Efficient Government Funding
In a sense all governments compete with each other to retain their taxpaying citizens and residents. Taxpayers can usually relocate to more attractive countries or states if they perceive that the relative quality of life, opportunities, protections, and tax burden are better on the other side of the fence. So in the marketplace of governance systems we could pick an island and set up an idealized federal-only government with the rational goal of fostering the health and wealth of us, its citizens. In our era of fast communications there is no need for redundant state and local govermnents that churn the tax revenue around again and again and waste a lot of it. First I want to address the tax system. "Before all else there is the land." There is an old idea of a simple land value based tax system that was espoused long ago by Henry George, and I propose to make it even simpler. In the USA the government really owns all of the land. You may think you own your front yard "