Proposed Constitutional Amendment:
Any goods or services provided by the government shall be made
available to all citizens at the same terms.
You must think about this proposal for a while, but I think it will
grow on you. The idea is to eliminate all the bureaucracies
dedicated to deciding who gets what the government is offering -- and
the scandals that inevitably result. It doesn't matter what it
is: welfare, food stamps, cheese, driver's licenses, building permits,
you name it. If the government is giving it away for free, then
Bill Gates should be eligible to walk in and pick up his share.
If the government is selling it, the price should be the same for everybody regardless of race,
creed, social status, or financial situation.
This would have the effect of making liberal giveaway programs look
very expensive. This is as it should be; liberal giveaway
programs are very
expensive. But the tack of telling the voters that it'll be cheap
because we're limiting the program to only the most needy individuals
will no longer work. And the game of individuals making
themselves appear needy in order to get the goods while a bureaucracy
spends half the funding trying to ferret out such deadbeats will go
away. Honest taxpaying citizens will actually be more likely to support worthwhile
programs, because A) they themselves can reap the benefits rather than
it all going to undeserving strangers; and B) because a high percentage
of the funding will actually go for these benefits rather than for a
bureaucracy to decide who deserves them.
No, everybody doesn't automatically get the same retirement benefits
that government employees get. The terms for those is that you
must work for the government; you can't get the same benefits without
providing the same career service. It might be interpreted that anyone
that works for the government gets the same retirement benefits, though,
which would put an end to the practice of Senators and Representatives
having their own retirement program separate and vastly superior to the
programs offered to other government employees.
Return to Kirby
Palm's opinions page.
Return to Kirby
Palm's home page.
Of course, if you have questions or comments, you are welcome to
send
e-mail to me at "palmk at nettally dot com".