I recently read an article by the author of California's first TABOR (Tax Payer Bill of Rights), Lewis K. Uehler, who worked and authored under then Governor Reagan. After wading through some partisan re-telling of history and some spin of the Obama stimulus package, I got to the real gist of Uehler's piece, in which he raises the question, "what is the proper size of government?" (http://www.humanevents.com/...

This is a very important question. He admits, as I think we all must, that there are some government functions beyond those explicitly outlined in the Constitution that we must secure and preserve. What he asks for, reasonably I think, is an accounting of services and an analysis of whether the Federal government provides them most efficiently or if other means are better or even sufficient.

Oddly, as he posits such a reasonable (even Obama-esque) take on the issue of government spending, governance and taxes, he also announces the new magic figure of 20% of GDP for optimum. He notes that shortly after WWII we were at 23% and that now we are at 35%.

In the meantime, he has supplanted government spending with government size. One wonders if he would be happier with three guys spending 20% then 3 million spending 20%; does personnel, networks, infrastructure, etc., count for nothing? Because of this, one must assume, Uehler sees no value in new deal type answers for stimulus. To him it is just spending to no avail. The new road, bridge or smart grid doesn't figure in his calculus.

But returning to the rest of the argument, I think he makes quite valuable points about measuring the value of government programs and functions. Obama made the same notion a centerpiece of his candidacy and has discussed it again as President repeatedly (http://www.govexec.com/dail... and http://www.newsweek.com/id/... among others.

Uehler proposes the following list of criteria as a means of sparking the needed analysis:

1.    Shouldn’t we start with the presumption that any federal function not specifically delegated to the federal government in the Constitution bears the burden of proof to remain a government function?
2.    Do some government activities have a greater return on the investment of public dollars than others?  Is there a ranking system?
3.    What effect do non-fiscal/spending functions of government – regulation, government planning, etc. – have on achieving the optimal size of government?
4.  What role do certain special interests (“rent-seekers”) have in driving government growth beyond the optimal level, and how can they be neutralized?  These rent-seekers include government employees and public employee unions; lobbyists; special-interest spenders (farm lobby, defense contractors, etc.); and special-interest “advocates” for the poor and others.
5.   To what extent has excessive government “crowded out” private action in reducing societal problems, and what are the relative costs of public and private responses?
6.    How should the core (optimal) functions of government be allocated among the federal, state and local governments, and how should the allocation decisions be made?
7.  What is the most effective and least invasive/destructive tax system that should accompany the effort to right-size government and that will help us reach our goal ?  The reality of tax competition with other nations is forcing us to cut our corporate tax rate from 35% to at least 25%.  It is such tax competition between our US states that has tended to discipline those state politicians devoted to high taxes. We welcome this globalization of tax competition because it simply can’t be ignored by Washington liberals.

I think any debate starting from these grounds, even number 7, which may not turn out the way he expects, would profit this country greatly.

I wonder how, on the other hand, the question of social goods and equities escapes the analysis.

Before the eyeballs of my Conservative friends here start rolling, let me remind everyone that government has proven itself invaluable many times in our history.

Here is a partial list in no particular order:

1. Enforcing Brown v Board of Education: (http://www.america.gov/st/e...

2. Uniform, national law enforcement that prevented criminals escaping by crossing state lines (http://www.espionageinfo.co...

3. A national highway system unrivalled in the world (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/pla...

4. Food quality and safety (http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~l...

5. Interstate Emergency Management Services (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

6. Establishment and maintenance of Natural Areas as Permanent Features for Posterity and Future Generations (http://www.nps.gov/history/...

There are of course many more. I don't write this article as a history, so enough for now. The point is that while we contemplate the size of government and attempt to ascertain its efficiencies, isn't it also important to question whether there exists any entity that could provide similar services on a meaningful basis?

There are some things that should not be left to the free market for the simple reason that price and profit should not be the primary criteria of measuring the operation of such things as safety (fire, police, emergency); education (private schools have the option of refusing some students - where do they go from there?); regulations of a hundred kind - food, weights and measures, health, industry, construction, etc., etc..

Perhaps this is a fundamental of Conservative vs Liberal thinking, but I hope it is also a time for each to educate the other.

Bottom line: our government shouldn't be  any bigger than it needs to be, but we must face that there are some things we cannot hand over to private (market controlled) forces even if we pay for the resulting inefficiencies financially. In other words, social goods have to be purchased and we should be prepared to pay for them.