Why should public facilities be provided by the government?
Answers
Let us use building a new highway as an example. There can be an option of contracting with a private entity to build a toll road and citizens pay a toll when they use it .. That works too, and the government is not thrust upon to build a ‘freeway’ instead.
See, if the citizens opted for a ‘freeway’, they need to pay the taxes so that government may have the money to build it and citizens can drive on it free of charge .. That is another way to deal with it ..
In a democracy, these things are people’s business and they get together to figure out what they feel is best .. It may not be thrust upon the government to build public facilities unless the citizens willingly make that decision ..
If people love government food, we would have had government restaurants all over the nation, serving military type food, perhaps at prices 30% below McDonalds .. But thank God, we did not go that way ..
Things like water, electricity, public transport, school and colleges that are necessary for quality life are public facilities. Once there’s provision of public facilities, many people can share its benefits. For example, a school will help many children of an area to get an education, the supply of electricity in an area will be useful for many people and water facilities will help in irrigation of fields and supply of water to every farm and home.
Funds for Public Facilities
The main source of revenue for the government is the taxes collected from the people, and the government is empowered to collect these taxes and use them for such programs.
For example, to supply water the government has to incur cost in pumping water, carrying it over long distances, laying down pipes for distribution, etc. It meets the expenses by taxes and the price charged to the people for water. The rate is set so that most people can afford a certain minimum amount of water for daily use.
The most important function of the government is to:
-Ensure that the public facilities are made available to everyone
-For public facilities, no profit should be gone to the government.