There is a psychological quirk that we seem to have as a species that has implications for how we relate to our governments.

When people get a service or a product from a business, they are generally aware that the business is not helping them out of kindness.  Most of us have a pretty good grasp of the concept that the people at Nordstrom’s treat us better than the people at Sears, and that we’re paying for the difference (as well as everything else).  You get what you pay for; sometimes you get less than you pay for, but you very rarely get more.

When it comes to government, we don’t seem to have that wired in as well.  We think of benefits or services that the government gives us as being entitlements; I’m entitled to this payment, or this tax credit, or this service.  It’s just something that happens, out of the ether.  This is true of everyone, rich and poor, young and old.  Welfare moms and businessmen receiving fat subsidies, people driving on the well-maintained roads or stopping at the “free” clinic - there is, at best, only an intellectual understanding that this largesse flows from us paying money for it.  Usually there isn’t even that much awareness - it’s the “government” paying for it.

Of course, this causes a number of problems.  For one thing, it creates conflict.  We are somewhat better able to understand the nature of the transaction when we aren’t benefiting directly and we all have a tendency to want to shut down the subsidies flowing to other people; darn those welfare moms/fatcat agribusinesses/overpaid bureaucrats.

More importantly, however, it creates a false dichotomy in how we think about our resources.  We think of things the government provides as being “free”, whereas things we have to provide for ourselves cost money.  I don’t need to allocate resources to paying for the roads; someone else has that covered.  I don’t need to save for retirement; the government is going to take care of that for me.  This causes us to incorrectly allocate resources on the personal level, and it also causes a perfectly natural desire to move more things to the “free” column.  If the government is paying for it, I don’t have to!

As a result of this natural process, we end up with larger and larger government.  Libertarians have proposed a number of approaches for reversing this trend, but nothing seems to work.  I have an idea that I think would turn the tide quite handily:

Restrict the voting franchise to people whose households do not receive any substantial direct payments from government.

In the military, or a dependent of same?  No vote for you.  Schoolteacher at a public school?  Sorry.  Welfare recipient?  Nope.  Retiree?  Back to the shuffleboard court, non-voter.  Employee or stockholder of a company getting federal jobs?  Go on back to your cubicle.  I lose my franchise, of course - I’m a college student getting aid AND my spouse gets a military retirement payment.

There would be some fiddling, of course, mainly around the question of what constitutes “substantial”.  Is having one share of stock in Halliburton going to disqualify you?  If you have a contract with the local schools to do $100 of work, is that the end of your franchise?  I don’t know.  The political process is the place to hammer out those questions, I think.

Some people will protest that this restriction would end up disqualifying huge numbers of people.  That’s true - it would.  However, that disqualification would not long persist.  The relatively small number of people actually paying their own freight would very quickly vote to reduce the number of federal contracts, the number of public schoolteachers (replacing them with private schools, of course), and the size and scope of government contract work.  As these government expenditures convert back into the private sector, the people formerly disenfranchised by their association with the government would be reinstated to the voter rolls.  The economy would explode, as bloated and inefficient government work is transferred steadily to the dynamic private sector.

Save America - give up your vote.