By Zaldy Dandan – Variety Editor
“The great conundrum of our times, the phenomenal inability of our politicians to produce any useful outcome from the billions we hand them.” — Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
A PUB owner in Wimborne, England, has the right idea.
Miffed by a tax hike imposed by the government on pubs, Andy Lennox has banned Labour members of Parliament from his establishment, the Old Thatch. Labour is the party in power and the prime mover behind the tax increase. According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 1,000 pubs have followed Lennox’s lead, posting “No Labour MP” signs. MP stands for Member of Parliament.
Among those who can no longer enjoy classic draught beer and hearty “pub grub” at Lennox’s pub is Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who led his party to a landslide victory in 2024 but is now widely regarded as Britain’s most unpopular leader. Starmer is attempting to run a cash-strapped government amid a sluggish economy.
The Journal reported that the country’s hairdressers have joined the anti-tax-hike backlash. “I’ve resolved that if a Labour cabinet minister asks for a cut and blow-dry — and yes, they do come in from time to time — I will quietly but firmly tell them they’re not welcome and show them the door,” Michael Van Clarke, former stylist to Princess Diana, told the Journal.
For many UK pubs, rising minimum wages and social security contributions have made it more expensive to hire students and other seasonal staff. Meanwhile, a higher cost of living and a longstanding 20% sales tax have driven regular customers away, the Journal reported.
Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge told LBC radio that his tax bill for one of his four pubs would more than double under the new rates. “What’s the point of being open?” he asked.
Lennox said at present, his pub earns just 14 pence — about 18 or 19 U.S. cents — from every pint of beer sold, while the government collects £2.50, or roughly $3.34. “There’s something wrong with the system when the tax man makes more than the pub,” he told the Journal.
Throughout history and across the world, people have often found themselves at the mercy of laws meant to benefit them, but that end up doing harm. What is even more mind-blowing is the sad reality that the same people who understand how budgeting works in their households seem to believe that basic arithmetic can somehow be suspended when government is in charge of finances.
Many of us believe that those who assume positions of power will act with greater wisdom, prudence, and foresight than “ordinary” citizens — as if leaders suddenly cease to be self-interested individuals driven by personal incentives or ideological biases. As Gordon Tullock once observed, politicians are, at bottom, individuals who make a living winning elections.
Not surprisingly, in every election year, voters clamor to “throw the bums out” — often the very same “bums” who were celebrated as “saviors” just one election earlier.
In the CNMI, it is long past time for businesses to remind people of the costs consumers ultimately bear as a result of well-intentioned laws passed by well-intentioned legislators.
I recall one small business that posted a sign informing customers they would have to pay more because of a federally mandated wage hike. I also remember employees expressing concern that their hours would be further reduced if yet another wage increase took effect.
The public — and government officials in particular — must be constantly reminded that someone, somehow, always pays for the added costs imposed in the name of the “public good.” These do-gooders in office are so fixated on the supposed virtue of higher wages or higher taxes that they refuse to acknowledge their real-world consequences in a sputtering economy: reduced work hours, higher prices, and lower government revenue. Wage- and tax-hike proponents did not sign up for those outcomes, but math is math.
Yet some politicians, especially when in power, bristle at any reminder of how basic economics works. They take it personally. Rather than engage in reasoned discussion, they prefer to invoke “greed” or “profiteering” — labels that conveniently shut down debate. Economics is often counterintuitive, and arithmetic is tedious. Demagoguery, on the other hand, is easy and effective.
CNMI businesses would do well to take a cue from England’s pubs and begin informing the public about the additional costs they are forced to pass on to customers because of onerous federal and local laws — laws that make little economic sense in remote islands with a small and shrinking economy.
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Zaldy Dandan is the recipient of the NMI Society of Professional Journalists’ Best in Editorial Writing Award and the NMI Humanities Award for Outstanding Contributions to Journalism. His four books are available on amazon.com/.
