Jim Krause:
My brand of conservatism feels that health, education and welfare should be the province of state and local govt since they are WHERE the problems are and would know how to best allocate the available funds. Dealing with local problems at a national level seems mostly to create expensive beauracracy and endless rules which are mainly designed to cover someones ass rather than help the needy.
Whlie there probably should be some oversight to make sure that fraud doesn't take the place of help, it shloud be more in the form of an auditor and less in the form of national control.
I agree that the job of the Free Market is to show a profit. Enlightened self-interest is rare in these days of multi-nationals and giant corporations; where a company takes an interest in ALL the citizens in the area of its location.
Thanks, though for a well thought-out and, above all - brief post.
Skeptic. Well done lad! Another of those flashes of rationality. If we could only increase the frequency...*sigh*

troll