Governments can be slow, inefficient, and wasteful. Despite this, are there things that only a government can accomplish?
The government of a country behaves differently than an individual or a for-profit company. As a result, there are things that a government can do that would be too expensive, take too long, or otherwise be problematic for someone else.
Private companies are subject to different motivations. A company has an incentive to offer a product or a service at the highest quality and lowest price that it can. Otherwise, a competitor might steal away customers.
However, there are no competitors for a government. The incentives are different, and that might mean proliferation of waste or fraud, which many people are concerned about. There have been many efforts over the years to reduce fraud and abuse, with varying levels of success.
Still, there are some things that a government can do that private enterprise cannot or will not. One of the more common examples is the postal system. To send a letter via the postal service, cost might be around a dollar or so. You could send that same letter via a commercial shipping company (like UPS or FedEx), but it would be much more expensive.
In part, that’s because the goal of the two is different. The company’s goal is to make a profit. The government’s goal is to deliver the public’s mail — even if it is done at a loss.
Can you think of other examples of projects that have to be done by a government, or they would be more expensive or wouldn’t get done at all?
Related questions: What role should the government play in our lives? What are our responsibilities to others? How much power does an individual have? Where does authority come from?
First, opponents of different levels of government often exaggerate concerns about waste, fraud, and abuse to diminish our belief that governments can achieve meaningful results. (Of course, it’s not a bad thing to audit government programs to ensure tax dollars are put to good use.)
That said, here’s a very short list of programs, services, and institutions that are better kept in the public realm:
1. National defense
2. U.S. Foreign Aid (not only does it help keep other countries as our allies, but it also prevents millions of deaths of vulnerable people)
3. Social Security
4. Universal public education
5. Subsidized grants and loans for public higher education
6. Police and firefighting services
7. Subsidized public transportation
8. Maintaining roads and bridges
9. Publicly available and maintained city, state, and national parks
10. Local food safety inspections
11. Unemployment insurance
12. Several safety net programs exist for those with lower incomes (e.g., Medicaid; free- and reduced-cost meals at schools; housing, food, and heating assistance programs; subsidized childcare, Head Start, etc.)
13. National Institutes of Health
14. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention