What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

I was talking with my wife last night about the transition to a more libertarian society. And the question came up.

I am curious as to what agency's / programs / jobs etc. Could be immediately cut without serious harm. I am not interested in "LDO ! wipe em all out" type answers. I am asking for real world answers about how we can get government under control.

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

Depends on what you consider "serious harm." You'd pretty likely be harming those that use a program/have a gov't job.

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I was talking with my wife last night about the transition to a more libertarian society. And the question came up.

I am curious as to what agency's / programs / jobs etc. Could be immediately cut without serious harm. I am not interested in "LDO ! wipe em all out" type answers. I am asking for real world answers about how we can get government under control.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good question, and doubtless the answer is complex.

A simple factoid, though:

* Year 2000 Federal Budget = $1.8 trillion
* Year 2007 Federal Budget = $2.8 trillion

Wiki Federal Budget United States

Perhaps this is food for thought?

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

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Could be immediately cut without serious harm.

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What does that mean? Government = serious harm. It's like asking how much organized crime can we cut without serious harm?



A way of disbanding could be to cut spending every 6 months by 50%, and obviously to cut laws and regulations concordingly. This allows the market with the room to come up with solutions and allows people to have money for it.

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

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A way of disbanding could be to cut spending every 6 months by 50%, and obviously to cut laws and regulations concordingly.

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But then the government would never go away. Do you see why?

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

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A way of disbanding could be to cut spending every 6 months by 50%, and obviously to cut laws and regulations concordingly.

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But then the government would never go away. Do you see why?

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Yes, it would. When free market arbitration gets in the first stages of maturity, then the state quickly becomes visible as a criminal and bankrupt organization. Game over.

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

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A way of disbanding could be to cut spending every 6 months by 50%, and obviously to cut laws and regulations concordingly.

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But then the government would never go away. Do you see why?

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Yes, it would. When free market arbitration gets in the first stages of maturity, then the state quickly becomes visible as a criminal and bankrupt organization. Game over.

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Take 1. Subtract half. Now we have 1/2. Subtract half. Now we have 1/4. Subtract half. Now we have 1/8. Continue ad infinitum and there's still government!

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

Yes, this formula was explained to me when I was 11 years old. I made a response to this problem. Did you read it and comprehend it?

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

I was thinking of doing a thread on this, but this thread will work.

The correct answer is: not much. This is because society is organized around the existence of government. Just as one example, there are tens of millions of senior citizens who rely on Social Security and Medicare to survive. In a pure free market, they would have had to save to retire. But they didn't because they assumed the government would take care of them. There would be a dramatic increase in 90 year olds working if the government cut those programs.

There is a high implementation cost for privatising retirement funding and many other private solutions. Other examples include farm subsidies (rural communities), defense money (base towns) and education (college towns). If government spending were cut by 25% across the board with an accompanying cut in taxes, there would be a severe economic downturn.

Re: What % of government could be eliminated tomorrow?
 

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But they didn't because they assumed the government would take care of them. There would be a dramatic increase in 90 year olds working if the government cut those programs.


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you obv cant just knock them off the teet. But you can allow ppl to opt out.

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There is a high implementation cost for privatising retirement funding and many other private solutions.

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HUH?? how do you figure? Vanguard or Scottrade accounts cost almost nothing and far far out perform SSI