Government Size

** While I am out of town a few of my good friends from the blogging world have graciously stepped up and written some guest posts to fill the void. This post comes from Phillip at DC Dispatches.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a subject near and dear to the hearts of many conservatives – namely, what is the role of government in our lives? How much government is enough, and how (gasp) do you measure government’s effectiveness?

These are not idle musings mind you – a fair portion of my job description revolves around translating scientific enquiry into measurable performance. And let me tell you, its not easy.

But back to the main talking point – what is the role of government? What should it be? Well, on the far Right, you have folks like Gorver Nordquist, who is infamously quoted as wanting a government so shrunken that you could drown it in a bathtub. He believes that government is literally anathema to free enterprise, and any form of government, save national defense, is welfare which prevents a people from striving and competing within a true capitalist society.

Back on the far left, there is the “classic” planned economy of a Marxist regime, in which the government owns every business, and policy makers dictate how many tractors, or potato chips are to be made in a single year. This centrally planned life extends to health care, education, policing – literally every enterprise is government controlled or run. Ironically, while the Soviet Union fir this model economically, its harsh repression of its people and their freedoms made it anything but a liberal enterprise.

Sitting inside the federal government, and leaning far left myself, I think the role of government has been misrepresented by both sides of the political aisle. To begin with, there will always need to be an agent of regulation of human behavior where commerce or economic activity is concerned. If our current economic doldrums teach us anything, it is that rolling back regulation, or imposing “voluntary” compliance with thin rules, doesn’t work in the long term best interest of the economy or society. You can no more let bankers police themselves then you can let the fox guard the proverbial henhouse. SO a primary function of government is to ensure the long-term survival of a society and its economy. This must be accomplished through regulation, mostly so business can appropriately price government intervention into its profit.

Second, government must exist to protect common societal rights to common societal property. Clean Air, Clean Water, healthy fisheries – these are all societal goods which can be used to benefit everyone. As such, these “commons” are owned by no individual or corporate entity, and their use must be safeguarded. Humans, no matter their political persuasion, rely on clean air fairly regularly. This incidentally is the heart of our current CO2 debate in Congress – what price will we as a nation set for the privilege of polluting our atmosphere with a gas that is causing climate change? By stepping into the market and imposing an economic cost to using such common resources, government brings long-term stability to their use, and (hopefully) less harm to the environment.

Third, government exists to provide for the citizens those things that the citizens can not provide for them selves individually. Some of these things are mundane – garbage collection, police, fire service, libraries. Others are large – national defense, alternative energy research, space exploration. These are economies of scale issues. Sure, each of us COULD contract for our own space program, our own Army, our own Library. But at what cost, and to what level of effectiveness would we be able to do this? It is better to aggregate demand, lowering overall costs, and ensuring a stable funding stream for these activities through taxation.

So, as you can see, I think there are many large legitimate functions of government. And I think we, as citizens who both demand these functions, and benefit from them, need to make sure we’re both aware of what’s being done in our names, and paying our fare share to do so. After all, while many in Washington D.C. think they work for corporations or Political Action Committees, they actually work for you and me, and so we need to make sure they are doing our jobs to our satisfaction. And the benefit of such a performance plan will be a government of the right size, doing the right things for the right price. Now there’s a radical notion.

* The author wants everyone to know that these are HIS opinions, and not the opinions of any federal, state, or county governmental agency or non-governmental organization that he currently works for or has previously worked for. If you don’t like these views, take then up with the author, not your Congressman.