** OT **
On defense of the government, part 2
Dennis, the argument about government inefficiency has been made repeatedly. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to back it up. For example, how do you know how much money is expended in transferring funds to state governments. And how do you know that the bureaucracies administering those transfers aren't simultaneously weeding out fraudulent transfers? Whether we are talking about federal or state or local taxes is irrelevant.
The real question is whether we derive a net economic good for our expenditures.
Ask yourself this: would you like to see securities investments without agencies such as the SEC? Of course not! Is there economic good derived? sure! Could we imagine the SEC as a privatized entity? Would you hire the fox to guard the hen house?
Now back to your school example. Are you aware of CCNY? This was a college established following the Civil War with the notion of providing a first rate education to the poor. It charged no tuition (100% taxpayer supported) And do you know that it produced more Nobel laureates than any other undergraduate school in the country (at least as of twenty years ago)? Look at the people who have graduated from the land grant colleges. How many of those could have attended college without taxpayer subsidies.
And yet education is one of those areas that the budget cutters target first.
Sure, I have some problems with the way education funding is disbursed. I believe that bilingual programs are a waste of money and counter-productive. But if we get into specifics like this we lose sight of the big picture. The education of our young is a public good. The easy transportation of goods and services is a public good. The maintenance and monitoring of clean air and water is a public good. The maintenance of a fair and impartial legal system is a public good. The list goes on and on. The problem really is that the very rich feel they are paying too much in taxes. So do the poor. So do the middle class.
Just look at the complaints by trucking companies on the fees they pay for highway use. Had the federal government not built the highways to begin with, these folks would't be trucking at all. Reason -- it is simply too expensive and inefficient to build a private net of road transportation. So the agency responsible for the business to begin with is the subject of their criticism. Ironic, isn't it?
Now ask yourself this? How much of our economic prosperity is the indirect result of government expenditures made years ago. The great advances in biology, genetics and biochemistry made possible the current private research in genetic engineering. Yet this positive outcome is never mentioned in diatribes against government programs.
Don't misunderstand me. I hate paying taxes, and I hate the IRS even more. The IRS is due for a none to soon attitude adjustment. I also believe that there are many perverse government programs, like tobacco subsidies. But the issue is not individual programs or agencies with which we disagree. It is the notion that a public good that is derived by collective means is desirable.
Last winter I attended the Republican tax road show run by Dick Armey and Tom Delay. I was astounded because they lied to the audience by omission. What did they omit? They omitted the fact that their "debate" never explicitly pointed out the reduction in the size of the budget. In other words, all of that flat tax and VAT stuff was a smoke screen. They were proposing a decrease in government expenditures without explicitly stating where the cuts would be made. That's the smoke and mirrors these folks routinely engage in. It seems compelling, but when you dig beneath the surface it lacks substance. What they were peddling was snake oil. To the poor and middle class they were saying we will give you a modest tax cut. But what they didn't say was that they were taking away a disproportionate amount of goods and services. To the rich they were saying: we will give you a massive tax cut and transfer a lot of the implied costs onto the backs of the middle class by cutting services.
The soapbox is once more yours.
TTFN,
CTC |
