User:Woozle/positions/2013/government

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Revision as of 18:18, 20 June 2012 by Woozle (talk | contribs) (expansion needed)
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In General

"Small Government"

  • While there is certainly a lot of bloat an inefficiency in most governments, you can't just get rid of that by reducing government revenues.
  • While government can be oppressive, cutting government revenues will not get rid of that either. It will just reduce the quality of service, leading to more oppressiveness (because oppression is cheaper to provide than fairness).
  • /prostitution metaphor: government is a pimp, and we are the hookers

See also: libertarianism, healthcare

United States

Off the top of my head, here's how I would classify a few federal programs:

unnecessary; kill them

  • foreign wars
  • overseas military bases
  • fossil fuel subsidies
  • TSA
  • DHS
  • domestic spying, especially warrantless

of dubious value; re-examine carefully

  • farm subsidies (especially for large operations)
  • CIA needs to be cleaned out and downsized
  • FBI: useful core, but lots of corruption
  • NSA

necessary, but implementation may be suboptimal

  • Medicaid / Medicare / Social Security
  • scientific research
  • NASA / space exploration
  • environmental regulatory agencies (EPA & others)
  • safety regulatory agencies
  • FCC (needs to be de-coupled from industry influence)
  • USPS (would currently be profitable if not for new retirement funding requirements)

expansion of service needed

In general, social support systems need to be expanded -- mostly because of jobsolescence. I support the idea of finding non-governmental ways of providing these services, but those alternative methods must be reliable (I do not consider present government programs to meet this qualification).

It has been suggested that if government were to simply back off in this sector, private charity would "take up the slack"; I think history shows this not to be the case. There would be a significant uptick in private charitable contributions, but it wouldn't come anywhere near making up for the loss of existing government programs (as pathetic and patchy as they are). We would essentially be recreating Victorian London -- and anyone who finds that a pleasant prospect needs their head examined.

Specific services that need to be expanded:

  • healthcare, especially preventive medicine
  • mental healthcare -- everything from voluntary outpatient to involuntary institutional
  • everyone needs to have a minimum living wage and adequate housing
  • education -- especially K-12
    • ...and it needs to be understood that creationism is fiction
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