ANYONE who has observed up close how government works for, say, 30 years will most likely realize why it can’t be run like a business. “Overspending,” for example is not a bug but the main feature of government. Lack of funds will not prevent government from overspending. And a government awash with cash will overspend more.
For many of us adults, government is what Santa Claus is for our kids. The wonder of Santa Claus comes to an end for most children at some point, but many grownups will continue to believe that government is, to mix my metaphor, an endless buffet spread that keeps filling itself up — and it’s all on the house.
Quoting the economist Ludwig von Mises, writer and scholar Sheldon Richman noted that a business enterprise can “prosper only if it pleases consumers, who are free at any time to take their money and search for satisfaction elsewhere. Thus business owners have an infallible guide to how well they are doing: the profit-and-loss sheet based on market prices for both inputs and outputs.”
In contrast, government gets its revenue “not through the free choices of consumers, but rather from coerced taxpayers who must pay for ‘services’ whether they use them or not, or like them or not. Competition is barred (or hampered), and [government] ‘services’ are not priced on the market. As a result, a bureaucracy has no need to please consumers and faces no profit-and-loss test. It cannot calculate as a business can. The pro-consumer rule of business, ‘Make a profit,’ cannot apply to a bureaucracy, so it instead is required to follow pages of procedural regulations that bear no relation to ‘customer’ satisfaction.”
In a democracy, government exists to please voters, who expect to get something in return for their support. Hence, many politicians make promises that defy arithmetic, but are exactly what many voters want to hear: higher wages, lower prices, affordable and/or free this and that, more of the good stuff and less of the bad.
And who pays for all these goodies? According to many politicians, not you, dear voters, but “someone else.”
All over the world, lots of voters, to be sure, cast their ballots for educated and intelligent politicians. The U.S. government, for example, is peopled by brainy, highly credentialed and experienced officials and bureaucrats with diplomas from some of the world’s most prestigious universities. And yet the federal government’s management of its own finances is not exactly a badge of honor.
Each year, for over a decade now, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul — a medical doctor — has been airing his grievances about the federal government’s spending misadventures. He issues annual reports that he named after “Festivus,” the fake holiday popularized by the sitcom “Seinfeld” in 1997. His latest Festivus Report highlights $900 billion of waste.
Patrick Carroll of the Foundation for Economic Education listed seven of the most ridiculous government expenses mentioned in the report:
1) $659 Billion for Interest on the National Debt
“The national debt continues to skyrocket, from roughly $30 trillion last year to roughly $34 trillion today,” Carroll wrote. “One of the many problems with carrying such a heavy debt burden is the sheer volume of money that needs to be spent on interest…. What’s worse, there seems to be no end in sight. ‘The Congressional Budget Office predicts that we will add an average of $2 trillion in debt annually for the next decade,’ the report notes. ‘The U.S. government will add over $5 billion of debt every single day for the next ten years. We borrow over $200 million every hour, we borrow $3 million every minute, and we borrow $60,000 every second.’ ”
2) $6 Million to Boost Egyptian Tourism
The “federal government spent $6 million to boost tourism — yes, tourism — in Egypt last year,” Carroll said. “ ‘The U.S. has spent over $100 million on Egyptian tourism so far,’ the report notes. ‘What’s next — rebuilding the pyramids?’ ”
3) Training Department of Homeland Security Employees to Be Their “Authentic & Best Selves”
This was part of a five-year “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” or DEIA strategic plan. “Ironically, the workshop coincided with…efforts to suppress protected speech on social media platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Paul’s report stated. “Even I was censored at the behest of our government speech minders. And all while I thought I was being my best self.”
4) $38 Million to Dead People
“According to a special task force for tracking COVID payments from the federal government, $38 million went to people who were known to be dead in 2023. In fact, $1.3 million of that money went to 30 individuals who had been dead for at least a year. COVID-relief funding has of course been rife with fraud and mismanagement since the beginning. You’d think politicians would have learned their lesson by now. Then again, it’s not like it’s their money on the line, so why should they care? What are taxpayers going to do, take their money to a competing relief organization?”
5) $8,395 for a Lobster Tank
The lobster tank was purchased “presumably to improve the diet of military personnel,” Carroll said. “What’s concerning about this purchase is not so much the dollar figure itself but what it represents. No doubt countless other purchases like this take place every day in the military. And all those luxuries really add up.”
6) Two Graphic Novels Combating “Disinformation”
In addition to their DEIA initiative, the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency of DHS “has been hard at work creating not one, but two graphic novels about ‘disinformation’ as part of their ‘Resilience Series.’ The first one covers foreign interference in elections. The second covers COVID vaccines. ‘There is nothing comical about wasting taxpayer money to justify censorship of constitutionally protected speech,’ Paul notes in his report.”
7) $200 Million to Famous Music Artists from the “Small Business” Administration
Rand said the so-called small business owners included Post Malone, Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, and Smashing Pumpkins, who each received up to $10 million. “Even Nickelback received $2 million,” the report added. According to Carroll, “The purpose of the program was to provide financial relief to small entertainment businesses during the pandemic shutdowns. But apparently, the SBA has a hard time defining the word small.”
At any rate, the only way to improve government is to have less of it, which is a tough sell in a place where the largest voting bloc consists of government employees and retirees.
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