Essential services: elected official's paychecks.

Man, you said it Ironic1.

According to Miller/Coors Beer, their nasty canned beverages they call "beer" are essential.

Other than that, Ironic1 and Sam are right on.

The mission of government is to provide the essentials, the necessities that protect and empower citizens. The "essential necessities" are the things every decent human life needs, including education, health, protection, and opportunities.

Protection and safety include health care, social security, safe food, consumer protection, environmental protection, job protection, etc. Empowerment is what makes a decent life possible -- roads and infrastructure, communication and energy systems, education, etc. No business can survive without these goods secured within the community.

Adequate food, water, housing, transportation, education, infrastructure (roads and bridges, sewers, public buildings), medical care, care for elders, the disabled, environmental protection, food safety, clean air, and so on, are the necessities that give the opportunities for a basically decent, active human life.  If a society lacks one of these things for their citizens, that society fails.

Government also provides for public goods.  Education is not only essential to safety and a decent human life, but is also a public good. It benefits all of us to live in a country with educated people. It benefits corporations to have access to a large pool of educated employees. It benefits democracy to have educated citizens who rule wisely.

But only considering education as a means to make money, and hence as a private good, leads us to eliminate the public funding of education (as this MN budget does). This is a major disaster for all of us, not just those who will either be denied an education or who will be forced into huge debt, but for business and democracy as well.

An uneducated populace is easier to control.