Can you name a government service you'd be willing to do without?
Posted at 5:00 AM on May 18, 2010
by Eric Ringham
(41 Comments)
Filed under: Politics/Government
It sometimes seems that Minnesota's political debate centers on one choice: whether to raise taxes or cut services. Today's Question: Can you name a government service you'd be willing to do without?
Comments (41)
so informative, thanks to tell us.
I propose downsize MN Department of Transportation to complete the current construction projects, and then shut them down. Let Capitalism take over - companies that want to get their products to market can build the transportation infrastructure - and charge users fees if they want! Unregulated - why not! Let Farmers maintain the roads too if they want to get their products to market.
I'll ride my bike and park my auto and quit buying petrol.
If I can't get there via bike or foot, I won't go. Or I'll get a horse, or a mule. Or use the bus, or the Metro.
This should save the state government considerable revenue.
And if the people don't like it, well they may gain a new appreciation for publicly funded services. Maybe even say "Tax me! I prefer it to paying trolls to let me cross the bridge, or to paying expensive repairs for the road-weary auto."
Should we ever have a budget surplus in the future, like the one we had during Gov. Ventura's administration, put that surplus in a safe place (banks?) but do NOT refund it to the taxpayers. Manage the government like a family: when the family has extra, invest it/save it for emergencies. Wouldn't it be helpful now if Ventura had not refunded the budget surplus but had kept it in an account to be used now, when we need it??????
If there is a service that is destroying the budget, it is K-12 education.
How does it slip by year after year without any cuts at all? Isn't it like 40% of the entire budget? I mean really...
The Star Tribune had a great article last week that detailed just how many "bad" teachers have been fired since the 1980s. It was less than 10 total.
K-12 education is a complete waste of taxpaper money when it unfairly goes to teachers salaries and pensions and union talking heads.
When it finally gets to the classroom, where it really beyonds, it's a matter of pennies on the dollar.
Judging by the number of folks here who think we can do without so many cops, it's obvious to me we need more of them.
FSC Certified products on LEED building projects.
I work in the builders supply industry and it blows my mind how willing our state and federal governments are willing to throw away our tax dollars on requirements contained in the LEED building program - particularly FSC certified wood products. This requirement not only wastes a lot of money, it is also anti-wood, which is by far the "greenest" and renewable building product available.
I certainly would not have a problem paying relatively high taxes if there wasn't such blatant waste of these funds.
I can do without obscenely low tax rates for very wealthy people and wealthy corporations with overseas operations.
Just a note to those who want to cut HHS: A large portion of that money goes to the sex offender rehab centers. I am not saying it is right or wrong; I am just saying I'm not sure we should cut staff/security at those places. I want those folks closely guarded.
I can do *without* a state park at Lake Vermilion. To me, it seems like a colossal waste of money in a time when we don't have money to waste.
The state estimates the value for the land alone is $14 million; I'd like to believe that money would go a long way if it were put to other uses. Why not allow the private sector to develop the land instead? That seems to be a more Republican approach. :)
Too bad Governor Pawlenty seems to consider this park as his legacy; a better legacy would be leaving the future taxpayers of the state with a surplus instead of a deficit.
So, gradually getting more and more people addicted to other people's money means that we can never cut anything?
Everytime there is a tax increase, it's never enough.
So, Greece is the word?
Quit taxing property owners for highway and street construction and maintenance. Make cars and trucks pay their own way.
Reduce the number of traffic cops. Eliminate the meter maids. Provide only the police necessary to protect people and property. Eliminate the nanny laws.
Eliminate all state employee benifits. Cut the legislature to a single body with 174 members (2 per county). Reduce government offices to exactly 1/2 what the empire builders claim to need.
Eliminate public funding "hobby" departments in "higher education." Children can learn to study themselves and their favorite hobbies or superstitions (most of Liberal Arts, religion, ethnic and sexuality studies, the arts, basket weaving, communications, marketing, business mismanagement, etc.) on their own dollar. Put the education system to work rebuilding the economy, not just providing a babysitting service to idle rich kids.
Eliminate all corporate welfare. Do not neglect to clean out all the agricultural welfare.
Even though I may not use all of the government services available that doesn't mean that they aren't worthwhile. Gov. Pawlenty's "no tax increases" stance and his lack of leadership required to make tough decisions now and for our future is truly sad.
My answer to the question is "no". We just need smarter leadership in the Governor's office. Hopefully we'll get that soon.
I could do without state and local government pension plans. No benefit not available to every person working in the private sector should be provided to government employees. They are already underworked and overpaid. Why give them pensions, insurance, and other perks? It's not like those jobs won't find plenty of applicants without paying for unnecessary extras.
Dump the DNR. They should be downsized and renamed "Hunting and Fishing" and paid for with licenses and tourism fees. We need a state EPA that works to protect natural resources for the future and that would deserve property tax funding.
Eliminate meter maids and most of what local police do that does not provide protection to citizens. Eliminate the "mommy" laws and return policing to actual criminal activity instead of pointless rule violations.
I could do without the polarization of our political system.
Police.
The first government program that we can live without are all the perks enjoyed by our representatives.
It would be interesting to see what happens when our legislators and governor have to actually pay for the decisions they make without cushy programs making their lives easier.
The other program I can do without is this "no new taxes" program the Governor has enforced upon us. A totally hypercritical stance considering that taxes have increased, just at the local level.
I like most of the Gov, MN is the best state by far. We should fund Higher Ed and the Justice Dept more because its pretty dumb to make cuts there. If I would make cuts I would start with the Governor and his staff. He increased the size of his office during his time and clearly it wasn't worth the money.
Poor choice of question. Perhaps if you'd asked "Can you name a Government service you make use of that you would be willing to do without"? Personally, there are very few.
I can point to dozens of programs that I don't personally use, but sure - they can be cut. I don't have to worry about those consequences directly. Just more homeless on the streets, even more uneducated people, streets that aren't safe to drive on, buildings that are on the verge of collapse or combustion... etc etc.
But I'm an American - I don't have to worry 'bout nuthin. We don't need no guvmint.
HELP , QUICK HAVE CANADA educate our
grades 1 thru 12 because the Governor
cant tax the rich , because the rich an the Governor
are so busy with their own special needs,.
This Governor is a bad person to our children.
I'm willing to do without all the services that other people use. The ones I use are clearly essential.
I can't think of any government service that I'd like to do without, and despite the mythology, I generally think that everything has been cut to the bone at this point, so here's a novel idea: since the government' gets its income from taxes, and since Pawlenty is leaving us with a 2 billion+ dollar deficit, why don't we raise taxes enough to resolve our financial problems and keep our services intact. I am 100% fine with paying a little more in taxes to live in a state that is fiscally stable and has a great quality of life.
The thing no one seems to care about is the fact that the cost to provide the services we are promising is growing faster than the growth of the economy. It's not about cutting this program or that program, it's about figuring out how to deliver what we promise more efficiently. Over half the budget goes to Health and Human Services, (HHS) and education. It's not that we have expanded our liabilities in those areas so much that we're bankrupting ourselves, it's that the cost of providing the services we have under existing programs has grown exponentially and is on a path to be unsustainable. People should realize that social programs and education are becoming higher cost every year, far outpacing the rate of growth in revenue from economic growth. Either you will continue to give a larger portion of GDP to those areas or reform them. Raising taxes to pay for the gap now doesn't address the fundamental problem that these areas continue to require a larger percentage of the state budget and will continue to do so unless serious reform is mandated. Why are people so fundamentally opposed to reforming systems and making state spending on HHS and education be in line with a reasonable percentage of our GDP?
Free Enterprise!
No subsidies for any business or corporation!
We're talking state - as opposed to city, county and federal - spending, right?
Where to start?
All the proposals below are predicated on passing the savings back to the taxpayer:
Cut Local Government Aid. It's a means to launder local spending through the state. Let local units be accountable to their own taxpayers.
Eliminate the State Dept of Education. All education should be local.
Eliminate the State Patrol; we have plenty of local cops and county sheriffs.
Cut state arts subsidies. Including that of Minnesota Public Radio. I like MPR, but when you're running a radio station out of a place that's more lavish than any TV station I've ever seen, you've got enough money, thanks.
Eliminate "Baseline budgeting" - tacking on automatic increases to existing budgets - for all social welfare spending. Start over every year with the actual usage. Institute serious welfare-to-work policies, so that that actual usage drops. Also, increase the length of state residency before giving benefits.
Privatize light rail transit (which involves money at many, many levels).
Eliminate the restriction against Charter Schools using state money to buy buildings.
Require all public schools to stand or fall based on the criteria that charter schools already have to follow.
If possible switch to a biennial legislature (like North Dakota which, by the way, has not raised legislative pay since the 1890's; it's still $5 a day).
I was just listening to Pawlenty and I was surprised to hear him speak about joining services in each county. I live in a large county and our services are divided between north and south. To apply for services it is a 25 mile trip one way. I would hate to see that in any other circumstance.
No need for LEGISLATORS.
Lets show the way Minnesota!!
I have believed in bio~regionalism for a very long time. And in that organiztion there is no need for the legislators.....Each area has a board which wrestles with the issues facing the state and an appointee is forwarded to the state to deal with the state issues. It would be a fairer system and would eliminate the cost of the legislators.....
So many go comments
Pawlenty
Let's eliminate half of Minnesota's 87 counties. We don't need 87, California operates with about 20.
Though Homeland Security has had success, they seem to overreach into the jurisdiction of other government entities. They often take charge of operations that would better be left to NSA, the FBI, and others. Maybe we could do without NSA & the FBI since Homeland Security seems to be a Jack of All Trades?
Can I name a government service I'd be willing to do without? This is a trick question.
The trick is, citizens are often only aware of the government programs that impact them personally, and thus those are likely the ones they would NOT be willing to do without. There are probably hundreds of programs I've never utilized that I could theoretically live without, but could I name them? Nope, because I've never heard of most of them. Maybe they're critical to some population that I'm not part of (drug rehabilitation? childcare subsidies?), or maybe they're important to infrastructure but just invisible to me (accounting? I.T.?), or maybe they are generically important but so sprawling that I can NAME them, but couldn't tell you specifically what among the program might be efficient and what other among the program might be rife with waste (public safety? K-12?).
The honest answer is that there are likely cuts that can be made to ALL programs across the board. But the result of a trick question like this is to create a list of scapegoat programs -- things that have caught the media's attention as examples of waste. If this were a question of the City of Minneapolis instead of the state, we'd have a dozen comments already about "artistic water fountains". I'll be interested to watch this thread and see what scapegoats or boondoggles on the state level will emerge.
How about we go with what they NEED to do and every things else gets scraped.
Our Sate Gov't should be responsible for:
Security - National Guard, Highway patrol
Roads
Education - K-12
Environmental protection
Maintain State Parks and buildings
Welfare for short defined terms
EVERY!!! Else is on the chopping block.
DTOM
Watering the flowers on Main Street, Anoka.
Meter "maids" and highway patrol issuing speeding tickets! Two totally unnecessary evils.
"Today's Question: Can you name a government service you'd be willing to do without?"
Not really. For instance, something like mowing park property seems like a pretty reasonable thing to cut, particularly those areas that aren't used as park, like the strip between the street and Minnehaha Creek, across the street from my house. But that strip of land is home to thousands of dandelions, which are spreading their seeds throughout the neighborhood, adding to my chore list, to pull weeds from the garden and lawn. If I let my lawn grow uncut like that, the city would send a crew out & charge me for the service. But the park can get away without cutting in order to 'save money' - passing the costs of not doing so onto me, who has to deal with their mess. In the grand scheme of things, it is surely only a minor annoyance. But it makes the point: cutting government services is not free of impacts to our quality of life.
Good question. I could "do without" many of these services/programs, which are services in Hennepin County only. (I realize many could not do without these services.) Perhaps the private and nonprofit sectors could assume much of more of these burdens if the county government incentivized the private and nonprofit sectors in more innovative ways?
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center
Publishing the Public Health Journal
Ryan White Program
Publishing the Adult Behavioral Health Services Directory
MHP Health Care Plans
Free or Sliding Fee Mental Health Clinics
Community Informational Sessions for Seniors and People with Disabilities
Bicycle Capital Improvement Program
Community Advocate program
River Watch Volunteer Monitoring
Citizen Academy
Parent Aide
Publishing the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Guide
Fort Snelling Upper Post
Group Residential Housing
Integrated Pest Management
Ethanol subsidies are a total boondoggle.
I can do without TIm Pawlenty's services.
If Republicans want to cut the size of government by eliminating welfare, a good place to start would be getting rid of subsidies to meat and dairy farmers.
The Governorship
The State Legislature
1. At a national level, stop subsidizing tobacco farmers.
2. At a state level, we don't need to give the big dollar MPR any money, They do a good job and can make it on their own.
Corporate welfare and agricultural subsidies.
No, I cannot.
And this is something that we need to remind people of early on. It is soooo easy to say reduce taxes. Yet, when people are asked to be specific and list what they would go without, it is difficult.
I believe we have cut too much. Prior to the cuts made by Gov Ventura and Gov Pawlenty the tax rate was good. And we had good services. We had good education. We had a good quality of life. But no longer.
| May 2010 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 | |||||
Master Archive
Recent Entries
- Have changes to the airline passenger experience affected your willingness to fly?
- Should marijuana be available for medical use in Minnesota?
- Do the struggles of Minnesota's business icons signal trouble for the state's economy?
- Do you know whether insurance would cover your losses in a major storm?
- What kind of recycling program would you be likely to use the most?
- Would you support paying people for organ or tissue donations?
- Have personal relationships in the workplace ever presented a problem for you?
- Do you think Facebook is a passing fad?
- Will you be less likely to visit the Minnesota Zoo without its dolphins?
- Should authorities in the Twin Cities change the way they warn people about tornadoes?
Public Insight Network
The Public Insight Network draws upon your experiences to help shape our coverage.More
Categories
Services
In The Spotlight
-
Sound Learning
Looking for ways to ensure your students are doing quality research from credible sources? Sound Learning is a launching point to Minnesota Public Radio's content on the Web. -
The Current Music Blog
Your daily note for good music, news and pop culture. With attempted jokes.
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock