What does it matter where it trickles down from, if the trickle-down effect is what one desires?

The obvious point for me is that people will forget to take care of these things, even if they desire to do so, because other things are more in their faces or more fun. Even in personal matters. Do people tend to go for yearly physicals, or do they wait to get sick before visiting the doctor? Why do we have mandatory car inspections? Because people were driving around with leaky exhaust systems, bald tires and bad brakes.

We institute government to pay other people to look after things we, in our busy lives, don't have time to or don't want to look after ourselves. And yes, it gets bloated sometimes. The trouble is, when it gets bloated, the first things to go are not benefits to people who don't need it. And why? Because the recipients have the time and the inclination and the money to fight the cut in their income. Programs that target the least among us are soft targets because the working poor are too busy working to fight, the mentally ill are too ill to organize, and the children haven't any legal standing to speak of.

I read a scary article about the state of our public health system in Harper's last month. Written by a doctor, it pointed out that, had SARS made a serious appearance in the US, we would have been looking at a disaster, because our public health system has seen such horrible cut-backs in facilities and service over the last several years. This is where I want my taxes spent. Unfortunately, for political reasons, the tax cuts go through, but on the list of projects to be funded from the rump remaining, public health remains a low priority because it involves the great unwashed public, who will only pay attention when no family goes untouched by disease. By then it will be too late.