Efficient Government Spending
Use markets to distribute government services
The
typical government model to provide community services is to provide
services and then give ways for people to access those services. The
reasons why services are provided this way are:
governments are in control of what services are provided
governments get the credit for providing the services
governments can account for the expenditures and ensure money is spent where it is meant to be spent
Of
these the latter appears to be the main reason why government services
are delivered this way be it health, education or welfare.
The
alternative method is to use markets to distribute services. A market
consists of buyers and sellers. The buyers of government services are
the population and the sellers are the organisations that can deliver
the services. Instead of the government providing services and
controlling the expenditure of money the government gives funds to the
consumers and require them to buy the services. The government controls
and accounts for the expenditures by controlling who can be a seller
and ensuring that consumers are only able to buy from the designated
sellers.
To ensure a true market anyone
can be a seller providing they follow the rules and anyone can be a
consumer with or without using government funds but if either a buyer
or seller breaks the rules of the market then they are excluded from
using government funds for this purpose.
