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Does the government do ANYTHING right?

Does the government do ANYTHING right?

  • Yes, pretty much all the time.

    Votes: 2 6.1%
  • Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

    Votes: 17 51.5%
  • Usually not "better" (read: cost efficient), but should still be in charge of for other reasons.

    Votes: 7 21.2%
  • No, never.

    Votes: 5 15.2%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 6.1%

  • Total voters
    33

radcen

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So many people keep harping how wasteful and inefficient government is. They shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be doing that. Yada yada yada.

Does the government do ANYTHING right? Or, at least better than private industry?

What does government do better, you ask?

There are some things that government may or may not do "better", if you only look at costs, but still should be in charge of over privatization. In other words, some things come down to factors other than simply cost and money. Some of these items would include...

  • Roads & highways - Could be more efficient, but overall government actually does a pretty good job. Plus, I'd rather pay taxes than be bothered by constant private toll booths and/or separate monthly bills from electronic tolling. I just want to get in my car and drive, and I don't want 7 roads to one town when one or two will do, while there are no decent roads to another town.
  • Law enforcement & prison systems - All aspects of law enforcement should have ZERO profit motive. While I do care about cost, cost is secondary to the job of enforcing the law and keeping people as reasonably safe as possible. A profit motive... as is clearly evidenced by both private prisons and civil asset forfeiture... effectively serves only to pervert the very core concept of justice, and should not be allowed. At all. Again, could use some tweaks and adjustments, but this one is a clear case where government is better.
  • I actually like the overall concept of how cities and counties and states coordinate things like coherent layouts and utilities. Again, not all perfect, but the randomness of fully privatizing some of these things would be counter-productive.
  • The Depression-era Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was a huge boon for our country, and that if left to privatization, our country would have actually been backward overall for far longer than it was. It helped propel us into being the First-World country that we are/were. Unfortunately, on the flip side, our government is horribly and completely incapable of knowing when a job is done, and persists in perpetuating unneeded departments and bureaucracies into infinity. The REA itself was a good idea, but it should have been shut down sometime in the 1950s. It still exists today, but the name was changed to deflect attention after 60 Minutes did a story on it several years ago.

What are some things the government should let go of and either privatize or at least scale way back?

Education - At least at the federal level. Should be limited entirely to state level and lower. Private and/or charter schools should be given much more freedom, as long as they don't violate rights and meet certain goals... said goals being exactly the same as public schools, whatever that may be. Federal involvement should be completely eliminated. They're just siphoning money off the top with no real return.

Honesty questions...

  • Name one thing the government does better than private industry.
  • Name one thing private industry does better than government.

Answer both, not just one. Even a person at the extreme of their side of the political aisle can find something significant that is good about the other side and something significant that is bad about their side... if they're intellectually honest.
 
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The government screws up right.

Most people, unfortunately, screw down left.
 
On our last backpacking trip I went up this trail that was built and maintained by the U.S. government:

01.Trail.jpg


We then camped at this lake that was stocked with trout by the U.S. government:

SunriseFancyLake.jpg


And then later down another trail built and maintained by the U.S. government, and fished this creek, stocked and managed by the U.S. government:

ReedsMeadows02.gif


Spent several days in that federal wilderness, easily caught over 100 trout, built some great memories for our son, and the whole thing did not cost me a cent other than 20 dollars for a Colorado fishing permit. So when people say the government doesn't do anything right, I beg to differ. You won't find anything like that in the private sector.
 
Well...

...you could argue that manifest destiny came at the cost of the Indian Wars and plenty dead in building the transcontinental railroad.

It was also fundamentally anti-social since people only press the frontier when they're not embraced by local community. Society isn't supposed to be this hypercompetitive mess where people play dumb over hierarchy. People should live together and explore together rather than believing they're unequal.
 
yes.

the government has a necessary role in regulating (and sometimes delivering) essential services with inelastic demand. some examples i would include in this category would be roads, defense, energy, and health care. i'm not arguing that any of these should be entirely public. there is, however, a societal benefit to have government involvement somewhere between regulation and delivery of service for all of the above.
 
So many people keep harping how wasteful and inefficient government is. They shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be doing that. Yada yada yada.

Does the government do ANYTHING right? Or, at least better than private industry?

What does government do better, you ask?

There are some things that government may or may not do "better", if you only look at costs, but still should be in charge of over privatization. In other words, some things come down to factors other than simply cost and money. Some of these items would include...

As you mentioned one issue is cost effectiveness which the government lacks another would be that a business is beholden to their customers more than the government is to the citizenry that is the government bureaucracy has no direct nor near term consequences for poor service.



[*]Roads & highways - Could be more efficient, but overall government actually does a pretty good job. Plus, I'd rather pay taxes than be bothered by constant private toll booths and/or separate monthly bills from electronic tolling. I just want to get in my car and drive, and I don't want 7 roads to one town when one or two will do, while there are no decent roads to another town.


Government would do a worse job if they did not contract out the building of the roads to the private sector. While a non-government road would almost certainly be a toll road government also has toll roads. I like the idea of those who use the roads pay for them instead of having to pay through some tax which might be levied against someone who doesn't use them as much. Weather or not it private is not material to me. Anyway as long as eminent domain is not used for the construction of the private toll roads I do not care.

[*]Law enforcement & prison systems - All aspects of law enforcement should have ZERO profit motive. While I do care about cost, cost is secondary to the job of enforcing the law and keeping people as reasonably safe as possible. A profit motive... as is clearly evidenced by both private prisons and civil asset forfeiture... effectively serves only to pervert the very core concept of justice, and should not be allowed. At all. Again, could use some tweaks and adjustments, but this one is a clear case where government is better.

I have to agree with you the making of prisons for profit is a big mistake as well as the civil forfeiture (suing the property to confiscate is another issue).



[*]I actually like the overall concept of how cities and counties and states coordinate things like coherent layouts and utilities. Again, not all perfect, but the randomness of fully privatizing some of these things would be counter-productive.

I have issues with having a government establish a local monopoly for such things as Internet service. No issue for sewage or water but given that gas and electric is generally private if monopoly status is given some restrictions would have to be in place for what they can own or do.


[*]The Depression-era Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was a huge boon for our country, and that if left to privatization, our country would have actually been backward overall for far longer than it was. It helped propel us into being the First-World country that we are/were. Unfortunately, on the flip side, our government is horribly and completely incapable of knowing when a job is done, and persists in perpetuating unneeded departments and bureaucracies into infinity. The REA itself was a good idea, but it should have been shut down sometime in the 1950s. It still exists today, but the name was changed to deflect attention after 60 Minutes did a story on it several years ago.


Possibly but given what happened when the Tennessee Valley Authority was established for example the confiscation of land from other wise poor people so it could be flooded for electric plants. I think that the cost may have been high (loss of freedom) for that benefit which would have occurred if the government would just let it happen at a market based pace.


What are some things the government should let go of and either privatize or at least scale way back?

Education - At least at the federal level. Should be limited entirely to state level and lower. Private and/or charter schools should be given much more freedom, as long as they don't violate rights and meet certain goals... said goals being exactly the same as public schools, whatever that may be. Federal involvement should be completely eliminated. They're just siphoning money off the top with no real return.


If the Federal government wants a role with education it should be limited to the University/College level and then it should be based on what our countries need more engineers and scientists not English or Lit Majors.


Honesty questions...

  • Name one thing the government does better than private industry.
  • Name one thing private industry does better than government.


Answer both, not just one. Even a person at the extreme of their side of the political aisle can find something significant that is good about the other side and something significant that is bad about their side... if they're intellectually honest.


One of the reasons in the past governments used mercenaries is because government just sucked at organizing anything beyond a small militia as an ongoing basis. But I do not want to have to use them. I prefer for the military to be a concern of the government not a private one. So the answer would be anything where a profit motive is not possible or objectionable. An example where government is best put would be space exploration.

An example where private business wold do better would be restaurants. One can only look where the government does food service to show that.:)
 
I give the government credit for having its bureaucracy work much of the time. Considering that it is one of the toughest things to accomplish, I think we do alright.
 
On our last backpacking trip I went up this trail that was built and maintained by the U.S. government:

01.Trail.jpg


We then camped at this lake that was stocked with trout by the U.S. government:

SunriseFancyLake.jpg


And then later down another trail built and maintained by the U.S. government, and fished this creek, stocked and managed by the U.S. government:

ReedsMeadows02.gif


Spent several days in that federal wilderness, easily caught over 100 trout, built some great memories for our son, and the whole thing did not cost me a cent other than 20 dollars for a Colorado fishing permit. So when people say the government doesn't do anything right, I beg to differ. You won't find anything like that in the private sector.

Except they did not build those mountains. They did not lay the rivers.

You should be thanking God, not the government.
 
Except they did not build those mountains. They did not lay the rivers.

You should be thanking God, not the government.

The only reason why we have hundreds of millions of acres of public land for Americans to fish, hike, hunt, bike, camp on and explore is the government. Otherwise the bulk of it would be either gated communities of trophy homes, clear cuts, mines, or whatever people could do with it to make money off of it at all possible.

Sure, nature created those areas, but whether they are preserved or exploited is up to us. God may have created the mountains in West Virginia, but its coal companies that blow them up just the same.
 
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The only thing that I have seen that the government was actually good at was producing self-agrandising lying poloticians that serve no useful purpose and would probably kill the plants if we ground them up and used them as fertilizer.
 
In some ways its a better question to ask what should be controlled at the federal level versus the state and local level. For example, most people would not necessarily support privatizing public education, but a lot of people would support getting the federal government out of it and bring it back fully to state and local funding and control.
 
Private Capitals ONLY goal is to make a profit: Some of them do a good job, some do a bad job, sometimes they do better, sometimes worse.

Governments ONLY goal is the common good: Some do a good job, some do a bad job, sometimes they do better, sometimes worse.

The difference is that even when private capital does good, it passes on tons of externalities onto the common good, and it creates systemic inbalances.

BTW, not all government is made equal, for example there is a HUGE difference between the goernment of Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, in my opinion the more federated, the least centralized the government the better.
 
You can tell who the hacks are in this thread. ;)

Government does a good job with the emergency services such as the fire departments that help preserve my life.

Private sector does a good job at inventing awesome new gadgets that make that life more enjoyable.
 
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Actually a huge chunk, if not most, of the ground braking innovation is from the public sector.
 
Private Capitals ONLY goal is to make a profit: Some of them do a good job, some do a bad job, sometimes they do better, sometimes worse.

Governments ONLY goal is the common good: Some do a good job, some do a bad job, sometimes they do better, sometimes worse.

The difference is that even when private capital does good, it passes on tons of externalities onto the common good, and it creates systemic inbalances.

BTW, not all government is made equal, for example there is a HUGE difference between the goernment of Saudi Arabia and Switzerland, in my opinion the more federated, the least centralized the government the better.
I would modify one of your statements to read:

Governments ONLY stated goal is the common good... its other goal is to perpetuate itself: : Some do a good job, some do a bad job, sometimes they do better, sometimes worse.
 
I've worked my parent's business. I've been a engineer for several private several companies and with many supporting companies. I used, working in their labs etc., several private compannies that do testing that is required by the government. I've interfaced, because of family needs, with government agencies, e.g. Social Security, in more detail that is typical for most people. I spent 4 years in the USAF, in trouble a lot for doing my job better than I was supposed to. The military is the worst run organization, but they tend to be. So, other than the military, I can't tell any difference between private business doing things right and private companies doing things right.
 
I have to correct my own post; I ment to conclude "I can't tell any difference between private business doing things right and government doing things right
I've worked my parent's business. I've been a engineer for several private several companies and with many supporting companies. I used, working in their labs etc., several private compannies that do testing that is required by the government. I've interfaced, because of family needs, with government agencies, e.g. Social Security, in more detail that is typical for most people. I spent 4 years in the USAF, in trouble a lot for doing my job better than I was supposed to. The military is the worst run organization, but they tend to be. So, other than the military, I can't tell any difference between private business doing things right and private companies, no. the government doing things right.
 
Except they did not build those mountains. They did not lay the rivers.

You should be thanking God, not the government.

Yeah, don't believe in God. I believe in nature and thank the government for making sure Coca Cola doesn't stick up a sign on those mountains just for promotional purposes.
 
One thing it makes absolutely no economic sense for the government to be involved in is mail/postage. At least IMHO.

Government can, and should provide the public with public goods (and there is a certain degree as to what qualifies as a public good depending on your perspective), but generally includes law enforcement, emergency services, primary education, healthcare, and national defense. Lighthouses are a typical economics textbook example of a public good.
 
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govt. is no more perfect or imperfect than the people who work for it or the folks who elect it.
 
For those who are opposed to toll roads I found an article of interest.

San Francisco Bay Area Plan Proposes Tracking Car Travel With GPS and Taxing Drivers as Much as a Dime per Mile | TheBlaze.com

According to the article it is a propsed study to determine the viablity of it the proposed tax would be $0.10 per mile expected to be about $1,300.00 per driver for a year. It would be based on info gatered from GPS tracking.
SF is famous for bat **** crazy ideas like this.

And, ummm, seems to be that we already have a VMT tax... it's called the gasoline tax. The more you drive, the more gasoline you purchase, the more you pay in tax.
 
The government screws up right.

Most people, unfortunately, screw down left.

well, close. the government breaks things very well. that's why it's such a good institution to house the military in.
 
I don't think it has a chance of passing whether it be San Francisco or San Diego.

Conservatives don't like it because it's a new tax and liberals don't like it because they see it as "Big Brother" looking over their shoulder.
 
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