How Much Is Too Much? The Question of Government Intervention, Posed for the Second Time (to me)

I have noticed a trend in my readings for school lately- the issue of public vs. private, or public-private partnerships, and how much of a role should government take in daily affairs of its citizens?

This last question is incredibly loaded and I no way intend to make this into a Tea Party soap box other household objects noun noun mop mop broom broom?

Instead, I'd like to gripe that this information would have been very helpful to me last year when I was sitting through a rather painful and sortof unnecessary class that is required called Intersectoral Leadership.

Back then I was a snot-nosed planning punk and I didn't understand what policy had to do with planning (answer = everything!) I kind of understood that policy lets planners do "stuff," but I didn't see why I had to spend two- eight-hour weekends (Saturday and Sunday) sitting in a classroom listening to an NPO (non-profit organization) guy tell me that government has gotten so big *cue the voice you use when gesturing with a baby* SO BIG! that it has to delegate some of its functions. Woot. Couldn't one have just put that on say, a memo and I'd promise to read it (and subsequently never would.)

However, this theme has come up again to haunt me. It is getting close to Halloween, or as the Misfits say "every day is Halloween."

This time the subject is coming up in my transportation class. The question was posed, what if there were no governmental role in transportation? It's an interesting question for a planner, admittedly less so for Joe Schmoe. But it does pose an interesting parallel universe, where corporations, or savvy entrepreneurs could charge sky-high rates to utilize their roads, which may, or may not be in serviceable condition. There wouldn't be synchronizing of traffic lights, would there even be traffic lights? This is of course jumping off from the world as we know it and Big Brother just walking away, saying "Have at it, kids" not some world where traffic lights were never invented.

Also, the theme is cropping up in my economics class under the guise of markets and the government.

I suppose that this is good as I have to write a paper for my econ class about some topic that relates to economics, and yes, deep down, like Kevin Bacon, there are six degrees or less to anything in the universe and economics. I may be able to expound on bus deregulation- I'll spare you the details, but in a nutshell in the era of Reagan and Thatcher, bus routes were sold off to the private sector, leaving those who used under-utilized routes, aka often the rural routes, in the lurch. (And one wonders why London had to introduce congestion pricing.) But now I'm just nerding out.

I guess what goes around comes around. And maybe one'll like it a little better the second time. Maybe.