If, say, all taxes were lowered by 50%, what would happen?
Overnight? It would be a painful disruption. Spending would have to drop, would drop too fast for my taste and the taste of most other people (even those supporting the drop would normally want it to be more orderly). But even dropping that fast, spending wouldn't drop as fast as revenue, so deficits would balloon.
Now if instead of cutting by 50% overnight, you kept a tight reign on future growth in spending and taxes, so that over time the government declined as a percentage of the economy, than you would increase economic growth, and individual freedom, esp. if in the process of lowering the effective tax rates you also greatly simplified the tax code.
There are some activities that can be done better by the collective we (i.e. the government in a democracy) than by private organizations.
Defense, road building, the court system (arbitration and other forms of non-judicial dispute resolution are better for many cases, but there are others that need courts), the police, etc. IMO these are clearly cases where the government does a better job than private organizations (primarily because of the free rider problem)
But few want these things to be private.
and again yet too many people have the mindset that all enterprises should be private whenever possible
The percentage of people with such an opinion is tiny.
A much larger percentage recognizes the fact that generally the private sector will be more efficient, and allow for more freedom, than the government, but "generally" isn't the same as "in all possible cases". |
