ParticleGrl
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We've gone so far beyond "even in principle" though, with now 47% of tax filers paying no federal income tax and thus not contributing to the cost of the associated federally provided services.
This is bad reasoning- there are more forms of federal taxation than income tax (payroll tax, for one, which is somewhat regressive).
That's not really true. Roads and a military are a good example of things that simply can't be done privately.
Thats not true- private military contractors (mercenaries) exist, and it is certainly possible for the federal government to hire a private sector military contracting company. This is being done to supplement forces in Iraq/Afghanistan, and we COULD if we wanted, disband our military and hire it out to private sector contractors. It is NOT true that it can't be done privately. Its not a good idea, but its not impossible.
Governments need to build and maintain roads because private companies wouldn't build roads where/how they are needed, they'd build them where/how they could make the most money. So people in rural areas would suffer, maintenance and quality would suffer, etc.
Here your argument is NOT that its impossible for the private sector to build roads. Your argument is that the government is BETTER at providing roads.
If the government were better at providing health insurance (I'm not saying they are, just postulating the IF), than why not have the government provide health insurance?
The same argument you are making for roads could be made for risk pools/insurance. Private companies would only take the least risky people, leaving people with genetic illness (or bad family histories of such illness) to suffer, the elderly would suffer, etc. There is no profit in insuring risky people, just like there isn't much profit in rural roads or electricity.
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