From: drudetb@infonode.ingr.com (Ted B. Drude)
Subject: Re: Libertarian Platform (Was: Oh, never mind)
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 04:51:51 GMT

In article <GOLDM.92Nov6153143@sage4a.rpi.edu> goldm@rpi.edu (Mitchell E. Gold) writes:
>
>> If the Liberatarians had control, what types of government spending,
>> taxes and regulations would there be?  This should be a pretty short
>> list, right?
>
>Mostly defense, possibly National Institute of Health (for cures to epidemic
>diseases), the justice department, foreign affairs. Given a party as large
>and diverse as the Big Two, a Libertarian controlled government still
>probably wouldn't look like Libertaria.
>
>I consider myself a libertarian-leaning
>independent. I don't mind paying a small income tax (5%, as opposed to 20%+15%
>for social insecurity). 

Well,  I can't speak for the PARTY,  since I'm not even a member,  but
I would be willing to pay the same percent of my income that I now pay
in taxes (probably over 50%+ in combined federal,  state, and local) as
long as the overall quality of services is significantly improved.  I
have a lot of confidence that those services would improve greatly,  and
costs would eventually be greatly reduced, in a free market for services,
with much more limited governmental involvment,  especially at the
federal level.  It's simply market efficiencies at work.

>      Section 8. The Congress shall have power
>   ...
>      To establish post offices and post roads;
                    ^^^^ ^^^^^^^
>In the case of post offices and post roads, this suggests infrastructure.

Talk about the need for a new admendment!

>NASA discovers new properties of aerodynamics and materials that saves
>industry a lot of money that can be spent on other development. The party
>seems to believe that if it is in the best interests of all involved, the
>companies would make their own group to do what NASA does, but that group
>would still be limited, either in how long it might take to build the
>necessary infrastructure (which NASA has) or in general not having the
>equipment NASA has (again, mostly already paid for). This isn't the only
>case where a government agency already has material and manpower invested
>in productive projects. 

Hmmm...reminds of an article I saw recently in Design Engineering.
McDonell Douglas has already designed a simple single-stage to orbit
space shuttle that they expect to deploy in the mid '90s.  It's super
light weight (compared to NASA's behemoth),  has a has a great payload
capacity,  and will be rated for manned flight.  It was developed
WITHOUT any contract funding from NASA or the military. Main cost
breakthroughs were in new composites and cryogenics (if I remember
correctly).  Yet we are still throwing billions at the NASP project. 

Admittedly McD probably built on government funded research, but the
engineering costs and risk money are all private. Maybe the Reagan
admin's ideas about privatizing the shuttle weren't all that crazy after
all!

>On the flip-side there is a lot of waste in bureaucracy. The Department of
>Education has 100,000(?) or so workers. None of their primary jobs is in
>educating. The Department of Agriculture is larger than it needs to be.
>These are only obvious examples. The government can be vastly downsized
>in terms of work that still needs to be done, but just slashing 200,000
>jobs will just increase unemployment and not necessarily make the economy
>any better.
>Perhaps the party program should be more specific on who it
>will cut and how it will protect them. Or does that make it more 'coldly
>logical' than it is now?

If Federal employees are performing a useful task that can be
privatized,  there will be a corresponding job for them in the private
sector. But if it's just a make-work bureacratic position,  then they'll
have to find a different career. Ultimately keeping unneeded bureaucrats
costs society a whole lot more in the long run than we can afford
(as our looming four billion dollar deficeit so convincingly reminds us).

- Ted Drude
Newsgroups: alt.politics.marrou