The ability of the country to provide and administer basic government functions is also unknown.
What do any of these projects have to do with core government functions?
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At the same time, the very basis for identification systems are changing from improving government functions to enabling citizen services.
He paid village groups to come to the city where they plugged into guitar amplifiers and played at government functions.
"This again highlights the fact that the government functions better when its employees are free to report wrongdoing, " she said in a statement.
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By the same token, many government functions may be laden with bureaucracy, but the private sector might not do any better with the same tasks.
In New York we get a mayor who makes war on Big Gulp sodas while proving himself inept at basic government functions such as clearing snow.
"We will make sure that the caretaker government contains people of stature, people of a neutral band, and those that can perform government functions well, " he added.
If he obeys the debt ceiling, he cannot spend the money that Congress has told him to spend, which is why most government functions will be shut down.
He said he will push forward the reform of streamlining government functions and cut the existing 1, 700 administrative approval items by at least one-third in the coming five years.
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Imagine the stories if Obama, in an attempt to turn public opinion against his political opponents, were to concentrate spending cuts on the most visible and critical government functions.
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He said that, time and again, war-ravaged people had asked for help in establishing security and safety, restoring basic services and core Government functions, supporting a political transition and jump-starting economic recovery.
He points out that only works when one party (or coalition) is in charge, whereas "in a system built around an administration and a bicameral Congress, everybody is part of the government - and the government only functions if there exists a certain baseline spirit of co-operation between the mutually indispensable parts".
"There has been a very quiet revolution in how the government performs its functions, " says Katherine Schinasi, one of the top officials at the Government Accountability Office.
The Federal Government performs critical functions that support the basic protections that Americans have counted on for decades.
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In thinking about the size and scope of government, one must begin with first principles and delineate the legitimate functions of government in a free society.
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"I just think this is what happens when you have a large government bureaucracy that functions for decade after decade, " said Keith Cowing, editor of the website Nasa Watch.
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However, many liberals say it is an outdated document because it leaves out functions of government they now believe are essential.
The explosion of federal debt has increased pressure on politicians to decide which functions of government are indispensable and which should be dialed back.
All these functions of government were designed before the rise of the global economy, the information technology revolution, and the end of the Cold War.
At the same time, the core functions of government, such as enforcing property rights, rule of law and economic openness, can be accomplished by small governments.
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This small, professional force succeeded where a much larger but poorly-organised UN force had failed, by hitting the rebels hard and restoring some basic functions of government.
In other words, restraining the role of government to its proper functions and nothing more would create the environment most likely to produce more Facebooks in both the manufacturing and services sectors.
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One possibility is nothing controversial will happen, but Democrats and Republicans will pull off the essential functions of government easily, and even manage to make progress in areas where they agree, like trade and potentially some elements of tax policy.
On top of these six categories is the cost of the other functions of government including all of the internal departments (DOJ, Homeland Security, EPA, Commerce, Interior, State, etc.) and the off budget expenses of the agencies (FNMA, FHA, GNMA, FHLMC, Post-Office, Amtrak, etc.).
Even the most radical libertarian would probably agree that a government must perform two essential functions: keep you alive, and protect your property.
Bush had made the use of public-private competitions to determine who should perform commercial functions for the government one of his key management initiatives.
We've also made clear that we can't support arbitrary or irresponsible cuts that affect the essential functions of the government or hurt our ability to grow the economy, create jobs.
But those who E-file and have their refunds electronically deposited in their accounts will continue to get their money, since this involves the same processing functions that the government uses to debit money due on E-filed returns.
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The banking system, dominated by the government-controlled Sberbank, barely functions for many unconnected would-be borrowers.
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