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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charlie Schultz who wrote (1527)	1/26/1998 2:49:00 PM
From: Dave Walp	Respond to of 20981

re: "...more dollars in the public's hands..." The trouble is it has to take the dollars out of the public's hands first. Then it dilutes the dollar (salaries, offices, etc.) so much (approximately 75% of every welfare dollar goes to administrative costs) that very little of it gets spent wisely. My take is that millions of consumers make jillions of buy/no buy decisions every day is usually a more effective positive force for the economy (assuming the consumer has access to reasonablyu good information and choices). Also, we are doing pretty good now, without a war to boost spending. The problem is that a huge part of our labor force works directly or indirectly for the government(Fed, state & local) and by definition is not therefore producing anything that can be sold/exchanged. Many others work full time responding to government regulation, etc. Much of this is good (defense, law enforcement, food inspection, immigration, etc.), but many government services are better left to commercial forces. The Government now takes a greater share of GDP than it has at any other time in our history. Should it be more costly to wage peace than it did to win WWII (actually two simultaneous wars)?? Imagine the GDP if those on subsidy were gainfully employed. We'd kick some serious international business butt! Also, when waging peace and "fighting" on commerce very few "soldiers" get harmed. Dave Walp