What do you want from government?

Exactly what we want from our government — actually, let's go plural, since we all pay taxes to our state and local governments as well as to Uncle Sam — is a continual, and frustrating, question. Yet we still long for answers.

So just in case you're having too much fun this weekend and wanted to ponder larger, more serious, issues for a while, I thought I'd ask.

Last summer, the Center for American Progress conducted a person-on-the-street poll and produced the Public Opinion Paradox video.

"There's a sort of paradox to America's public opinion on government," said Ruy Teixeira, a Senior Fellow at both The Century Foundation and American Progress, last July.

"On the one hand, they see a lot of things that need to be dealt with, a lot of problems that need to be solved, and they think government should be doing more to solve these problems," Teixeira said. "But, they look at the way government functions and they see government as being inefficient, unresponsive, unaccountable."

The bottom line?

We want government to do its job, which is essentially different from jobs performed by private business (that's why we have both).

But we like using the measurement markers of business; that is, we want government programs to be judged by results so that ineffective programs can be fixed or eliminated.

And so the good government quest continues.

Related posts:

• Democrats support tax fraud and waste;
  Republicans hate middle-class workers
• Is it time for tax reform?
• Deficit cutting proposals are not popular
• Debt limit, tax reform and me on 'net TV

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