How Big Do Liberals Want Government to Be?

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They are used to proctect the citizens but are not payed by Uncle Sam'. But by the Taxpayer the govermeants main source of money is the Taxpayer.

Yes the peole that accuse Libertarians of that are Liberals mostly.

We have several layers of government in the U.S. In addition to the central government there is the government of the several states and the governments of counties, towns, villages and cities.

ruveyn

But it is the taxpayer that pays them.

Any job paid directly from tax revenue is a government job, at some level of government. Police are funded locally for the most part. The money comes from the local property tax. That and any bribe a cop can get his hands on pays his freight.

ruveyn

Very true their is a lot of coruption in the police force.

First of all, you look like you're putting the cart before the horse. You predicated your statement on supporting government to provide defence, policing and courts--and nothing else. But now you hold up Hongkong as one of your ideals. Well, let's look at Hongkong, then. Hongkong does not have a small government by any stretch of the imagination.

49% of all housing in Hongkong is provided by the public sector (Hongkong Housing Department) through public rental housing (31%), Housing Authority subsidized sale apartments (17%) and Housing Society subsidized sale apartments (1%).
The Hongkong Education department either provides or subsidizes primary and secondary education for the vast majority of students, as well as providing voucher subsidies for early childhood education. Government also heavily subsidizes tuition for college and university education.
Hongkong provides universal health care to all residents through a network of 50 public hospitals. While these are complemented by 12 private hospitals and the 2 medical faculties, this does not erode the guarantee of publicly funded health care, delivered through publicly run institutions.
Hongkong has a mandatory contributory pension scheme ("provident fund")
Hong Kong has a large Social Welfare Department that expects to spend HKD 43.5 bn (USD 5.6 bn) in FY 2012-13 (and that does not include public housing costs that are covered by the HKHD).
In almost every typical area of government function, Hong Kong's public sector is large, and active--except, of course, for defence and foreign affairs, which are handled from, and paid for by Beijing.

And while Hong Kong most certainly does have low levels of income taxation (15% on individuals and 16.5% on corporations), it heavily taxes in other areas.

The "first registration tax" on a motor vehicle, for example, can be up to 115% of the purchase price of the vehicle.
Stamp duty is charged on property transactions at 4.25%. This includes lease agreements, and the sale and purchase of securities.
Estate duty is charged at 15% on estates over the threshhold amount.
Gifts are assessed stamp duty at up to 2.75%
Property tax (rates) are 4.5% of the value of the property.

Just because a jurisdiction does not levy taxes in the same way does not mean that it levies low taxes. The Hongkong government levied $209bn in 2010-11 ($26.8bn USD), on an economy of $243bn--an effective tax rate of 11%. Now, I will grant you that this is roughly half the effective tax rate of the United States, but bear in mind that Hongkong has vastly lower costs for the delivery of government services because of the compaction and density of its population. It has no significant primary production--hence no subsidy costs. It's defence and foreign affairs interests are paid for by the national government in Beijing. It's transportation infrastructure is confined to a single port, and two airports (if you count Shekkong), and a dense concentration of urban roadways, meaning that infrastructure costs can be distributed amongst a much higher userbase, lowering the cost of building and maintaining it on an individual basis.

So if Hongkong is your example, then where is your claim about only supporting government in the areas of defence, police and courts? Because Hongkong is certainly not a viable example of small government. What it is, though, is an example of efficient government. And that is largely a benefit of geography.

The example of Houston, on the other hand, demonstrates only that low taxation and "business-friendly" regulatory policy are only effective in so far as they allow a jurisdiction to compete with other jurisdictions. Houston may well be thriving--but there are plenty of low-tax, business friendly cities in the United States that are not.

And there are other factors to consider. After all--government policy should be about creating a livable country/state/city. Livability should take into account not merely fiscal factors like tax rates, median incomes and employment statistics, it should also take into consideration housing affordability, quality of schools and other public services, regulatory burdens (to business and individuals), crime and other relevant factors. When we look at these issues all together, how successful are these, "low-tax, business-friendly" jurisdictions at creating places where we would actually want to live, as opposed to the places where we actually tolerate living.

Where are the most livable cities in the United States? Well they don't tend to be the low-tax, business-friendly cities. Rather than rely on the Mercer studies and their ilk, try this paper on for size: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~albouy/Q ... ingqol.pdf

First off, I'll be honest. I haven't read your entire post nor the article you linked. It's obvious that you've misunderstood the statements you're responding to. Hong Kong is not one of my ideals. I merely stated that it has "...relatively low levels of taxation...compared to others in the region...".

Also, I do not care about some entirely subjective study about which areas are the most "livable". My only claim is that economic freedom brings economic prosperity. The relatively strong economies currently enjoyed by Houston and Hong Kong stand as examples of my claim.