Government is to public funds as gasoline is to fire
THE fatal “defect” of the BOOST program is that while everyone can apply, not everyone will receive a grant. “Free” money amounting to $17 million is not enough in an election year.
Take note, moreover, that not a single one of the CNMI’s many laws — including the Government Ethics Code Act or the Open Government Act — prevented the questionable decisions made by the BOOST review panel members. And yet some lawmakers are still talking about a possible legislative “fix” to prevent future “abuses.”
“This law is long overdue and highly commendable,” the then-acting governor said in signing Public Law 8-11. “We need this law to protect our people and those of us who are entrusted with the destiny of our people who elevate us to high positions of responsibility. A Code of Ethics is like an insurance policy for our people. It protects them from graft, corruption and conflicts of interest.” That law was signed about three decades ago. It was not even mentioned as the main justification for the ongoing House “fact-finding” hearings. Instead, lawmakers said they were responding to the public complaints of individuals and business persons (many of whom are voters) who didn’t get “BOOST-ed.”
There is, in any case, no need for another law or policy. The government should simply stop throwing money around. But to tell government not to squander public funds is to be the proverbial mosquito in a nudist colony: you just don’t know where to start.
Public choice
THROUGHOUT recorded human history, and all over the world, members of the public are always aghast to learn that many of their public officials give preferential treatment to political supporters, allies, relatives or friends. Many of us assume that a public official, by virtue of his lofty office, will cease to be what public-choice theory calls a “rational actor”: an individual who makes decision based on his self-interest which, in a politician’s case, includes the desire to win an election or to advance his own policy agendas.
“People,” says U.S. economist and writer Robert Higgs, “increasingly fell under the illusion that the government served them rather than itself; indeed, some even accepted the absurd claim that they were the government by virtue of their periodically casting a vote…. In a flight of wishful thinking, [the public] neglected to notice that the government — the collectivity of persons wielding power under color of official authority…‘has its own life, its own interests, its own characteristics, its own ends.’ ”
But not to worry, members of the public. Elected officials are still at the mercy of the electorate and must “share the wealth” to show their gratitude to voters. As a recently re-elected Pacific island official would put it, “It’s all about giving it back to the people…and that is why [we] won; the people…believed in us when we said we will help you in your struggles, we will help you in your businesses, we will help you in your workforce, we will help you in your families, we will help you in your schools, we will help you in your homes.”
Eventually, the “fact-finding” hearings on Capital Hill will end, and many members of the public will finally direct their full attention to their newly elected officials who will have to answer the perennial question most voters ask in a representative democracy:
“What have you done for me lately?”
