Today’s challenge: Can you think of five ways that government spends money better than you could?
There is an oft-used conservative talking point — or rhetorical flourish — that we (the “taxpayers”) know how to spend our money better than “the government”. It is a talking point that masks selfishness and reeks of anti-civicism, and it deserves to be challenged whenever it is brought up.
First, I should say that “conservative” is a woefully imprecise word. A person can be conservative about any number and variety of things, and “liberal” (its presumed opposite) about any others. It is an injustice to the endless variety of human thought to put each person into one of two camps. Nonetheless, those well-known politicos who claim that “you know how to spend your money better than the government” tend to fall into the political camp that gets called conservative — so, for lack of a better and well-accepted term, I’ll use that one. By no means am I trying to demonize those who call themselves conservative or attempting to categorically dismiss “conservative” values (whatever they may be).
The first thing I dislike about such a viewpoint is that it presumes a divide between the people (or “we the people”, as many like to say when affecting a patriotic idiom) and their government. It presumes that “the people” and “the government” are two separate entities, with conflicting agendas. Now, I agree that institutions often make self-preservation and self-aggrandizement their primary missions, and that they do not always serve their constituencies with perfect selflessness or efficiency. Yet I don’t think that means we have any call to take an adversarial posture toward government. In fact, just the contrary: an entrenched adversarial posture toward government will only incline people to pay closer attention to its shortcomings and abuses and to ignore its many advantages and triumphs. It will incline them to disengage from the political process, rather than to put their energy toward its improvement.
My wife and I both enjoy the married life: in both the short term and the long term, we receive advantages. Although at times we feel constrained by our mutual obligations, there are plentiful opportunities we can pursue because we have each other’s support. When conflicts arise, we often feel the urge to withdraw from each other and avoid whatever difficult topic got us into trouble in the first place. However, our experience (and that of countless others; I’m not pretending to be unique) has been that engaging with our difficulties helps us to become “re-enfranchised”, while disengagement only allows problems to fester and lets us continue believing the worst of each other.
Whether you believe government is “us” or believe government is “them”, you’re taking part in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unfortunately, since the belief is held individually but the effect on government only comes from large collective action, it’s easy to be convinced of your own powerlessness and to take the government-as-adversary stance. Collectively, we have the power to prove ourselves right — though only in the long haul.
The second thing I dislike about the position that “you know how to spend your money better than the government” is the excess to which people take the idea of “their” money. I am all in favor of private property and private enterprise. But too often people are of the opinion that, because something is “theirs”, they (1) are not indebted to others for it and (2) have no responsibility toward others with regard to its use. This is a philosophical question that I don’t have time to address adequately here. Suffice it for now to say that those who hold the extreme form of this belief suffer deficits of gratitude and social responsibility.
The third thing I dislike about that belief is that it is just plain ignorant. There are absolutely scads of things that “the government” (that is, the people acting collectively) can accomplish better with “my” money than I can. Here are five:
- Mail delivery. For all its faults, the United States Postal Service does a marvelous job of delivering letters and packages with good speed. I cannot deliver all my mail by myself — who has the time? — and private industry would exclude many small, out-of-the-way places, or charge exorbitant fees for mail delivery to or from Fairbanks.
- Public transportation. Helping people get from home to job to shopping to recreation and back home is a fantastic investment in economic development. If I had to get everywhere on my own, I would spend extra hours each day between work and home, or spend extra hours’ worth of my labor to afford the private automobile to take me back and forth in a timely fashion. Private enterprise would try to make ridership as expensive as possible, thus shutting out the young and the poor. Of course, even a private auto is worthless without…
- Transportation infrastructure. The buses I enjoy — or, in other cities, the trains, trams, and other means — would go a lot slower over trees, rocks, and mud, as would our private automobiles. Do you think that private industry would do so well at laying down and regulating streets, roads, and tracks? Do you think I could do it on my own?
- Safety regulation. One relationship that I think is naturally more adversarial than that of citizen and government is that of employee and employer. Businesses showed for too long (and they continue to do it!) that they would imperil employees to no end while it resulted in corporate profits, absent the regulation by and sanctions from government.
- Disease tracking. I shudder to think what levels of disease (or other public health hazards) might ravage our communities without the information gathered and processed by the CDC.
The above have three things in common: (1) I couldn’t do them on my own. (2) Private industry could not be relied on to do them. (3) Were there non-profits in charge of providing the same, high-quality services, and were they reliant on voluntary donations, they would flounder. Fall flat. Perish. People are too short-sighted to give voluntarily and sufficiently to all the agencies that would do them and their societies good.
Can you think of ways that “government” can spend “your” money better than you can? Go on — just name five. Let them be large or small. Have fun with this! If you approach government with an attentive mind and a grateful heart, it shouldn’t be hard.
Wonderful! How is the government spending our money better than we can? God knows. And we should know.
At first I couldn’t think of five ways more ways beyond those you mentioned. Then I realized that the telephone book would provide many more than five. Look up the federal government, state government and local government listings — including the military.
But beyond arguments over the specifics such searches would provide, the United States is a democracy. We are the government.
As to the role of government, after Cain murdered his brother Abel he asked God “Am I my brother’s keeper?” His question symbolizes people’s unwillingness to accept their responsibility for the welfare of others. The traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are that people do have this responsibility. If we can’t (or don’t) take it on privately then we as the government must.
Where to begin? How about with point one.
The postal service is the poster child of inefficiency. Private carriers like FedEx and UPS would crush the postal service if not for the legal loophole granting the post office a monopoly on first class mail. Both offer better service and better customer service than the post office. Without the postal service there would be more companies to fill the gap which would lead to even more competition amongst mail carriers. So what if it would cost extra to send a letter from Fairbanks. I’m not even sure it would cost more. Even so, lots of stuff is more expensive here, we accept it as a trade off for living here. Why should a person in New York subsidize our lifestyle?
Public transportation is a giant money pit. Six or seven years ago the math worked out something like this. The for the cost of the local bus line compared to the number of passengers, the burough could subsidized each passenger $10 cash for a cab ride and saved money.
Infrastructure. The state does a good job providing this because it contracts out the work to the private sector. I do agree that this is one area that needs to be done by the government, that does not mean they provide competent oversight, nor make good decisions on our behalf. Talk to any construction guy, he will have a story about gross inefficiency, like paving a road in the summer when it is scheduled to be dug up in the fall to replace sewer lines.
Safety regulations. For every company that fails in basic safety there are thousands of idiots who hurt themselves by not using common sense. Workers do not need to be protected from unscrupulous employers as much as they need to be protected from themselves. To portray OSHA and like agencies as the protector of poor workers from the mean capitalists is to stretch the truth as much as it can be stretched.
CDC. I’ll give you that one, but I will point out that the CDC is CenterS for Disease Control. It isn’t so much a big government agency as it is a small government agency with numerous affilliated programs. Much of it’s work is not done by bureaucrats but by professionals in their field. Every previous agency is (mostly) run by bureaucrats who are at the bottom of their field. CDC scientists and affiliated scientists are at the top of their field. They still highly regarded by the populace.
Brian,
I completely disagree with you. The post office has never once claimed it could not find my house despite having it well marked and my phone number and directions ON THE LABEL as UPS did. The post office has never hidden its main, local service center (just look in the phone book–no local address or phone number provided) and forced me to call India or Taiwan or somewhere in an attempt to reach the driver and tell them where my house was located (which they refused to do). Nor have I ever had to go to the Post Office three times in as many days to try to pick up a package I was told by a slip would be there but which the driver had, in fact, forgotten to leave behind as I recently had to do with FedEx. I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with the Post Office (the new hours at the College Rd. branch are ridiculous), but pretending that big corporations don’t suffer from the same bureaucratic inefficiencies is wishful thinking. Plus, most big corporations seem to have a callous disregard for the individual customer (since they have so many) that has translated into the disappearance of anything resembling customer service.
Second, you’ve missed the point of the infrastructure statement. It’s not like the private companies doing the construction work for the state are acting on their own–they are fulfilling contract obligations under rules and regulations determined and paid for by the government. Driving on the roads around the Walmart/Fred Meyer/Home Depot juggernaut in winter or spring should be all the example you need that private enterprise is wretched in maintaining roadways they own even when there is a direct tie-in to their businesses. The only alternative would to make roads money-makers (like early toll roads) and then it would just be a tax under the guise of another name.
The postal service can always find your house?
You’re willing to look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never received mail that wasn’t addressed to you, despite having a well marked mail box?
Brian,
You talk about efficiency and economy of performance, with what accuracy I can’t say, but where is private industry’s willingness to accept responsibility for the welfare of others? There are rare examples like the Carnegie libraries and the Nobel prizes, but generally private industry’s interest is in maximizing return for the stock holders. If in a democracy we are the government, are we not our brother’s keeper?
Well I wouldn’t compare a citizen’s budget to their gvernemnt’s.
But, responding to this I have to say this is missing a lot of factors that would determine things differently…
If you think about how one is a consumer, and the other the govt., is the consumer spending $300 to call out unnecessary polce dogs? Is he spending money on a military that is only needed to harm it’s own people? Is he going to the borders and shipping in millions of dollars of illegal drugs ono our streets? The list goes on my friend.
When it comes down to the individual vs the govt., the Govt. Will always win because the BEST THING an individual can do with his money is to save it. Spending as a CONSUMER he will buy a tv, some new jeans, a dog, a microwave, junk food, etc.
Terrible article.