Daimon's Lair

This will NEVER happen. But, as an interesting thought experiment, here we go.

What are the fundamentals of government? If you strip government down to the 'bare essentials', what items could you not remove?

In no particular order, here's a candidate list:

• Secure defined borders and protect national interests from foreign aggressors.
• Immigration control.
• Defense against foreign threats (reactionary)
• Intelligence gathering (pro-active defense)
• Offensive operations against select threats to the national interest (e.g., the current 'War on Terror')
• Supply the conditions for the free exercise of citizens' rights and pursuit of mutual prosperity
• Law and order--the prevention of citizens infringing on the rights of other citizens, both personal and property rights.
• Appropriate yet minimal regulation to ensure an open yet fair marketplace.
• Maintenance of roads and other infrastructure necessary for common welfare.
• Provide oversight for citizen safety which individual citizens cannot within reason provide for themselves
• Consumer product safety
• Oversight of food supply / Enforcement of established 'good practices

The item on this list which particularly frosts me is the maintenance of infrastructure. I live in a community where new programs and spending (currently the biggest boondoggle is a proposed passenger rail line of incredibly questionable value) are constantly being proposed, yet the streets and facilities fall into increasingly bad repair. There is a base line of government services. Until that base-line is satisfied, NO spending should be allowed.

Here's where the thought experiment comes in. Government exists to provide a free environment for the exercising of citizens' economic and personal pursuits. This necessitates the provision of certain basic services. Yet it has morphed vastly beyond anything which could ever be termed a 'basic' service.

In private enterprise, numerous businesses have tiered service structures. Why not government? Taxes are already high, but the answer to fixing failing government services isn't raising taxes. It's making sure the government takes care of the priorities FIRST.

Here's my proposal: Everyone pays taxes. Taxes are X percentage of income, but that percentage is a composite.

Some people could opt for the so-called 'basic' plan. Their taxation would be the base-line percentage of what it takes to fund the core services.

Everything else is an opt-in. Want to enroll in Social Security? Medicare? Support funding of x,y, z? Add incremental percentages to that taxation. In some ways, this would be a flexible flat-tax. Pay for what you use, not for what you don't.

And that's why we'll have to wait until pigs fly. Not only would it create citizens semi-direct control over government spending (if everyone opts down to the basic tier, funding for the unnecessary bloat dries up) but it would require an unprecedented level of transparency of how our money is spent. Which would be great, but it'll also never happen.

I'm not interested in discussing a realistic implementation--I know this is fantasy. But what do you think of my thought experiment?