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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (13573)	2/25/2010 2:22:51 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

When the Army uses contractors to feed their troops, they don't tell them how to do it, they just say "do it". That isn't really true. Regulations on the use of contractors are rather extensive. Also its mostly irrelevant. Even if they did just "say 'do it'", it would still be a government activity, part of the government's scope or functionality, not a private action. I still don't see you mentioning any recent increases in government "functionality". I'd like to see her answer, but while I'm waiting I'd point out that much of the increase in functionality doesn't amount to vast new programs that you could easily point to, but rather small changes that mostly amount to the government doing more of the same thing. The government employees more government workers, employees more contractors, spends more money (in real terms, or even in real per-capita terms, and recently as a percentage of GDP), has more regulation, that extends in to more areas, etc. There have been important steps back in terms of regulation, like airline deregulation, deregulation of energy prices etc. But most of those where in the late seventies to mid eighties.

To: Road Walker who wrote (13573)	2/25/2010 3:00:01 PM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

they don't tell them how to do it. The function is turned over to a private company That's not true. The contracting agency retains responsibility for the function and the authority to specify how it is performed. That is done via contract specifications. I still don't see you mentioning any recent increases in government "functionality". I covered the major ones over the last century. Here's a link from Wiki showing independent agencies added and dissolution. I think agency creation and dissolution is a reasonable proxy for major government functionality added and deleted. You create an EPA, for example, when you take on the functionality of environmental protection. en.wikipedia.org