to day? And how do we get a diverse group of politicians to make progress on our current problems while putting aside the problems they cannot solve?

That is where most Americans find themselves. They don’t consider government to be all good or all evil. They want it to work well and efficiently, be as productive as the private sector, exert itself to keep the market functional but not so much that it over-regulates business, and get a handle on entitlements so that they’re sustainable over the long term. Most Americans believe that we cannot prosper unless government builds infrastructure, protects property rights, helps develop the economy, sustains basic scientific research, undergirds the development of human capital, and protects the social safety net.

In essence, government is a tool — it’s one of the ways that we, as Americans, meet the challenges that confront us.

So while many people may feel that Washington has too much power, they still want it to protect their interests. This is why we’ll probably never reach a consensus on the proper role of government. We are more likely to work out solutions issue by issue, trying to reach a pragmatic solution for the problem we face.

Hamilton is director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.