"I can tell you with all authority that ANYTHING the government does, the private sector can do cheaper and better. Excepting National Security of course. Trust me."

Ha ha ha. . . dude, we need to talk.

Dave at Garfield Ridge

Government should also collect taxes, borrow money, regulate international commerce, oversee immigration, mint money, punish counterfeiters, make roads, hand out patents, and enforce the law. But that's just going by the Constitution. ;)

I prefer a far more Federalist government, where the important stuff gets done locally. You don't like how Idaho or Washington State handles things? Move to a state that does things your way. Federal mandates should be kept as narrow as possible, in my view -- that's one of the reasons I utterly loathe unfunded mandates like "No Child Left Behind". It's got a laudable purpose, but ends up being completely gutted in practice by teacher's unions, state legislatures, and apathetic voters. All those mandates translate to are higher taxes with no metrics on actual improvements.

Bah!

bbeck.

I know, I know, I know. But social programs?

Wunderkraut, trust me, I'd be THRILLED if the Feds would go back to ONLY doing what they're SUPPOSED to do as outlined in that ol' document there.

effin-A

Dave,

I have caught bits and pieces that you too are a proud public servant.

Me? I am a city engineer for a small town in South Georgia.

You?

DoD desk jockey.

Which makes the whole privatization thing VERY attractive to me.

oooo, very impressive!

I, too, feed off the gov't teat.

It's the least I can do since my garbage is usually collected on time and the roads are eventually cleared when it snows. My meager public service ensures the flow of mother's milk will never dry up.

The government should not make roads, the "robber barons" should do it. The railroads are the most conspicous example in history of how wealth is created (not distributed), and the people who made us all richer by building them are the most hated of all capitalists for that. The arguments for the government building roads sound like arguments that only the government could have built the railroads.

A historically legitimate role of the federal government that I believe gets short shrift now is encouraging expansion into frontiers.

Back in the Seventies, there was a politician somewhere in the upperMidwest who used to say, "The federal government has three core responsibilities: to defend the nation, to deliver the mail, and to stay the hell out of my life."

A little simplistic, but I think I prefer federal do-littleism to federal do-everythingism. Although I gather Dave at GR doesn't think too highly of defense as government work.

The arguments for the government building roads sound like arguments that only the government could have built the railroads.

Not exactly. The argument for the government building roads sounds like the exact words in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

Yeah, those guys who run Amtrak are real robber barons.

I know, I know, I know. But social programs?

Government should make sammiches for Michael.

Very funny, Michael, but in the future you might want to think mor carefully about such flippant comments, for two reasons.

First, if the government makes you a sandwich, you will get it 30 days late, 400% over budget, after Senate Republicans cave to Democrat demands to remove certain ingredients and to add certain oterh ingredients, and it will come with a rider increasing NEA spending in Big Hole, Montana.

Second, even though you and I know you're joking, at this very moment a House of Reps staffer is reading your comment and trying to figure out how to work the groundswell of public support for the Federally-Funded Sammich Bill of 2006 into a campaign speech.

Michael paid $65,800 in federal income taxes last year. Michael wants some frickin' sammiches. Good ones, like Corned Beef and Po-Boys and Fried Baloney.

With BBQ chips on the side.

Thank you, Uncle Sam!

And a pickle.

I forgot to mention Leftover Meat Loaf Sammiches!!

Hey, easy on Big Hole, Montana - she always treated me fine.

While the policies that will grow out of control are mostly babies of Democrats, the Republicans have been fairly willing enablers by porking the shit out of federal budgets, going along with disasters like Medicare

Oh, yeah, sure. Look, the Medicare "reform" you guys passed is a legislative Hindenberg, and it's intentional. It's one corporate handout after another. Not a goddamn accident, not the fault of Democrats and not the inevitable outcome of "bloat" or "pork". There comes a point where you have to admit that Republicans simply are no longer small government conservatives but merely opportunistic social conservatives.

As usual, I said "the argument" when I should have said, "the arguments I keep hearing".

There comes a point where you have to admit that Republicans simply are no longer small government conservatives but merely opportunistic social conservatives.

I am aghast to realize that I disagree with nothing scarshapedstar said. Republicans haven't behaved very well while in power, and they haven't been about small government or fiscal sanity for a long time. More's the pity -- I'd like to tell scarshapedstar s/he's full of shit, but I can't. Because s/he isn't.

Under no circumstances will I agree with scarshapedstar.

But I agree with Monty.

I very frequently find myself in arguments with liberals who will tell me something like, "your Republicans are spending too much!!!" as scarshapedstar just did.

There are two problems with this argument. The first is that it presupposes that I disagree. I don't, and therefore the argument totally loses its rhetorical effectiveness. The second, of course, is that I have no confidence whatsoever that Dems would ever do better, and therefore they are hardly a reasonable alternative on this point.

Given, then, that I agree that the Repubs spend too much, and that I don't think the Dems would do any better, the whole issue is a wash, and other issues (like the WoT) take prominence. And since Dems keep me consistently convinced that they don' take the issue seriously, that only leaves me with one alternative.

Legitimate responsibilities of the Federal government:

Print money

Deliver mail

Kill Terrorists

Fight off creepy foreigners (declare war)

ILL-legitimate responsibilities of the feferal government:

everything else (what else are state and local governments for?)

THAT's what we need to get back to. A system where the federal government sticks to its core responsibilities and concentrates on doing those well. Let the people via their local and state representatives take care of everything else.

BattleofthePyramids and others,

You've set forth the original enumeration of Congress' powers, but that omits a few extra set forth in the Amendments, and they really do make the situation a lot more complicated. The Fourteenth, for example, gives Congress power to enforce the Equal Protection clause and the Due Process clause as against the states. The history of that Amendment makes it pretty clear that it was intended to shift the balance of power from the states to some degree, at least.

Are you suggesting that the Fourteenth Amendment should be repealed?

Hey, have you ever bought discount brand - soap, shampoo, medicine, cookies? How hard is it to distribute a product, and if starts killing folks, to go bankrupt and open a new business? Having big intrusive private industry won't be any better than big intrusive government. A big company forcing you to pay $1000 for a card before you can buy any food within 100 miles of your home isn't especially more appealing than the government taxing you $1000 for USDA and FDA inspections. Until anti-trust legislation is enforced, replacing nominally unbiased government workers with private industry isn't a solution. What is the libertarian plan to monitor aflatoxin in the food supply? EPA, FDA, CPSC - just because they do their jobs passably well doesn't mean that its not important.