sapphi_snake said:
HappySqurriel said:
I think a simpler way to look at this is what are the essential services that are provided by the government. On a federal level the government is responsible for national security, foreign relations, interstate relations, trade and a portion of the criminal justice/penal system. Any spending item that doesn't line-up with these responsibilities is not essential, because it doesn't have to be provided by the federal government. Similarly, state and municipal government have core responsibilities and any spending not related to these responsibilities is non-essential; and most emergency services (like the fire department) would fall into the responsibility of the state or municipal government.
When you start looking into social spending (as an example) it doesn't line-up with any responsibility the governments do (or should) have; and when you analyze the outcomes of most of this spending and understand that no-one benefits from this in the long run it is difficult to argue that it is something that should continue to exist.
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Social spending? Such as (I'm not American, so I don't know exactly what those are over there).
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Social spending typical implies a form of "wealth transfer" ... Typically things like welfare, food stamps, rental subsidies,and social security but some people would include spending on education and health care. Personally, I would say that education or health care wouldn't be a social program if the government is running these programs because they can deliver them at higher quality for less money than private industry, but they would be social programs if the government is running them to "increase fairness" in these systems.
