Government Size:Big Doesn’t Mean its better
It seems that government always think it is their duty to poke their noses into every piece of damn thing that they can get their hands on.
Truth is, many things can be regulated through private market mechanism. Govt just makes the matter more complicated, in turn create more jobs for themselves.
I for one, is in constant contact with government agencies and people who have dealt with them in the past, and it is fascinating the kind of spending that they use tax payers money for.
The following is a great article on Rolling Back the Government: Lessons from New Zealand. Of particular this paragraph provides startling info on how much jobs can be cut down by!
When a reform government was elected in New Zealand in 1984, it identified three problems: too much spending, too much taxing and too much government.
We asked some fundamental questions of government agencies. The first question was, “What are you doing?” The second question was, “What should you be doing?” Based on the answers, we then said, “Eliminate what you shouldn’t be doing” - that is, if you are doing something that clearly is not a responsibility of the government, stop doing it.
When we started this process with the Department of Transportation, it had 5,600 employees. When we finished, it had 53. When we started with the Forest Service, it had 17,000 employees. When we finished, it had 17. When we applied it to the Ministry of Works, it had 28,000 employees. I used to be Minister of Works, and ended up being the only employee.
Some of the things that government was doing simply didn’t belong in the government. So we sold off telecommunications, airlines, irrigation schemes, computing services, government printing offices, insurance companies, banks, securities, mortgages, railways, bus services, hotels, shipping lines, agricultural advisory services, etc. In the main, when we sold those things off, their productivity went up and the cost of their services went down, translating into major gains for the economy.
We achieved an overall reduction of 66% in the size of government, measured by the number of employees. The government’s share of GDP dropped from 44 to 27%.
[Read More | Liberty for All | Rolling Back Government:Lessons from New Zealand]
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