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-Military (I support a pretty large military)
-Intelligence Services (small for domestic and medium for foreign)
-Law Enforcement Agencies focusing on international and nationwide crime
-Courts
-Federal Prisons for people who break Federal crimes
-Federal reserve
-Minting and other currency
-Interstate roads
State/Provincial/Regional Government:
-Prisons
-State Police for cases crossing internal jurisdictions
-Courts
-Welfare programs (if voted in by the people of the state)
-Intrastate roads
-Education (private schools permitted, state forms curriculum, most administration handled by city government and school boards)
-Water supply, water treatment, and sewerage
-Medicaid and Medicare (if voted in by the people of the state)
-Electricity production (if needed)
City/County/Local Government:
-Police
-Fire Department
-Emergency Medical Service
-Local roads
-Local jails
-Public transportation
-Administration of schools
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But even this is misleading. I support most services done by the government in general and so does virtually everyone. Liberals, conservatives, libertarians, moderates, socialists, and most other ideologies support a fire department or police, but the problem is more of how government works and what it does rather than what it is.
I believe in the law enforcement agencies, but I don't agree with a lot of laws. I would like to see prostitution and drugs legalized and I would like to see less violent offenders ending up in prison. I would prefer most non-violent offenders receiving fines and community service and in the cases when someone is addicted enough to drugs that they commit a non-violent offense (think petty theft), well they get community service and rehab. Even the most expensive rehab clinics (think the kind celebrities go to) cost less than a year in most prisons (often less than half).
I also believe government should try to look to private contractors when possible. If road maintenance can be done by a private company, why not? This is assuming that it is the cheaper option, it is more expensive, it's more of a welfare program than sound policy.
I believe that government should view tax monies as the taxpayers' money. The government officials are there to spend the behalf of the people they took it from. I've heard so many people get upset when politicians use the "It's your money!" line (I only get upset because most politicians are lying when they say that), but it really is our money and the government exists because we allow it to exist. I would like to see a government with that philosophy, the people rule the government, the government is to spend money as carefully as possible, and the government is there to protect rights of the individual.
Except for when you have the corrupt + revenue-impoverished state and local governments such as that of my home state...
No... especially in this case. If you can't get together with your neighbors and make change happen in a city of 250k and a state of 4.6 million, you are either living in the wrong place for your views, or you aren't trying to organize.
Which I feel will be an interesting side effect of a universal healthcare program. Any behavior which increases costs can be used as an excuse to regulate that behavior for the common good.
When I was visiting Australia there were two cops in a park harassing a guy for not wearing a helmet while riding his bicycle. On the news I saw someone who had their license revoked as a passenger of a vehicle for having their arm resting just outside of the window as it was in motion. These were both attributed to an effort to reduce the cost of healthcare.
This is one of the biggest reasons I don't want to see universal health care in this country. Besides the fact that anything the government runs is rationed and second-rate, do you really want the nannies in D.C. telling you what you can eat and when, and telling you that you have to exercise? Will you have to meet certain requirements on weight, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc., before a government health worker will even deign to see you? Will you be denied that Big Mac because you're overweight, and if you eat it, you're putting a strain on the "taxpayer-funded" health-care system?
It's bad enough now, with governments taking away your choice to wear helmets and seatbelts under the premise that "it's for your own good." That's just the tip of the iceberg if we federalize health care.
For the record, it's obviously smart to eat healthy, wear your seatbelt, and so on ... but it needs to be your CHOICE to do those things in a free society. Compelling a certain behavior, even if most people do agree that "it's for your own good," is still morally indefensible in a free society.
I'd prefer a smaller government, but I don't really care about the size of it, as long as it dosent take away more of my money, keeps inflation low, wages up, keeps our freedoms, protects us from crime and foreign governments, then I don't care. If we were instantly to join the EU for instance allong with all other former british colonies, I wouldn't care, as long as my demands were fufilled.
Most true Libertarians and many Republicans do NOT support most of the responsibilities that you listed to be provided by ANY government at ANY level.
I'm pragmatic. When discussing theory, I'm as libertarian as anyone you can meet, but when comes to actual practice, I'm more practical.
I know that privatizing the fire department won't be the best idea. Private fire companies weren't very effective when they did exist. There is a place for the free market in firefighting, but it's mostly restricted to companies large enough to afford on-site fire protection teams and for industries such as oil refining and chemical processing.
There is a place for private business in roads, but its mostly restricted to privatized maintenance and construction, not the whole deal. Face it, beyond a few bridges and tunnels, private roads are extremely impractical. It would be too expensive for most people, it would probably lead to a really haphazard road system, and would create a bunch of legal headaches.
Also, what is wrong with Federal law. Don't get me wrong, most of the system needs to be scrapped and the methods the Feds use is often questionable. However, how else would you deal with someone in Grand Folks defrauding people in Florida? How would you deal with an organized crime group muscling in on a nationwide union (yes, I support the repeal of most laws regarding them) or other organizations? How would you deal with a hacker in Montana sending viruses to people across the United States and all around the world? You need laws that stretch across the country to handle crimes that stretch across the country.
And when I talk about welfare and Medicaid, I'm not talking about for the whole population, I'm talking about for the bottom 10% or so. The middle-class doesn't need help, I believe in a safety net for people who are likely to end up dead or homeless without receiving help, not a welfare state.
How do we quantify the size of government? Should the size of government be proportional to the size of the population? Or perhaps to the size of the economy? If government expenditure is held at a constant proportion to the size of the economy (say 30% of GDP), then as the economy grows, would that not lead to an absolute (though not relative) growth in government spending?
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