You can count me out, at least pension-wise. I paid superannuation all my working life. It's not my fault if it now turns out to be some giant state-run Ponzi scheme.

How about we also do away with all the taxpayer-funded "art" bodies; start with the Arts Council, and continue with the ballet and opera companies. Small potatoes, I know, but every little helps.

P C -

Tho' draconian, this concept of proportional matching of "administration" to demographics can be moved forward by applying attrition.

We are, however, dealing with the "baseline" formulae on which annual (or other periodic) increases are set.

Until the "baseline" is replaced with demographic proportionality, there is little likelihood of correction..

I don't agree with "Although we are more civilised (measured by less blood!)"
The British Empire was much bigger than Roman Empire...
It's hard to measure "less blood" or you mean only XXI century?

Decimation -- killing every 10th man -- was Roman Legion punishment for failure, for example for a unit which was defeated in battle.

The fundamental step was the admission of failure. If we can ever get the usual suspects to acknowledge that bigger government has failed, the corner will have been turned -- and without a single lamp-post & rope.

Actually I am in favour of decimating the lawyers, legislators and bureaucrats once a year.
Your idea would be an excellent addition.

You need to establish a clear econo-political principle that the electorate and the media can understand and retain, you need to convince people of the virtue and benefit of that principle, and then, and only then, you can set a policy target.

This tactic worked during the Anti-Corn Law campaign [establishing free trade in advance of the theory marginal values] even allowing overly-costly food producers to go bust when the country was on the brink of starvation[!] so there's no reason why a similar tactic should not work today.

Once you have explained why govt. spending is wasteful, counterproductive, bad, foolish, you need the general policy makers to solemnly declare that the total spend of 2011 budget will be the same as 2008, the 2012 budget the same as 2007, the 2013 budget the same as 2006 and so on.

Let the looters fight among themselves for who gets which slice of their dwindling stolen cake and avoid the fatal error of allowing general policy being sucked into debates about the details; keep the goal conceptually separate from the means.

If you do not establish the principle of free trade [or shrinking government] in advance of policy then any reform that you do manage to make will be rapidly crushed by 'what about my pension, house, job, poor, needy, homeless, kiddie?' arguments, witness the first comment above or Thatcher's empty legacy etc..

Philip Chaston's plan sound good - but how would it actually work in practice?

For example, if I proposed that Kettering Council cut one in ten of the people who claim a certain benefit from the Council (this would not be legal - but suppose it was) I would be asked the following:

"Which person in ten? This is entirely arbitrary and unjust".

One can get rid of a scheme - but not just decide "Mr Smith is not going to get the money anymore, even though Mr Jones will continue to get the money"

No there is substitute for saying "we have certain schemes, we can not afford them all any more - which schemes/projects are we not going to do anymore?".

Which "schemes/projects" not "which people".

I think Philip Chaston would agree with the above - and just use his skills of mind to make sure that the schemes we got rid of in a particular year were equal to (or greater than) his target saving for the year.

Of course it is possible to reduce government spending.

Only a few years ago a government of Canada did so (what has already been done can not be dismissed as impossible) - and it was a Liberal party government at that.

However, the biggest items of government spending in most Western nations are the entitlements (health, education and welfare) - and these are the hardest to reduce.

It may well be that political leadership will not be found to get these schemes under control - in which case they will just expand till the various nations go bankrupt (even not in law - then in fact).

And such an event will cause far more suffering for the old, the poor and the sick (and everyone else) than any planned reduction in the schemes.

Paul Marks-
You could do it randomly!
Put all names into a barrel, with everyone watching to see that everyone else was included- then draw names out until 1/10th (fractions would go up- e.g. 1/10th of 45 is 4.5, which should become 5) of the staff had been humanely culled.
You could simply order the electoral commission to enlarge some existing seats so there are at least 10 percent less, each election, so culling members would be less painful. And you can rely on inbreeding to keep noble numbers down. So what is the problem?

Decimation is inadequate, by a factor of about 7.

Inadequate, perhaps, but nonetheless a good start. (Sort of like the old joke about what do you call 1,000,000 lawyers drowned at the bottom of the ocean . . . .)

I'm a Yank, but this could apply to you Brits, too. Sorry about the references to the 18th century RN and British Army.

Dear people, whoever you may be,

I'm rereading Atlas Shrugged for the third time. The first two times (a long time ago) I applied its lessons to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. Now Ayn Rand's work seems more pertinent than ever due the events unfolding in my homeland.

The reason I say my homeland is because I'm an expatriate American English teacher living in South Korea. I've been living and working in the ROK for twelve years, but I still send in my absentee ballot for presidential elections every four years.

What I've been seeing taking place in the USA since January 20 is making me more upset by the day. The mounting deficits, the growing and dangerous dependence on China (many South Koreans are very jittery about China) to finance those deficits, the talk of instituting new (VAT and a big one at that) taxes to help cover those very same deficits, the bailouts of GM, and particularly Chrysler, the attempt to remove choice and private enterprise from the U.S. health care system, the stimulus that went mostly to government drones rather things that would really stimulate, and above all, the despicable behavior of the mainstream media in covering up Obama's real Chicago background. I had to go and find the red star at the top of William Ayers website all by myself!

All these things have made me very alarmed concerning the future of my country. So I've reached one overriding conclusion: it's time for Americans to revolt against royal authority for the second time in 234 years.

I say this because I don't believe the traditional legislative process can stop my country's slide towards the comfortable euthanasia of West European-style socialism. With the idiocy of Bush to guide them, the Republicans have done a very creditable job of taking Dirty Harry's 357. and pointing it at least at their feet, if not their heads.

So it's time to revolt. This will be a difficult idea for many Americans to grasp. After all, we are the product of a culture that has based on the rule of law from its very beginnings back in medieval England.

What I'm talking about is starving the Government Beast. Come next April 15, 2010 don't send in your tax forms. Refuse to pay! If you're a small businessman don't pay your state (If you live in California, New York, or New Jersey, this applies especially to you) or federal business taxes. Don't pay your licensing fees! When the Bush tax cuts expire in 2011, don't file! Simply don't feed the Beast!

If you're worried about prosecution, there's safety in numbers. If ten million Americans refuse to pay, the looters can't possibly oppress more than a very small number of people. If ten million small business people refuse to knuckle under to the New Jealously Class, then the Beast will be truly crippled and will be forced to beg for mercy. View your refusal to pay blackmail to the looters as a civil rights issue along the lines of what inspired Martin Luther King during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the early 1960s. IT IS NOT YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO PAY HIGHER TAXES! In fact, it can be considered a form of treason to file on April 15, 2010.

Anyway, this has happened before. What most Americans don't remember or never learned is that in the run-up to the American Revolution the British backed down twice over the issue of taxes. Parliament repealed both the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts in the face of fierce colonial protests. Remember, the looters don't have the mighty Royal Navy behind them, or ranks of hard fighting British Grenadiers, all they have in their favor is the willingness to submit of a people who have been comfortable for far too long.

Michael G. Gallagher, Ph.D.
Seoul, Korea

Nuke Gray!

"what is the problem - you could do it at random".

The problem is that some people would not be getting the benefit whereas the person next door (who might be better off) would be getting the benefit.

The problem is (as I tried to explain) that the whole idea is mistaken.

Either one gets rid of a scheme or one does not. One can not arbitrarily deny a benefit to one person and give it to another.

Not only would the courts tear you up for trying that - the public would simply turn you out at the following election. Even if the vast majority of voters did not get the benefit involved.

I repeat - if you want to reduce government spending then decide what FUNCTIONS (what schemes) you are not going to do anymore.

Do not (on the basis of arbitrary whim - such as a random selection) pick on some people but not others, on the same scheme.

The parallels (Link)are worse than anything in the 18th.c.. This is more like a counter-reformation only the 'old religion' this time is a new type of animism in the form of environmentalism.