The government, in its most basic form, is just another business-- or maybe more accurately a not-for-profit. Its customers (the citizens of a nation) employ it to provide certain services or products. The citizens (customers) convert their wealth into government revenue by paying taxes and fees back to the government (the business). The real questions about government then become how nimbly can the government adjust to the changes in the service profile their citizens require, how well can the government provide those services, and will the government be able to fund the activity through a level of tax collection acceptable to their citizens.
In such a model government employees exist only to carry out the supply of services to a citizen... So why then is government structure important? Well, government structures and organizations are going to be more or less effective in understanding the needs and expectations of their citizens. The ideal structure would provide the citizen-desired services exactly when they are wanted and at least cost. The other side of the coin is how are revenues are collected by the government, or to put it another way, tax structure. To my way of thinking taxes should serve only one purpose: to deliver the necessary coin to pay for the services we want. Any other defined objective for a tax is going to drive inefficiency into the system and waste resources.
So, my over-simplified solution is to start discussing things in terms of what I described above. I believe that if we all approached government in this way, we better establish government goals, better define the expenditures required to achieve those goals, and then execute. In future posts I will explore what services I believe the government should provide and why, as well as how I believe they should collect taxes to secure the revenue needed to provide those services.
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