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To: Original Mad Dog who wrote (3111)	10/25/2002 6:01:18 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 7689

Its not so simple. I might have one order of priority in terms of how important I think something is and another in terms of how much I want the government to support it. I want the government to stay away from many things that might be desirable. The thing itself is desirable but government involvement in it is not. For example getting back to the sports analogy I like playing and watching sports but I don't think the government should subsidize stadiums. If there is enough demand for a stadium then a stadium can be built with private resources. If there is not enough demand then it should not be built. Some things can only effectively be done by the government. Of these things some are vital, some are important, and some are just nice to have. I think governments should spend in areas that can only be done by government that are also vital, and I wont oppose government spending on merely important (rather then vital) things that can only be effectively done by governments. But I'm wary about the government spending a lot of money on the merely nice to have things, or on anything that can effectively be provided by the private sector. Also I think government to often goes even beyond spending money on the "nice to have" and actually spends money on "not very useful" or even things that would be "nice not to have". But having said all of that I do agree with your order of priority for government spending. Tim