So, lets recap- you would eliminate much of our medical system? ( since it would be unable to function w/o medicare and medicaid) Or would you just permit hospitals to refuse treatment of all low-income individuals and most of the elderly? Welfare would be eliminated except for military welfare recipients and the severely disabled. Or you would eliminate the V.A., as well? The unemployed would be sweeping streets and sorting mail for nothing and eating, what exactly? Higher education would be too expensive for most people so many private colleges would close. You would advocate what? - Heavy recuitment from China and India to fill all those jobs requiring higher education? Who do you think would fund basic research? Well, I guess the U.S. could concede that core endeavor to the Chinese, as well.
Of course, gov't revenue would drop even as tax rates dropped because the middle class would be decimated and the G.D.P. would plummet. The effort to balance the budget with ever fewer $$ would create an economic death spiral until corpoartions began moving back to the U.S. for all the cheap, cheap labor.
The medical system worked prior to the implementation of Medicare in the 1960's. The problems in the medical system should not be the government's concern - those who operate medical facilities should have the ability to make their services available to the public - the old ones call this competition and contrary to the belief of many today - it works.
The government should fund care for veterans - but that can be done by providing insurance benefits (CHAMPUS) that veterans can use in the private sector. The government cannot operate a classroom with 15 five year olds in it - do you really think they effectively operate hospitals for veterans. (In case you haven't dealt with the VA, they don't do such a great job.)
Education is a commodity, just like clothing, food and shelter. Minus the Department of Education, private enterprise schools would compete for the education dollars being spent. This competition would create a better educational product, and because the privately operated schools would not be competing with "free" (and yes, many people consider public education to be free) education, the price would stabilize at a level the market would bear.
The push for more people to attend college hasn't generated a lot of improvement in the capabilities of our labor market. Higher education may not be for everyone - and wasting tax dollars to pay for college for a person to have the college experience isn't how I want my money spent. Let them fund their own four year frat party.
Prior to the creation of the Department of Education, people got educated, had the ability to formulate and implement ideas and the country was economically successful. Since the Department of Education, every child pushed through the system has been part of one experiment or another with no improvement in teaching them how to learn, how to think logically, how to solve problems etc. We are to a point that if a person is working in a job, and a customer asks a question of an employee that isn't scripted in their job procedures - all the customer gets is a dumb look. I don't know about the rest of you, but I got far fewer dumb looks prior to the federal takeover of education.
Research should be the risk of private entities. If the research results in a viable marketable product - the gains from the research should be the reward of the private entity.
Government revenue would most definitely drop under my suggestions - the government wouldn't need more revenue and the people who earned the money could spend it themselves. And if the people spent more of what they made - it would create a demand for more products - which would create a demand for more workers........hopefully you get the picture.
I personally want manufacturing and production to return to the U.S. I prefer that they not come back for the "cheap, cheap labor", but that trade policies tax imports enough to allow an American made cell phone to compete fairly with a Chinese made cell phone.
I'd buy the American, even if the price was marginally higher - just to support the U.S. laborer.
