Why are Politicians Regarded as Scum?

Michael Walker

I recently spoke to the British Columbia Government Finance Officers Association. At the end of my remarks one of the questions was, “why are public servants and politicians held in such low regard by citizens these days?”

This is a fascinating question. When I was a university student in the early 1960s public service was regarded as a high calling. Many of the students who graduated from my class pursued a career either with the public service or the foreign service. Politicians were generally regarded as representatives of the people, and for the most part were held in high regard.

There may be many reasons why politicians were once sincerely respected. My own explanation has, unsurprisingly, an economic overtone.

The first thing that one notices in examining government in the 1960s compared to today is its comparative size. The politicians and government officials of 1961 operated and presided over an activity which took less than 30 percent from the typical Canadian family’s budget. The main activities of government were the provision of basic services, such as policing, defence, highways, schools, hospitals and the court system. There were few subsidies to people or to business, other than the government-run businesses like the post office and railroads. There was a need to pay interest on a public debt which had been acquired during the Second World War, but the size of the debt was shrinking in relative terms, and budgets were balanced.

The main economic challenge which the average family faced was to feed, clothe and house its members, and government was rarely “in their face.” Economic activities generally proceeded without government being in attendance and relatively few people were actually employed in the public service. Those who were received salaries which were less than those available in the private sector.

During the past thirty-seven years a lot has changed.

First of all, the main economic problem average families face is their tax bill. And they are confronted by it on a continuous basis, through the widening gap between their gross pay and their take-home pay. They confront two levels of sales taxes every time they spend any of their income. They pay a ground rent to government in the form of property taxes even if they own their own home. They realize that the wine, beer, or spirits they enjoy at the weekend are largely bottled tax. Even their television entertainment is riddled with advertising inviting them to wager in government lotteries which have such low odds they would be illegal in Nevada.

Second, like the family tax bill, the extent of government activities has grown correspondingly—but not in the area of service delivery. In fact, in relative terms, spending on governments’ basic functions has fallen. At the same time, the number of government handouts has grown dramatically. From generous unemployment insurance to pervasive welfare, government takes one in six dollars in order to give it to somebody else. In the meantime, the public servants who collect the taxes and process the subsidies often have higher salaries, more generous pensions and, in recent times, have enjoyed greater employment security than their taxpayer supporters.

Third, in spite of taking nearly half of everything the average family earns, governments have not been delivering the goods. The incidence of crime is up. In two provinces criminals have simply been released because they waited too long for their trials. In all provinces Canadians are waiting longer for medical attention. There are too few spaces in the right kind of post secondary educational classes. Our defence force is under-equipped, while military spending dollars are wasted as regional subsidies through over-priced defence production. Meanwhile, the public works and infrastructure spending, which are the proper function of government, have fallen to less than half their 1966 share of national income.

Fourth, taxpayers get no current services for some 25 percent of the total tax bill they pay. That’s because it’s used to pay for the interest on the public debt.

Finally, governments have lost their moral authority because they have been seen time and time again to be the authors of programs and activities which fail the test of ordinary fairness. Low-income families pay taxes while their neighbours collect higher income from pogey. Gambling, which was illegal in the 1960s, is a prime and growing source of monopoly public revenues in the ‘90s. Jobs which once went to the most qualified applicant are now given to preferred applicants because of legally enshrined discrimination.

The wonder is not that politicians and public servants have fallen in public esteem. The real wonder is that there are not riots in the streets demanding a rolling back of the whole sorry mess!

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Last Modified: Wednesday, October 20, 1999.