The following is an excerpt from our short course entitled “What Could Governments Do for Us?”
In our previous posts, we discussed the difficulties faced by Congress and the president when deciding the best mix if taxation, spending, and borrowing. We also reviewed specific budgetary choices concerning liberty and justice, national security, and the advancement of national interests abroad. Today’s post briefly covers the topic of natural resource management.
Almost all governments include offices that control the allocation of air, water, and land resources to various groups or activities. Their objectives usually include some balance between maximizing profit and the conservation of resources for future generations. In some countries (Myanmar[i]), land and water are used mainly to benefit rulers. In other countries like ours, the land and water have been divided into private use, public parks, and government use. Similarly, our air space is divided into public and private uses. Natural resource management may also include policies meant to avoid or reduce environmental harms such as air pollution and the overuse of fishing grounds.
If you want more, the posts coming over the next several weeks will offer descriptions of additional budgetary functions common to many governments. In many cases, links have been provided to allow you to make comparisons across countries.
To see the full short course, click on the blue link “What Can Governments Do for Us?“
We offer several other short courses on the U.S. system of government. You can find them here: https://cffad.org/topics/
[i] See USAID (2017). Freedom to Farm: Agricultural Land Use, Crop Selection, Fallowing, and Proposed Changes to the Myanmar Farmland Law Necessary to Strengthen Land Tenure Security. https://www.land-links.org/research-publication/world-bank-2017-paper-freedom-farm-agricultural-land-use-crop-selection-fallowing-proposed-changes-myanmar-farmland-law-necessary-strengthen-land-tenure-security/
