Reviewing the last two posts Wonks Anonymous sees an emerging theme among those who have pretensions of being serious economists. That theme would be that: Free or low cost public services available to all, like health care and higher education, are wasteful and downright pernicious to the poor.

It would be better for all to strictly control access to these services to those who can repeatedly demonstrate their need. It would be even better still to charge a sliding scale for services and allow the poor to borrow to finance their payments.

So why stop at education and health care? The government provides many services, roads, police protection, fire fighting and courts to name a few. Why not charge for all government services? Based of course on the ability to pay.

After all, we have the computer systems needed to monitor incomes and service usage in real time. When someone makes a 911 call we could easily calculate their full obligation to the government based on services used and a government charge master file. Based on tax records and other income information we could apply an appropriate discount.

The bill could be delivered at the end of the month. Payable upon receipt.

And if you can't pay right now you can always carry the balance on your (sort of) low interest GovCard.

Debt Peonage. It's not just for peasants anymore.