Friday, February 26, 2016

Charter Commission: not an innocent study

The local media source has an editorial here that claims that establishing a charter commission "risks nothing." This is not true, and here's the reason.

Government bureaucracy is inherently flawed. It's not simply that there are "inefficiencies" that can be fixed. It's that there is that government-run services (or, rather, disservices), are ultimately mandated by the barrel of the policeman's gun. Decisions are not made in an attempt to satisfy voluntarily paying consumers. Every single decision is made politically.  There is no incentive to cut costs because taxpayers are forced to pay. (When was the last time the Exeter government's expropriations budget decreased?

A charter commission will, therefore, obviously find problems with the existing system. But, it will certainly not recognize that it is the existence of the bureaucracy that is the problem, not how the bureaucracy is structured. Instead, it will argue that a change of the structure would help. The ratchet turns--think about it this way: the charter commission will absolutely never, ever conclude something like: the Exeter government should cede road ownership to road users and property abutters. 

My suspicion is that the commission's advocates, like local crony Dan "beautify my storefront" Chartrand, know this and plan to use the charter commission as a stepping stone for increased government power.

The game is rigged. Don't buy into it. If you want to make the Exeter government more "efficient," slash its territorial monopoly over scarce goods.

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