This is a topic meant for discussion of peoples' beliefs regarding what government should, and should not, do. Since I'm the person who started the topic I'll give a brief description of my beliefs.
I am a libertarian, but not a Ron Paul libertarian. As a libertarian I believe in VERY limited government. Basically I believe the only valid purpose of government is to protect its citizens from force or fraud from within or without. That includes national defense and a system of laws which are enforced by a judicial/criminal justice system.
In addition to this I am in favor of the government providing a few other infrastructure items, such as roads. However, any infrastructure projects supported by government should provide benefit to all citizens, not just some special-interest groups.
Much beyond that, I think government should pretty much leave people alone.
I hope both people on the left and right will submit their views and be civil.
I also believe that a government that governs least governs best (Thos. Jefferson, I think). I see our taxation system is in dire need of revamping. Personally, I like the flat tax where everyone pays a percentage of their income. It seems the fairest. Start with 10%. If a person earns $20,000 per year they pay $2000; if a person earns $2 million, they pay $200,000. Seems to deal with the "fair share" strawman. The greatest thing about it is there are no "loopholes" or "social engineering" deductions or punishments. It also does away with the IRS (an evil beaurocracy that is an unnecessary overhead for our nations budget). The paperwork reduction would be fantastic and the hours of time spent doing your taxes would free us all up for more enjoyable things. Why does anyone think our gov't. is disinclined to do this (as they obviously are). I'm betting there isn't a person out there reading this that could object to a flat tax.
A consumer tax is also a better way for citizens to share the cost of gov't. It's really based on income. The rich buy more things than the poor so it seems to pass the "fair share" people's concerns. Can anyone think of a downside to this concept, either?
Do you think a limited gov't. has a role in protecting consumers from monopolies? Or can that be controlled by some other means? Price-fixing is an economic disaster and I think the federal gov't. should have a bureau equal in size to the FBI/CIA to protect against it.
This is an incomplete list of what I believe government should not do:
Charity. Charity is not a valid function of government and when government gets involved it always makes matters worse. By charity I mean welfare payments and handouts to victims of disasters.
Nannyism. The concept of free citizens by itself negates the precept that the government should pass/enforce laws meant to protect adult citizens from themselves. However, with freedom comes responsibility. While the government has no right to prevent you from doing something that may harm you, such as using drugs, it also has no obligation to insulate you from the consequences of your actions, such as providing living expenses because you can no longer hold a job.
The Free Market. Short of protecting citizens from fraud, people should be able to form contracts with each other for any purpose as long as those contracts don't infringe on the rights of others.
Healthcare. Healthcare is not a human right, nothing that must be supplied by somebody else is a human right. To claim otherwise is to advocate slavery. Healthcare should be part of the free market, the government has no business providing healthcare to some at the expense of others.
Affirmative Action. I, like the framers of the constitution, believe the concept that "all men (now persons) are created equal" is self-evident. Therefore I reject the proposition that there should be laws that give one group preferential treatment over any other group, regardless of age, sex, race, sexual orientation or any other reason.
Weapons. There should be no laws restricting the right of free citizens to own weapons, short of weapons of mass destruction. However, owners and users of weapons cannot use force against other free citizens and should be punished to the full extent of the law if they do or try.
More later...
Spirit of 76 wrote:
I also believe that a government that governs least governs best (Thos. Jefferson, I think). I see our taxation system is in dire need of revamping. Personally, I like the flat tax where everyone pays a percentage of their income. It seems the fairest. Start with 10%. If a person earns $20,000 per year they pay $2000; if a person earns $2 million, they pay $200,000. Seems to deal with the "fair share" strawman. The greatest thing about it is there are no "loopholes" or "social engineering" deductions or punishments. It also does away with the IRS (an evil beaurocracy that is an unnecessary overhead for our nations budget). The paperwork reduction would be fantastic and the hours of time spent doing your taxes would free us all up for more enjoyable things. Why does anyone think our gov't. is disinclined to do this (as they obviously are). I'm betting there isn't a person out there reading this that could object to a flat tax.
A consumer tax is also a better way for citizens to share the cost of gov't. It's really based on income. The rich buy more things than the poor so it seems to pass the "fair share" people's concerns. Can anyone think of a downside to this concept, either?
I also believe that a government that governs leas... (
show quote)
I could go for a flat tax, but the lefties would be apopleptic. I think a more fair method would be a flat tax with a large personal exemption. The reason for this is people at the bottom of the scale have very little, if any, disposable income while higher earners have quite a bit. Therefore if a flat tax had a personal exemption of, say, half the poverty rate I could go for it. The reason I said half the poverty rate is so that even the poor would have to pay some tax. This is important so they can't be completely exempt from the consequences of government largesse.
I know a lot of people favor a consumption, or sales, or value added tax. I am against it, especially if it's in addition to an income tax.
The reasons the government is against reform is because, under the current system, special interest groups receive all kinds of benefits, the government uses the tax code for social engineering, and virtually everybody is guilty (mostly unintentionally) of breaking some tax rule. The fact that the law can jail you at any time for breaking some tax rule is beneficial to the government.
Spirit of 76 wrote:
Do you think a limited gov't. has a role in protecting consumers from monopolies? Or can that be controlled by some other means? Price-fixing is an economic disaster and I think the federal gov't. should have a bureau equal in size to the FBI/CIA to protect against it.
Yes, I do. Price fixing would be fraud, from which the government has an obligation to protect its citizens.
I forgot to mention education. Since education (K-12) benefits all of society I think the government has an obligation to provide it, but they have proven they are incapable of actually administering it. Therefore I suggest that the government give vouchers to parents for private schooling for each K-12 age child. This will allow private schools to open throughout the country and parents will be able to choose which schools to send their children to. Private schools that wish to purchase what are currently public school buildings should be allowed to do so at a fair-value price.
The government should also mandate a minimum curriculum for these schools. This minimum curriculum should pertain to skills in reading, writing, math, history and science only. Schools providing only the minimum curriculum should not be allowed to charge more than the government vouchers, but should be free to charge less if desired. If they charge less then the parents can keep half the difference between the tuition and the voucher amount. Schools providing more than the minimum curriculum can charge more than the vouchers and the parents can make up the difference if they choose to send their children there.
With regard to higher education, the government should not be involved in any way.
I am a Southern Conservative but I can not agree with you more.
walt1976 wrote:
I am a Southern Conservative but I can not agree with you more.
Thank you. Please feel free to add your own ideas.
Agree almost 100% on education
The purpose of the gov't is to protect us from foreign invaders, corrupt business tactics, and individuals doing harm.
The role of the gov't is not to become the Corporation, or control the World.
Our gov't is beyond salvation. We must stop what they are doing before they destroy individual wealth- each State must declare independents from the Federal Gov't.
This could be done over a 50 year time frame.
neil wrote:
The purpose of the gov't is to protect us from foreign invaders, corrupt business tactics, and individuals doing harm.
The role of the gov't is not to become the Corporation, or control the World.
Our gov't is beyond salvation. We must stop what they are doing before they destroy individual wealth- each State must declare independents from the Federal Gov't.
This could be done over a 50 year time frame.
I'm not sure I agree about the secession part, but I've often thought the country should be split in two, the Conservative/Libertarian States of America and the Progressive/Liberal States of America. Lefties won't go for that though, because there'd be nobody to pay their bills.
I am with you. I am an American, not Democrat or Republican and Government is out of control. They do not need to be in every aspect of our lives and should not be. Without the Federal governments' interference, we would probably not be in the mess we are in today. Government is too LARGE! Get PAID TOO Much for doing nothing.
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