The Proper Role of Government (inspired by budgetary and other foolishness)

Governments best serve people when they act as central facilitators and, when necessary, as traffic cops. Governments should provide a framework of laws and procedures within which entities such as states, corporations or people can resolve differences in a rational manner.

Governments should not take an active role in the processes however. When governments become active, the first effect of such action is the institutionalization of the problem government is trying to solve. Bureaucracies are set up, funding is allocated, and entire careers become rooted in the perpetuation of a problem which must be solved. I submit that America never had the problem of a generational underclass (i.e. each generation following the previous into the cycle) until a proper Welfare State was set up to subsidize and nurture it.

I believe there should be a strict hierarchy of governments with each deferring all but the minimum authority necessary for effective operation to the levels below. Governments should also defer to private organizations and corporations the role of providing services and determining resource allocation patterns whenever possible -- as it almost always is. Governments should, however, oversee functions vital to the common good to ensure the excesses of the market are held in check. Governments should also use the power of law to create environments in which basic needs, such as health care and safety, can be addressed without making corporations or individuals vulnerable to competition from nations or states which do not provide such protection to their citizens. People who want a high standard of living, however, must quit shopping based upon price alone and allow the cost of the benefits they desire to be amortized into the price of the products they purchase. Voting with dollars is a time honored American tradition practiced in many "non-political" ways.

I also favor a national consumption tax and the abolition of any income or inheritance tax but that is the subject of future ramblings.