The Naked Self-Interest of the Government-Worker Class
22nd June 2014
For understandable reasons, the IRS scandal has largely focused on the political question of whether the White House deliberately targeted its opponents. To date there’s no evidence that it did. That’s good for the president, but it may not be good for the country, because if the administration didn’t target opponents, that would mean the IRS has become corrupt all on its own.
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Now, I don’t believe we are becoming anything like 1930s Russia, never mind a real-life “1984”. But this idea that bureaucrats — very broadly defined — can become their own class bent on protecting their interests at the expense of the public seems not only plausible but obviously true.
June 24th, 2014 at 13:34
good heavens, you only need to look at the provincial election in Ontario to see this. Ontario, like many jurisdictions, is broke, and getting broker under our “Liberal” regime, as they are running 11+ billion/year deficits (on revenue of ~190 billion) that are going to magically disappear “in two years”. In this election, public sector unions outspent all political parties COMBINED as they strove to defeat one party – Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives, who had promised to let 100,000 public sector jobs wither away (mostly through attrition). It was not unexpected that the teachers’ unions would chip in, as the PC’s had promised to roll back “all day kindergarten” (a daycare boondoggle recently introduced by the Liberals, with the not un-intended benefit of providing more teaching jobs). However, it was surprising to see the Police Association union, among others, join in the chorus. No one sees the apparent conflict of interest of unions voting in the government that pays their salaries, taking mandatory union dues from their members, and then spending those dues on political activity to feather their own nests, regardless of their members political preferences.