Well, that assumption isn’t being made by me

No, Robert ? Well, given the generality of your statements, it’s an easy enough assumption for another person to make.

I remain skeptical of your conclusions.

I’m not sure what you mean by “trust funds.” Are you talking about contributions to the so-called Social Security trust fund? It doesn’t exist. It’s just the SSA lending money to the Treasury, and it’s not double-counted.

Look—I’ve made my case, and I’ve provided solid documentation so that you can verify the truth of everything I’ve said. If you think I’m wrong, I’m willing to consider any credible evidence you can show me. But I’m not going to spend my time chasing after vague claims about trust funds and government payroll (I realize that was someone else, not you). Let me know when you have the numbers.

Ampersand:
Increased government spending per capita is the expected - and, arguably, the inevitable - result of the country getting wealthier. I’m not sure, therefore, that it qualifies as a problem.

That’s fine. I disagree, but there’s an argument to be made for your position. But as per-capita GDP increases, you should be able to maintain a constant level of government services while spending a smaller portion of GDP to do so. If government continues to take up a constant percentage of an ever-increasing GDP, then that strongly implies that we’re getting more government services for that money (or maybe just gross incompetence).

Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is a question on which reasonable and informed people can disagree. All I’m saying is that government spending is increasing in a real and meaningful way, a fact that your post didn’t really acknowledge.

Here of course I am refering to countries where there is some kind proper administratin in place, which I would presume to be the cae in teh US.

Another reason why public systems are usually better is that there are no religious or other agenda that gets in the way of the actual service provided. People can look at the rules and figure out what they are entitled to, instead of having to live up to some abitary rule - like having to pray before receiving food, which is the case at some US religious charities.

While government social service agencies are also largely insulated from the people they serve, the people being served are at least the voters who elect the government which controls the social service agencies. While this is another sort of feed back loop than competition, it is actually the feed back loop that is more important than the competition.

Also, private social service organizations are competitors for government social service agencies. While it is rare that private social service agencies provide good enough services to impact the public social services, there are places where they do. For instance, Utah has exceptionally good private social services through the LDS, and therefore has lousy state social services. The majority of the population get their social services through the church, and therefore have no need to support government social services. Which is unfortunate if you are poor in Utah and not a Mormon.

I also have worked in both the private and public sectors.

In terms of social spending, I can’t think of one program that wouldn’t win in a vote (although I’m sure that I’m not thinking of all of them) & I suspect that a few that don’t currently exist would also win a vote.

I suppose that it’s possible that the “faith-based” program would fail based on its poor performance - but even that is questionable. But Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - those all pass. Food stamps would have its 5-year lifetime max rolled back. AFDC passes, disability passes. College loans, headstart, Job Corps all pass. People both love these programs and love to complain about paying for these programs. But when push comes to shove, they don’t want to eliminate them.

Or so I think. I’d love to see research & the resulting numbers on this.

I agree that the private sector can have gross inefficiencies and that market pressures can seriously distort their performance.

It’s just that private enterprise can’t usually persist in inefficiency over the long term the way the government can. A private charity that is generating terrible return for its donor’s gifts is subject to competition from new charities, whose managers sense an opportunity to easily steal donors from the old, bad charity (”all we have to do is demonstrate that we’re spending the money on feeding the homeless instead of office perks!”). Governments don’t compete with one another in that fashion.

Anything that isn’t required to compete tends to go to shit.

What is your opinion of the efficiency of the American insurance industry, Robert?

Just like it was circa 1800. No thanks, I’ll stick with governmentally funded social services.

I would say that neither is true for every type of service, or every type of government.

Because private sources are usually less efficient, and quite selective?

Private sources are less efficient than government? In the United States? Everyone I know that I’ve discussed the matter with holds exactly the opposite opinion. My personal experiences in getting services from the private sector vs. from the government would certainly support the opposite opinion. On what do you base your opinion?

As far as being quite selective - how is that a bad thing? Provision of social services would be a function of what social services the people providing the money for them think should have priority. They would vote with their dollars. If we went to an extreme where the government didn’t fund any social services (which I’m not arguing for right this moment) the result would be pure democracy. If people don’t think a given social service should be provided, they don’t have to worry about lobbying their representatives and chewing up legislative cycles and costs; they can just not give the organizations providing those services any money.