-- John Spaulding
The question is, does "free" stuff justify its true cost? How many people would willingly pay the amount they currently pay to Raytheon or upper middle class retirees with plenty of savings, if they actually had a choice?
I personally think the CIA, NSA etc are a waste of funds let’s slash funding by 90% and see what happens. But that doesn’t mean everyone else agrees with what I think is worth funding.
Whereas if the only people who want corn subsidies are the people receiving them and not the people paying for them, you wouldn't have them anymore.
If you want GPS and are happy to pay for it then why should I pay if I can get it for free without paying? With GPS the idea of encrypting the data might work, but that doesn’t work for say vaccination were public safety results from individual choices.
But it still works because people can see that they're better off funding something that benefits them even if it also benefits someone who didn't pay, and so it is whether it's a government or not.
Now, sometimes a government might be more efficient at these things. Having people pay for GPS might be one way to get it, but then you have to collect money from everyone, which has administrative costs, and people who can't afford it can't use it even though there is no incremental cost in providing it to them.
But when you weigh that against the colossal amount of waste and violence governments commit in the process, the math doesn't look good. And you can get the same level of efficiency from a nonprofit that provides the service for free to the public, if the public wants it enough to donate to it. Which people would have more money to do if they weren't paying taxes to fund the maintenance of empty government buildings etc.
Do you think the US would vote for or against the UN to making a global competitor?
https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/
You can find a list of good reasons why they should never want to do this, but one of the big ones is that if they ever actually did they could only do it once, because then no one would trust them not to anymore and would start including hardware support for the alternative systems in case it isn't available.
But that isn't really the point. The relevant issue is that the US taxpayer pays for GPS and then the people of Italy and Australia and Brazil get it for free. Even if GPS had been an exception with some strategic defense purpose, how does that explain e.g. funding for cancer research?
I think this is a really cynical take. A government opens up a service that's benefitted billions for 50 years and you think it's so the US gets them "hooked"? They use it because it gives them value, and they (we) didn't have to pay for that value at all.
The government does not, indeed, waylay a person in a lonely place, spring upon them from the road side, and, holding a pistol to their head, proceed to rifle their pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
The bandit takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a “protector,” and that he takes people’s money against their will, merely to enable him to “protect” those infatuated travelers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful “sovereign,” on account of the “protection” he affords you. He does not keep “protecting” you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
--Lysander Spooner