Name a government program that does work

[John Dibble]

Depends on what you mean by 'works'. Different people will give different answers based on what they expect from the programs. Many programs actually do fulfill their purpose, but with side effects - the real question is "what government programs work well?"

[John Dibble]

Utilities in most areas are run by private corporations. Try telling me with a straight face that they do a good job.

My power company is privately run - they don an exceptional job. If the power goes out they work tirelessly to get it back on, even in the worst weather conditions(and compensate their employees well in such situations to boot).

Here's a good one: health care. Are greedy HMO's any better than socialized health care?

Greedy HMO's? Well, I don't use them, and HMOs do have problems. Frankly though, most of my experiences with private health care have been very positive.

Here's another one: education. Overall, I've received a much better education from public schools than from private schools, after spending a roughly equal amount of time in each.

Your experience alone is not a valid way to show that one generally outperforms the other.

I think the main reason why these government services work better than their privately owned counterparts is that they are less focused on making money. (My experience has been that even private schools try to make money.) Profits are not a big priority outside the corporate world.

Then why don't we just advocate communism? Oh, wait, that's right - because when the government tries to run everything it results in crap. Government does crappy when it tries most things because it has no competition - it has no fear of going out of business. Private enterprise on the other hand MUST perform well if it is going to stay in business. Private enterprise wants money, sure, but to get money it can't provide afford to provide a crappy service for high prices unless it's a monopoly.

[John Dibble]

Here's another one: education. Overall, I've received a much better education from public schools than from private schools, after spending a roughly equal amount of time in each.

That is of course anecdotal evidence. In any event, private education is in many cases superior to public education. Surely, this is the case with higher education.

While it is true that the evidence is anecdotal, it is also anecdotal to think that private higher education is superior to public higher education. In fact at the highest level of education, the top public universities are held in the same esteem in their fields of expertise as are the top private universities.

When people talk about private vs/public school, I think they mainly are referring to high school and below. My theory is there are three main factors in determining how well a student will perform:

1. How interested the student is in learning.
2. How interested the parent is in their child learning.
3. How interested the teacher is in their students learning.

With public schools, you tend to get a mixed bag of all of these. With private, I think are likely to get a higher of the second at the very least, if not an improvement in the one and three. Also, when you have the second, I think the first is generally going to be higher(I know it's not always the case). With universities though, you really get much more likely to encounter both the first and the second at high levels - after all, this level of education is not mandatory, so those going are really likely to want to increase their education and are motivated to learn.

Though I certainly think the public school system has other problems on its own, I think areas where public schools don't perform well are likely to have high rates of students and parents who don't care much about education. It's not fair to blame the schools alone when the people who are using them aren't trying.

[John Dibble]

Ever think that some people can't afford to pay private school tuition?

Nobody said anything to the contrary. The issue is that is being discussed is whether or not said schools perform better than public ones.