I want to rant about taxes, and how the government can't do it all, and how we should quit expecting government to provide for everybody, and just do it ourselves.
I really think that this economic downturn should be an opportunity for government bodies at various levels to rethink their mission(s) and redo their budgets to fund only those things which are most important for a government to do. I cannot imagine roads being build by anyone else but larger governmental units (federal, state, and county, mainly) but art in public places, definitely a function that non-government entities should handle. Education for all children must be government funded, since private funding would lead to only the rich being able to send their kids to good schools and the poorest kids being not sent to school at all (and lets not talk about how that is the case right now, okay) but does the government need to fund medical research directly. Is that the best way to spend our tax dollars? Parks are a definite plus for communities, but could some of the costs be bourne by volunteers and/or corporate groups. Fire and police protection is a definite government function. Just remember the hooplah when some poor sucker didn't pay his fire tax (where it was voluntary) so the fire department let his house burn down. Sorry, but that sort of payment should not, cannot be, voluntary. Everybody needs fire and police protection, taxpayers must provide it.
Well, I could go one, and I will, at a later date.
Chow. (I was so surprised to find out that that is really spelled C-I-A-O, or something. No fair, English language and borrowed phrases.)
