Public Choice Nobel Prize proves Public Servants First Serve Their Own Interests
Public Choice? It's the ignored economic analysis of the choices of public servants - the politicians and bureaucrats who are elected to serve the country.
Who do they ensure gets the most benefit from their efforts, who do they serve first? The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for proving the Public Choice theorem to Dr.
James Buchanan in 1986.
Professor Buchanan demonstrated that both politicians and bureaucrats behave exactly like the rest of the population - primarily advancing their own selfish interests.
But don't people suddenly become selfless guardians of the public interest the moment they're appointed or elected? No.
Absolutely not! Dr.
Buchanan disproved the curious notion - promoted by politicians and government bureaucrats alike - that people suddenly change overnight to become unselfish public servants as soon as they're appointed or elected.
Yet they all fight so tenaciously to keep their positions.
And people rarely ask the crucial question: Why? Washington DC - the wealthiest region in the USA The USA's political masters and "public servants" in Washington are getting very rich.
America has 3,033 counties, and of the 15 richest jurisdictions in the whole country (the top 1/2 of one percent), more than half of those super-elite counties are in the Washington metropolitan area.
But how come? Don't politicians and bureaucrats serve the public faithfully? No.
They actually enrich themselves first, as do average citizens.
But the rest of the population has other people and other businesses competing with them to keep their prices honest and their service up to scratch.
But when the government gets involved, they ban all competition.
All the wealth in Washington is, to put it politely, unearned wealth.
The money overflowing the pockets of the capital's overpaid bureaucrats, lobbyists, politicians, interest groups, influence peddlers, crony capitalists, contractors, and other insiders all, eventually, comes from you.
Unlike previous recoveries, your money hasn't been used to create real jobs and get you back to work.
So Americans have been getting poorer while Washington has been getting richer.
In a troubling report, Business Insider finds that although the recession is supposedly over, household income is lower todaythan during the recession.
"Avalanche of Cash" report from the Washington Post Even the left-wing Washington Post realizes that access to the taxpayer's money has created vast unearned riches for DC insiders.
Their story on the beltway elite is entitled: Capital Gains: Spending on contracts andlobbying propels a wave of new wealthin DC.
Buying Votes with Other People's Money When your income depends on satisfying the person in front of you, you're motivated to give good service.
The more remote the source of your income from that customer, the worse the service.
So government bureaucrats generally don't care because there's no corresponding reward or penalty.
Yet incompetent and even corrupt bureaucrats are amazingly difficult to fire.
Given their perverse incentives, corruption is inevitable.
Yet politicians pretend that more laws and more government is the solution for every problem.
All too often, the law of unintended consequences just creates yet more problems.
But do politicians back off and repeal the cause? No.
The Gramm-Rudman Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Acts in 1985 and 1987 were designed as "the first binding constraint imposed on federal spending, and its spending caps have become part of every subsequent U.
S.
budget.
" They were effective in producing the first balanced federal budget in many years.
But politicians dislike constraints on their ability to buy people's votes with other people's money so it was soon discarded.
© Copyright worldwide Cris Baker, LifeStrategies.
net All rights reserved.
Republishing welcomed under Creative Commons noncommercial no derivatives license preserving all links intact, so please +1 and share this widely! Food for Thought
Who do they ensure gets the most benefit from their efforts, who do they serve first? The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for proving the Public Choice theorem to Dr.
James Buchanan in 1986.
Professor Buchanan demonstrated that both politicians and bureaucrats behave exactly like the rest of the population - primarily advancing their own selfish interests.
But don't people suddenly become selfless guardians of the public interest the moment they're appointed or elected? No.
Absolutely not! Dr.
Buchanan disproved the curious notion - promoted by politicians and government bureaucrats alike - that people suddenly change overnight to become unselfish public servants as soon as they're appointed or elected.
Yet they all fight so tenaciously to keep their positions.
And people rarely ask the crucial question: Why? Washington DC - the wealthiest region in the USA The USA's political masters and "public servants" in Washington are getting very rich.
America has 3,033 counties, and of the 15 richest jurisdictions in the whole country (the top 1/2 of one percent), more than half of those super-elite counties are in the Washington metropolitan area.
But how come? Don't politicians and bureaucrats serve the public faithfully? No.
They actually enrich themselves first, as do average citizens.
But the rest of the population has other people and other businesses competing with them to keep their prices honest and their service up to scratch.
But when the government gets involved, they ban all competition.
All the wealth in Washington is, to put it politely, unearned wealth.
The money overflowing the pockets of the capital's overpaid bureaucrats, lobbyists, politicians, interest groups, influence peddlers, crony capitalists, contractors, and other insiders all, eventually, comes from you.
Unlike previous recoveries, your money hasn't been used to create real jobs and get you back to work.
So Americans have been getting poorer while Washington has been getting richer.
In a troubling report, Business Insider finds that although the recession is supposedly over, household income is lower todaythan during the recession.
"Avalanche of Cash" report from the Washington Post Even the left-wing Washington Post realizes that access to the taxpayer's money has created vast unearned riches for DC insiders.
Their story on the beltway elite is entitled: Capital Gains: Spending on contracts andlobbying propels a wave of new wealthin DC.
"The avalanche of cash that made Washington rich in the last decade has transformed the culture of a once staid capital and created a new wave of well-heeled insiders.Lack of Competition It seems that the corruption generated by the coercive power of government is spreading.
The winners in the new Washington are not just the former senators, party consiglieri and four-star generals who have always profited from their connections.
Now they are also the former bureaucrats, accountants and staff officers for whom unimagined riches are suddenly possible...
They are the lawyers, lobbyists and executives who work for companies that barely had a presence in Washington before the boom.
"
"Corporate America learned that lobbying was one of the most surefire ways of bolstering its bottom line...A region that contributes virtually nothing to the economic well-being of most American citizens lives increasingly fat and happy because of the taxes and powers of a corrupt government.
Companies spent about $3.
5 billion annually on lobbying at the end of the last decade, a nearly 90 percent increase from 1999 after adjusting for inflation...
Legal services also boomed, fueled by the growing complexities of federal business regulations.
The number of lawyers in D.
C.
increased...
nearly twice as fast as the growth rate nationwide.
And those lawyers have the highest mean salaries in the country.
Buying Votes with Other People's Money When your income depends on satisfying the person in front of you, you're motivated to give good service.
The more remote the source of your income from that customer, the worse the service.
So government bureaucrats generally don't care because there's no corresponding reward or penalty.
Yet incompetent and even corrupt bureaucrats are amazingly difficult to fire.
Given their perverse incentives, corruption is inevitable.
Yet politicians pretend that more laws and more government is the solution for every problem.
All too often, the law of unintended consequences just creates yet more problems.
But do politicians back off and repeal the cause? No.
The Gramm-Rudman Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Acts in 1985 and 1987 were designed as "the first binding constraint imposed on federal spending, and its spending caps have become part of every subsequent U.
S.
budget.
" They were effective in producing the first balanced federal budget in many years.
But politicians dislike constraints on their ability to buy people's votes with other people's money so it was soon discarded.
© Copyright worldwide Cris Baker, LifeStrategies.
net All rights reserved.
Republishing welcomed under Creative Commons noncommercial no derivatives license preserving all links intact, so please +1 and share this widely! Food for Thought
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.- Lord Acton, 1834-1902, English historian, politician, and writer, lover of liberty, staunch supporter of States Rights against a centralized government
"
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