‘Public services’ and fake taxpayers

When local politicians run for public office, they often speak in terms of providing “badly needed public services.” They make certain promises to “the people.” They speak of improving the infrastructure as well as the public education system. Our government officials are almost always eager to offer a great variety of public services.

The deal is simple: You vote for them, and they give you something in return. They provide these public services. Exactly what are these public services?

Consider what is meant by the words “public service.” By “public,” we mean “shared,” or open to all, with every citizen included. By “service,” we mean an aid, a favor, or a benefit conferred.

So when we refer to “public services,” we have to assume that we are speaking of “benefits shared by all.” Therefore, when politicians promise to furnish “public services,” by the strict definition of these two words, we have to assume that they intend to provide benefits for all citizens–for “the people” as a whole, that is, for every individual.

Yet, for the most part, they do no such thing. Politicians regularly provide “services” for various segments of the population: the young, the old, the disabled, the impoverished, women, students, farmers, tourism professionals, preferred businesses (FTZ), assorted special interests, and so forth.

Under this largely unquestioned doctrine of “public services,” individual rights are severely compromised. Some individuals benefit at the expense of others, and vice versa. The interests of the entire voting public (including every taxpaying individual) are notserved. Some individuals are robbed (violated) for the exclusive benefit of others.

This occurs not only when official corruption takes place–as, for example, when a government bureaucrat uses public funds to defray personal expenses–but also when PSS is granted more public funds. The first is clearly unacceptable, though we suspect corruption still occurs fairly often. The second (the PSS example) is generally considered acceptable, and is part of our annual government budgeting process. And herein lies the hypocritical double standard: It is wrong for the lone individual (for example, Antonio R. Cabrera) to take (donuts) from the group (CNMI taxpayers), but it is right for a group (PSS) to take ($$ money) from the individual (taxpayer).

At this point, some PSS government workers might argue that they are taxpayers too, and that they should therefore be excused because they are also taking from themselves. Ignoring the point about which individual taxpayer pays more than the other, it should be noted that government workers are not really taxpayers in the first place.

Government workers are really fake taxpayers. They are fake taxpayers since they can only pay taxes because private sector taxpayers (real taxpayers) pay for their government salaries, from which they are then able to pay their taxes. In a very real sense, then, government workers are not actually paying for their public services. They are getting a free ride.