Government shutdown

@sh76 said
Like, a small fraction of of one tier of a multi-tiered government is shut down.

Unless you're a federal employee, you might not notice a government shutdown.

I've never noticed a government shutdown other than hearing about it on the news in my life.

Here’s a refresher for the RHPU civics final. Most, I dare say are in your life.

https://www.infoplease.com/timelines/timeline-us-government-shutdowns

@badradger said
The USA is a joke

When fools vote Daffy Duck as president this can happen.

@caissad4 said
When fools vote Daffy Duck as president this can happen.

I would rather have Daffy Duck than Trump as POTUS.......

@sh76 said
Yeah, 'cept to start with, the national parks are open. In fact, they're free during the "shutdown," making many vacationers hopeful that the shutdown lasts a bit.

So, great start there.

Battling disinformation can be a full-time job lately.


Here's the National Park Service Contingency Plan. Yes, it is dated January 2018, but this is the official contingency plan from the Department of the Interior to help plan for any government shutdown affecting the NPS. It remains in effect.
https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/2018_01_nps_contingency_plan.pdf

@sh76 said
Yeah, 'cept to start with, the national parks are open. In fact, they're free during the "shutdown," making many vacationers hopeful that the shutdown lasts a bit.

So, great start there.

Yep, here is what happens to national parks during government shutdown:

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2019/01/01/In-shutdown-national-parks-transformed-into-Wild-West-heavily-populated-and-barely-supervised/stories/201901010727

People going nuts, not caring how much they destroy and dump.

@sonhouse said
Yep, here is what happens to national parks during government shutdown:

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/nation/2019/01/01/In-shutdown-national-parks-transformed-into-Wild-West-heavily-populated-and-barely-supervised/stories/201901010727

People going nuts, not caring how much they destroy and dump.

Government should do only a few things and do them VERY well:

1) Defense
2) Justice
3) Caring for public spaces
4) Charity-of-last-resort

This represents a failure by our elected representatives to do #3. Having public spaces is good - good for our health, good for our freedom, etc.

NOT on the list of what government should do:

5) Establish democracies overseas
6) Take sides in long-running civil wars
7) Provide education
8) Prop up failing industries
9) Regulate industries to create winners and losers
etc.

@spruce112358 said
Government should do only a few things and do them VERY well:

1) Defense
2) Justice
3) Caring for public spaces
4) Charity-of-last-resort

This represents a failure by our elected representatives to do #3. Having public spaces is good - good for our health, good for our freedom, etc.

NOT on the list of what government should do:

5) Establish democracies ove ...[text shortened]... education
8) Prop up failing industries
9) Regulate industries to create winners and losers
etc.

yes, who needs education. let the citizens (which the government represents) go on wikipedia and educate themselves.

@zahlanzi said
yes, who needs education. let the citizens (which the government represents) go on wikipedia and educate themselves.

Right. And cars, too. Without government, there would be no cars - no one would have them, including poor people. No one would produce any, and no one would buy them.

Fortunately, we have government to provide us with ... er ... um ...

@spruce112358 said
Government should do only a few things and do them VERY well:

1) Defense
2) Justice
3) Caring for public spaces
4) Charity-of-last-resort

This represents a failure by our elected representatives to do #3. Having public spaces is good - good for our health, good for our freedom, etc.

NOT on the list of what government should do:

5) Establish democracies ove ...[text shortened]... education
8) Prop up failing industries
9) Regulate industries to create winners and losers
etc.

How do you imagine people might obtain education without any public education being provided?

@kazetnagorra said
How do you imagine people might obtain education without any public education being provided?

Backpack budgeting. Take the property tax we pay now throughout our lives and let parents direct it towards the school of their choice when their kids get to school age. Many such school options will be private. Public schools could try to stay open and attract students, but its not likely they could compete given how slow and stodgy they are. Schools that give parents and kids exactly the kind of education they need would be rewarded with more enrollment and would tend to squeeze out the others.

@spruce112358 said
Backpack budgeting. Take the property tax we pay now throughout our lives and let parents direct it towards the school of their choice when their kids get to school age. Many such school options will be private. Public schools could try to stay open and attract students, but its not likely they could compete given how slow and stodgy they are. Schools that give parents a ...[text shortened]... education they need would be rewarded with more enrollment and would tend to squeeze out the others.

You are using confusing terminology. If property taxes, levied by the government, are used to pay for education services, it's still the government providing it. If for example the government wants to build a bridge and grants the contract to building it to a private construction firm, it's not really accurate to say the government isn't building that bridge. It's not a private initiative.

Now, a voucher system similar to what you are proposing exists in the secondary school system in Sweden. While it certainly isn't the worst system in the world, the standard of education in Swedish high schools has dropped since the reorganization that introduced this semi-privatization. What happened is that high schools, incentivized by parents who want to send their children to university, lowered their grading criteria so that more and more pupils are eligible for entering university. Meanwhile, the schools have incentives to hire relatively poorly qualified, cheaper teachers, lowering standards even more. Parents care much more about sending their children to the best colleges/universities possible and a lot less about what they will actually learn in school, so that market incentives just aren't very effective here.

A similar problem exists in tertiary education in the United States, where private colleges are incentivized to lower admission criteria for wealthy applicants, leading to a two-tiered system where students are a mixture of talented and wealthy (plus a small number of minorities who enter through discrimination against non-minorities). I can guarantee you that for instance a Donald Trump would have flunked out of a business or economics undergraduate degree at university in my home country, where no positive discrimination of the wealthy is applied and even for a relatively easy business degree the most abject morons are weeded out.

@spruce112358 said
Government should do only a few things and do them VERY well:

1) Defense
2) Justice
3) Caring for public spaces
4) Charity-of-last-resort

This represents a failure by our elected representatives to do #3. Having public spaces is good - good for our health, good for our freedom, etc.

NOT on the list of what government should do:

5) Establish democracies ove ...[text shortened]... education
8) Prop up failing industries
9) Regulate industries to create winners and losers
etc.

Simplistic !!
Not eloquent. But simplistic.

This can be picked apart without end.
But a couple of thoughts.

- cost savings from 5) will simply go to 1)
- same for 6). Greater stability in the world will reduce defense costs.
- cost savings from 7) will simply go to 2)
- same for 9). Deregulation will almost certainly impact costs in justice.

In general, governments exist to govern.
That includes protecting sovereignty.
Reducing government goes counter to ideas like building walls.

This could go on and on.
I just dipped my toe in this.
All yours now. 😛

@kazetnagorra said
You are using confusing terminology. If property taxes, levied by the government, are used to pay for education services, it's still the government providing it. If for example the government wants to build a bridge and grants the contract to building it to a private construction firm, it's not really accurate to say the government isn't building that bridge. It's not a ...[text shortened]... thy is applied and even for a relatively easy business degree the most abject morons are weeded out.

To me, public schools are government run. Parents deciding to spend an education voucher on a catholic school is "subsidized private." One step at a time.

So - market failure in education! Tut, tut. Free market forces increase quality of services everywhere - except in education, where greedy parents cleverly fool world-class universities into accepting their idiot offspring by cloaking them in worthless diplomas. I'm not saying it didn't happen in Sweden, KazetNagorra. But the free market reacts faster than any other system and doesn't tolerate deception like that for long.

On the other hand, we have a massive government-led failure of education going on right now in the US. State legislatures demand that 100% of public schools churn out "college bound" students who collect massive government loans to go to high-tuition universities to graduate with degrees that are in low demand in the marketplace. Kids with Ph.D.'s work at Starbucks serving coffee.

It takes a BIG government to fail that spectacularly.

@spruce112358 said
To me, public schools are government run. Parents deciding to spend an education voucher on a catholic school is "subsidized private." One step at a time.

So - market failure in education! Tut, tut. Free market forces increase quality of services everywhere - except in education, where greedy parents cleverly fool world-class universities into accepting their idiot of ...[text shortened]... h Ph.D.'s work at Starbucks serving coffee.

It takes a BIG government to fail that spectacularly.

An educational system shouldn't be a jobs training program pandering to the presently existing capitalist system but should try to, you know, "educate" students.

In a society where the top 10% own well more than 1/2 the wealth and the bottom quarter hardly any of it, an unrestrained "free market" is just another mechanism of elite control or aristocracy of little service to the majority.

There are so many examples of market failure recognized by economists that your claim in its near perfection is anachronistic.