Tag: bureaucracy

Ireland Imposes Real Cuts on Bureaucrat Pay

By
Daniel J. Mitchell

Ireland may be in a recession (caused in large part by misguided housing subsidies), but there are two things worth admiring about the Emerald Isle’s public policy. Many wonks already know about the first policy, the 12.5 percent corporate tax rate that helped transform Ireland from the “sick man of Europe.” But it seems that Irish policymakers are reading Chris Edwards, because the second admirable policy is that lawmakers actually cut civil service compensation by 13.5 percent. And these are real cuts, not the type of phony gimmick you find in Washington, where something is called a “cut” simply because it didn’t increase as fast as previously planned.

A columnist writing in the UK-based Times wonders why Irish bureaucrats did not go nuts with public protests and speculates that maybe they actually understand that they have a sweetheart deal compared to their brethren in the productive sector of the economy:

Because of the budget deficit, shrinking economy and untenable level of national debt, all public service salaries will be cut by an average of 13.5 per cent, with immediate effect…and will apply to frontline public workers in health, education, transport and local services and also to MPs, Ministers of State and the Attorney-General. …Couldn’t happen, could it? Actually it has, and close to home. …public sector pay in the Republic has been cut. Not frozen, sharply cut. …although the payslips have been changed for many months now, the schools are open, the hospitals treat the sick, rubbish is collected and paper pushed around briskly enough in public organisations. Belts are tight all right and pips are squeaking; but the country whose public pay once led the EU league has not imploded into the chaos of suicidal strikes, unburied bodies, closed schools and garbage mountains, which the UK or France would expect as a matter of course if a government did any such thing. …Yet the pay cuts — I say again, 10 to 15 per cent cuts in pay, real and immediate holes in the family budget — have not caused the enraged citizenry to pull down the pillars of the temple around their own heads and everybody else’s. They just haven’t. Why? …unlike the self-righteous whiners who speak for British public service unions, middle-Ireland still knows that a secure and pensionable job is a privilege: that working in the public sector is not an altruistic gift to the nation, but a damn lucky break.

Since I have a multi-part series on “Bureaucrats vs. Taxpayers” at my International Liberty blog, I especially enjoyed this part of the column, which provides a real-world glimpse at the corrupting allure of cushy government employment:

I saw a spirited, self-mocking sketch performed by 12-year-olds in a village hall entertainment the other night about “Marty Matchmaker O’Donoghue, where every ould stocking will find an ould shoe”. The girl being advertised to the men is talked up by the matchmaker as having “a Government Job! A clerk at the council office — I tell ye, she’s a laying hen!” Friends confirm that it’s an old saying: “Marry a teacher or a nurse, you’ve got a laying hen.” It does not seem that way in boom times, but even in the UK it is becoming true.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, International Economics and Development, Tax and Budget Policy

Making Government Bigger Is Not Stimulus - and It Won’t Create Jobs

By
Daniel J. Mitchell

This new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains how last year’s so-called stimulus was a flop - and also reveals why politicians are pushing for another big-government spending bill.

Interestingly, since last year’s stimulus was such a disaster, the redistributionists in Washington are calling their new proposal a “jobs bill.” But as I say in the video, this is akin to putting perfume on a hog.

For further background, here is a video explaining why Keynesian economics is wrong and another predicting (in advance!) that last year’s stimulus would be a mistake. And just in case anyone actually wants the economy to grow faster, here’s one about policies that actually increase prosperity.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Political Philosophy, Tax and Budget Policy

Weekend Links

  • The G.O.P.’s next move on health care: “The challenge for Republicans is not to try to ‘do’ things just like the Democrats but a little less expensively or with a little less bureaucracy, but to present an agenda of personal and economic liberty as a positive alternative… [Republicans] will have to show that this time they are in favor of something positive. It’s called freedom.”
Topics: 
Cato Publications, Government and Politics

Thursday Links

  • Doug Bandow:  “Congress has spent the country blind, inflated a disastrous housing bubble, subsidized every special interest with a letterhead and lobbyist, and created a wasteful, incompetent bureaucracy that fills Washington. But now, legislators want to take a break from all their good work and save college football.”
Topics: 
Cato Publications, General

Great Moments in Bureaucracy

By
Daniel J. Mitchell

The picture below, taken from a story in The Economist, shows that France, Germany, and Italy are among the nations with the most central bank employees (as a share of the population). In some sense, this is a dog-bites-man factoid. After all, is anyone surprised that Europe’s major welfare states have bloated public payrolls? But there’s more to this story. All three of these central banks ceased to have a monetary policy, starting back in 2002, when their nations adopted the euro. The mission is gone, but the bureaucracy lives on.

Central bank bureaucrats

To be fair, the bureaucrats in these nations presumably are not sitting in quiet rooms playing minesweeper. Perhaps these central banks are responsible for other functions, such as financial regulation. Of course, given how governments around the world pursued policies that led to a financial crisis, perhaps all of us would be better off if bureaucrats did play computer games all day.

Topics: 
Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy, International Economics and Development

Response to Matthew Yglesias re: Uncle Sam’s $4 Million Bike Rack

By
Tad DeHaven

In response to my criticism of the new federally-financed $4 million bike center set to open at Union Station in Washington, DC, Think Progress blogger Matthew Yglesias says:

I look forward to the day when the Cato Institute does a blog post denouncing each and every publicly financed parking lot or garage in the United States of America.

I’ll take that bait…sort of…

I denounce each and every federally financed parking lot or garage in the United States of America on non-federal property.  I’m one of those quaint individuals who recognizes that the Constitution grants the federal government specific enumerated powers.  Using federal tax dollars to finance local parking garages, lots, bike centers and racks is not one of the powers granted to the federal government.  So let me rephrase my statement from yesterday: Look, I harbor no animosity against [car drivers], but under what authority — legal or moral — does the federal government tax me in order to build [parking garages or lots] for parochial, special interests?

By the way, for an excellent study on the problems with federal subsidies to state and local government, please see my colleague Chris Edwards’ “Federal Aid to the States: Historical Cause of Government Growth and Bureaucracy.”

Here are a few additional random thoughts…

I know so-called “progressives” like Yglesias don’t lose sleep over how much money the federal government spends, but $4 million to park a hundred or so bikes?  As Chris Moody noted to me today, if bike security is the major issue, why not pay a guard $12 an hour to stand watch?bike rack

Isn’t it possible, just possible, that a bike center with even more racks could have been built for a lot less?  Isn’t that the question that people like Yglesias, who want more people on bikes and less in cars, should be asking?

I don’t see anything inherently governmental about building and operating parking garages or bike centers.  The absolutely sorriest, most poorly run parking garage system I’ve ever experienced is the one managed by the State of Indiana where I used to work.  I recall an overcrowding situation – exacerbated by lousy management – in which the solution put forward was to just build another garage.  Hey, someone else is going to pay for it so who cares, right?  I often tell people that young libertarians should spend a couple years working in the bowels of government in order to reinforce their belief system with hands-on experience.  I’m starting to think “progressives” and other unwavering fans of all-things-government should do the same.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

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