One of the basic pre-requisites of seriously dealing with government competency in a large, multi-sovereignty federal state is to possess an updated list of all the various governments. It can be quite a big list. In the US it includes
50 state governments
3000+ county governments
tens of thousands of municipal governments
intermediate government institutions like Indiana’s township governments.
I have been looking for such a list in the US for some time and have come up empty. There are a lot of sources that do part of the job but nobody seems to be doing the full list.
So here’s an offer. $20 for a maintained source of all US governments. That should be simple enough. At least I thought so when I started looking for it myself…
Edit:I apologize for omitting that the offer is good for the first submission only.
Shouldn’t you consider organizations like Homeowners/Condominium Associations as forms of government? Where do you draw the line?
Lee – That’s a good point but I’m going to exclude quasi-governing bodies that are only associations. Associations like the ones you describe are, I believe, entirely contractual in nature and have no sovereign immunity. If they do not serve their purpose, they cannot hide behind a shield and escape liability. They must perform or die. Long-term I believe that this gives them a different set of incentives, one that should largely keep them out of trouble.
I know that these associations can die because I live in a development where the local association *did* die and was not replaced. How often does that happen with a government?
TM Lutas: That is actually a good question.
One of my arguments (of many) against ObamaCare is scale. Many of the systems studied as precursors are much smaller. To have an equivalent, you would need the EU to direct all the care of members through Brussels.
I guess size matters.
– Madhu