| I find the Republican perspective more convincing: * Roads, police, schools, and other critical things that businesses need to thrive are mostly provided by state and local governments. * Those critical things actually cost a pretty small fraction of total government spending. * The exception to the above point would be the DoD, which could be seen as critical to the success of business, and DARPA which funds a lot of good research that businesses use. But is the lesson here that we need more defense spending? Or more DARPA spending? Or more basic research outside of the DoD? * If the lesson is that we should have more funding for DARPA or basic research outside the DoD, then great. I'm 100% in agreement. It's a very small fraction of the budget now (I see DARPA is about 3.2B), so increasing it won't make a dent. None of this seems relevant in the context of the very high federal spending right now. Very few of those dollars apply to the things businesses need to thrive. And as for any moral argument, the people already paid for these things once, so it's not like something is owed any more than I still owe the grocery store for the food I bought. Yes, I will buy there again; and similarly, we shouldn't cut the government functions that are necessary for business to thrive. But no, the Democrats at the federal level can't take credit for the police my city hired or the roads they built. And they can't use the success of DARPA to justify a bunch of things that don't resemble DARPA and cost much more money. (For those wondering, I live in a Democrat-controlled city; and I have, when I felt it was appropriate, voted for city tax increases because I think they do a great job, notwithstanding an apparent monorail project[1]. So I'm not a "government is bad" kind of person.) [1] That's a reference to a Simpson's episode, not meant literally. |