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Roads, hospitals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Financing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Finan... Hospitals ar

• grandalf 16y ago
  Hospitals are to varying degrees Federally tax exempt, and they of course collect payment from Medicare/Medicaid, but many, many hospitals are primarily supported by local and state governments. This isn't to say that Federal funding isn't sometimes useful. Federal central planning built the interstate highway system for military purposes, and this had the side effect of making suburban living desirable, draining the tax base from cities and destroying some urban environments, leading to urban crime, poverty, etc. Nonetheless, the highways have probably been helpful to the economy as a whole even if they did destroy some cities along the way. My point is mainly to highlight that the primary interface with government services should be the local and state level. That we get so disproportionally excited about Federal laws/elections/officials shows that politics is mostly for entertainment/signaling purposes and that the useful roles of government are unglamorous and are typically accomplished quite effectively by the local municipality. Incidentally, today is garbage day. I derive tremendously more utility from garbage day than I do (or ever will) from the Iraq war, Afghanistan war or Social Security.