Unfortunately, my experience of the “average voter” in this county will be, “Don’t tax me bro’!” and any attempt to increase funding from the local folks will go down in flames.

Bu that’s just me…

Your stretch that the police are a “special interest group”, using a definition out of wikipedia (I prefer Merriam-Webster) might be valid for any other group, but I do not believe it applies to the police.
This is because the police are the one institution that must exist for a society based on the Natural Rights of Man and property rights to exist at all. The police, from the Greek “polis”,are supposedly the citizens hired by us all to help any citizen whose property rights are being violated. They represent not a narrow lobby, like the police, but Everyman. They are all of us; when they intervene, we in a sense intervene since their existence is axiomatic to the existence of any government based on Rights of Man. Arming them and protecting them adequately is not a special interest matter, but the first agenda of any such government.
As far as the numbers go, between 2000 and 2006 an range of 50 to 72 police died every year from gunshot wounds. So over the course of forty years, Dr. Paul’s bill would literally save thousands of lives. When we add in the officers maimed and permanently disabled, the widows and the children who will grow up witoout a father, the toll is far greater. Yet in a Federal Budget of over 1trillion dollars, we cannot find the wherewithal to provide this basic protection for this most basic of functions.
I also think the fact the police risk having their head blown off 20 times a day for 25 years is a very good reason to remunerate them for the existential risk they take, which no other government employee outside the military takes on. A commissioner sitting in his office does not face these kinds of risks. At worst, he may get a few complaints in the press from the tiny minority willing to speak out against their own economic exploitation by the bureaucratic lobby.
And while I agree that every government employee deserves the same honor and respect, be he clerk or teacher, as the police, I do not believe this extends to elected public officials, who often show themselves to be charlatans. We owe elected officials no honor when they transgress the law and violate the Constitution.
But if you think providing government bureacrats with bloated salaries and benefit packages at the expense of so many of our police officers lives is worth it, well, you are entitled to your opinion.

As far as the police being a “socialist institution”, I would call it more of a “government institution which must exist for the Rights guaranteed in the Constitution to be warranted”.I think you are really stretching this one.
Now as a Minarchist, who believes in the most minimal government necessary to carry out the stipulations of the U.S. Constitution, I might be called a “socialist” by those Anarchists who want no government at all but who think society could function just fine if all respected the property rights of others. Many of these Anarcho-Capitalists do believe in private police forces, as well as private fire departments, courts and roads. They would also like to scrap the U.S. Constitution and go back to the Articles of Confederation. There arguments make a lot of sense to me, but on a practical level I do not think their views would have a snowball’s
chance right now of electibility. Returning to the U.S. Constitution, however, would receive a lot of public support. It’s degree will be illustrated in the next election.

Your thinking’s bent is well illustrated by your support for government spending what is necessary ” to provide for ‘life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness”. But these are not our governments function at all. If you reread the Declaration you will see that governments function is to guarantee the Rights to these three things, not to provide them.
Utilitarian philosophy says, provide these things, but at the expense of the Rights of Man, and morality. Jeremy Bentham, whose philosophy of “the greatest good for the greatest number” is behind this utilitarian attitude and he inculcated that attitude in his disciple James Mill, and his son, John Stuart. This justifies socialism: it’s ok to violate the Rights of Man if more people are helped by it than hurt. This would fully justify 93% of the population confiscating the wealth of the other 7% if it could be statistically shown to have raised the standard of living of the whole society. As Bastiat so well put it “Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly justifiable, if only sactioned by law.” Thus, Utilitarianism stands in stark contrast to Libertarian Creed, the philosophy of Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and Bastiat, which is founded on the non-aggression principle: No man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else.
I believe it is because of this Utilitarian philosophy being adopted by our two major parties, and because of an appalling lack of knowledge of the Constitution and the philosophy that went into it, that our country faces such drastic problems.

I’m equally amazed at your thinking Mr. Rodriguez’s tax rate is equally distributed throughout the market. Lower income people pay no taxes at all. Corporations often pay lower income tax rates than individuals, are often given tax giveaways by governors and state legislators. Oregon just gave the California Film Industry a big tax break at the expense of Oregon taxpayers. Billionaires pay not one cent of income tax on Municipal Bonds. So how can you say that taxes are equally distributed throughout the market?That’s absurd.

And no, I can’t even agree that “the greatest problem that faces our nation faces (sic) is military spending”. While I’d say that’s maybe 35-40% of it, I think it is the whole totality of spending at the Federal level that is nowhere mandated in the Constitution. All these programs, from Farm Subsidies, to the Military Bases, to Prescription Drug Guaranteed Bankruptcy Bill, to the Space Program, to corporate export subsidies (Why does McDonald’s need a tax subsidy taken from you and me?) all this pelf must be stopped and return to the people. Then we will have a prosperous and free capitalist society with very little poverty if any. Just trust in the free markets and leave the individual alone if he is not violating anyone elses property rights.

I’d strongly recommend to you Murray N. Rothbard’s demolition of the theories of Ricardo, Mill and Adam Smith in his lecture on the Pre-Austrians available at Mises.org. Click on Media, then go down about a third of the page and click on Murray N. Rothbard Archives, and about halfway down the page you can find his audio lecture under History of Economic Thought, part 3 (The Pre-Austrians). I’d also recommend lecture No. 2 on development of Communism and Marx to hear him blast Marx’s shoddy thinking.

Thanks for the stimulating and important debate, Joe. It’s been fun. — Paul Grad

While I may not always choose the exact words that I should, in this case I stand by my assertions.

Let us begin with some definitions.
wikipedia lists: Special Interest Group:

”An interest group (also called an advocacy group, lobbying group, pressure group (UK), or special interest) is a group, however loosely or tightly organized, doing advocacy: those determined to encourage or prevent changes in public policy without trying to be elected.”

I believe the folks advocating Rep. Paul’s bill would clearly fit that description.

The “socialist welfare” was a reference to my understanding of your views regarding favoritism by the government. I stand by that assertion as well.

Merriam Webster defines socialism thusly:

“any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods”

Since I do not hear you calling for private police protection, I assume you advocate governmental ownership of this service.

Let me be clear, I fully support our government spending all that it takes to provide for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” As a tax paying citizen, I support spending on law enforcement-for personnel as well as equipment. What I find surprising is that you would support providing special tax credits for some individuals over others.

By the way do you have any facts to back the assertion that “several thousand lives of police officers” will be saved. Do we have several thousand officers dying because of insufficient equipment?

In your discussions about why our current tax system is unfair, you site ‘special tax breaks’ as one of the ways that makes taxing immoral. “Oh,” but you protest, “These are public servants and they deserve special accommodation.” Later, you say it is a matter of, “honor and dedication” to serve as county commissioner and that they should work for minimum wage. Well, is it not a matter of honor and dedication to serve as a police officer?

I feel that the folks that serve the public, whether as a cop or commish’, teacher or office clerk, deserve the best that we can offer. They all would better serve us if we respected them equally.

Your discussion on the harm done by taxes is interesting though hollow. You ignore the fact that taxes are theoretically (…topic of another discussion, I’m sure) equally distributed throughout the market and if Mr. Rodriguez can’t compete, well that’s the free market at work ain’t it. Picking up your example, what if in Duluth that small business was able to grow into a thriving business that employed hundreds of people. Would that not be better on the whole?

I will have to look into Mr. Bastiat’s works, I am not familiar with him from my studies (although other ‘important’ economists I am familiar with include: Mill, Ricardo, Malthus and Marx.)

I am guessing that we agree that the greatest problem that faces our nation faces is military spending. We do disagree on what other roll our government should have.

The question remains: if we get rid of the current scoundrels who will we replace them with?