KJ - I think everyone understands that there are some items that are "public goods" that no one would pay for if they weren't taken care of by the government. That's one of the reasons for government. Personally, I hate toll roads. They are a huge pain and difficult to predict when budgeting. I would much rather have a gas and/or vehicle tax that is used to create and maintain roads. Other areas where I support public funds are education (some disagree with me here and I definitely like options - I won't get started on the current problems with public education which is another topic entirely), and security (police, fire, etc.) Interestingly enough, most ambulances are not public. I'm sure there are states where they are.
Trash collection is an interesting one, but it brings up an important point. When the constitution was first established, there was a concept of pushing taxation to the most local level. The constitution itself didn't allow the federal government to impose a direct tax. There had to be an amendment which changed the wording of the constitution itself to allow that to happen. I don't think that trash collection necessarily needs to be a "public good". I personally think that market forces would push to different companies covering different areas naturally. After all, if one company does a good job and covers a certain neighborhood, a new company would probably have to charge more to residents of that neighborhood since they don't normally go there. If a trash company isn't doing a good job, another company might see an oportunity, take a loss while they established themselves, and eventually take over that neighborhood.
However, if there were a city government that wanted to try publicizing trash service, let them do that at the city level. If people want to live in that city, they do so knowing that taxes are a bit higher to compensate, but they don't have to worry about paying the garbage pick-up.
I agree with DarthFerret on healthcare. But turgy, I think you said it right when you said "with our current system". I'm all for changing that system. Instead, the government wants to keep the system, but add even more regulations and rules to it.
I completely disagree with you on financial reform, turgy. Markets work because greed is mitigated by risk. The financial "reform" was "necessary" because the government decided that risk needed to be removed from the equation. With market forces in effect, if you get greedy, you take the chance that someone is going to be able to provide the same service for less. In the stock market and banks, if you get greedy, you risk things taking a turn and losing everything. When the government decides that they are going to bail you out, then the risk is removed from the equation and there is nothing to mitigate the risk. If you truely want to reform the financial market, then get the government and the government "guarentees" out of the equation.
KJ - one more thing I wanted to comment on. I think the problem is that government knows what the true "public goods" are. The problems come because government gets into special projects and other things that they shouldn't be in in the first place. When funds get tight, they don't cut those special programs. Instead, they cut back on the necessary things. Then, they say that they don't have money and need to raise taxes in order to support those public goods. People pay because they feel that those things are important and while they don't necessarily believe the government about where the money is going, they aren't really sure what they can do about it, either.
