Bigger government

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the size of our government continues to grow. The Asian financial crisis only slowed the growth of government; it did nothing to materially reduce the size of our government.
Our government still spends more than $200 million a year. Deficit spending continues, as many of our local politicians cannot keep themselves from wasteful spending. To keep themselves ensconced in power, they spend the private sector’s tax dollars with reckless abandon.

The local people tend not to mind this very much, because much of the wasteful spending is made on their behalf. The politicians shower the indigenous population with government goodies in order to secure precious votes and keep the government racket going.

The local people receive these government goodies without having to pay for very much of it; indeed, the private business sector pays for most of it. The vast majority of locals work for the government. As a result, much of the tax burden rests on foreign investment–on non-indigenous sources of income.

The question is: How long will the private business sector tolerate wasteful government spending? That is, how much can they tolerate in the way of excessive taxation and regulation before they give way and cause a capital flight?

To a substantial extent, many businesses have already folded. The CNMI is no longer an attractive investment destination.
Governments, by their very nature, do not know how to run an economy and create prosperity. Bureaucrats and politicians pose a constant danger to economic productivity. They constantly misallocate private resources–resources which could have otherwise been more productively employed elsewhere in the economy, by private hands motivated by profit.
Consider some of the items in the recent CNMI budget: $1.6 million for the mayor’s office, which includes funds for heavy equipment and machinery. With the Department of Public Works, why do we even need a mayor’s office in the first place? For that matter, why do we need a municipal council? Would we die without these government offices?

Let’s face it: these government offices only exist to provide locals with artificially high paying jobs they are not likely to secure for themselves in the competitive private business sector. The offices provide no valuable services which could not be supplied, at greater efficiency, in the private business sector.

Consider the $15,000 the legislature recently allocated “for the promotion of canoe culture and the purchase of a canoe.” They just wasted some of our money on a canoe–to benefit a few locals who should really buy their own damn canoe and leave the rest of us out of it!

That is big government for you.