I'm the only person writing on this blog that will be using his real name. I'm the "legal" founder of the Sands Institute, it's "bureaucracy expert", and also manage a fee-based consultancy in Virginia. I first met Mr Bushmills in Macedonia during the NATO war and helped get his first Moses Sands piece (on Democracy in Iraq) published on the internet in 2004.
    From time to time I'll be posting here on issues pertaining to the bureaucracy.

    One of the failings of tax revolts by citizens is to allow the state (or local government) too much leeway in carrying out their demands. The famous Proposition 13, Jarvis Amendment, an amendment to the California state Constitution, was a perfect example. It capped property taxes at 1%, thus reducing taxes by 57%. Did that stop government?
    Not only did it not stop government, but government punished the people. How? By reducing essential services. Cops, schools, that sort of thing. And wherever government cut, a co-conspiring press was there to magnify the pain ten-fold, making sure everyone felt guilty about their selfish exercise of freedom. Remember that snow-mobile operator in Yellowstone when Newt Gingrich (actually Clinton) shut down the government in 1995?
    In the end, the Jarvis Amendment failed, even though the heart of its tax line-in-the-sand remains. The bureaucracy simply found ways around it. But it failed most as an attempt by the citizens to re-establish public control over the political class emanating out of Sacramento, of which the taxing branch is but one. There was no real follow-through. The people thoight they'd won so just walked away. There's a real lesson in foresight, wisdom and commitment there.
    It also alerted the courts. It would be 2000 before the US Supreme Court would uphold Jarvis. The people in states where initiatives are allowed (we'd like to see Initiative and Recall in every state) continue to draft new ones on all sorts of subjects, from gay marriage to taxes, both pro and con, but courts are more amenable to stepping in and over-turning the people's wishes, with a view to protecting not just the political class, but also the courts' own roles as final arbiters...not the people. (There has been a "legal movement" in this direction for many years now.) The legislatures and the courts may be at loggerheads as to who is supreme, but both agree, it is of paramount importance to keep the People out of the mix. They are the object, not the soul, of government.

     It's axiomatic that you don't hire the fox to provide a better security system for your chicken house. Still, that's what we do both in government and large corporations. As with Jarvis, the board of directors tells the CEO he has to reduce costs by 15%. He in turn calls in his divisional managers, who in turn call in department managers, to 1) come up with a plan, then 2) execute it, once it has been decided what will be cut. (Senior managers always love to set lower managers at each others' throats. I've never understood this.) In the arm-twisting and blood-letting that ensues, each manager seeks to protect his territory by magnifying the importance of every scrap of paper that comes offof one of his desk, but also by going all the way down to the lowest production worker and telling him his job's in jeopardy; loss of car, home, health benefits, etc. (Government bureaucrats are much more mean-spirited at this scare-game than private business...in part because they are more able to bring down the ax on front line essential services, so are more indifferent to the suffering they cause.)
     Senior managers are not unaware of these games. They aren't stupid. They know where the waste lies...in the front office. But that is also where they work everyday. Workers are somewhere else in the building, or at a different location. You don't have to see their faces or feel their pain when they get laid off. Senior bosses have close personal relationships with office staff, from secretaries to accountants, all support personnel, while they (these days) don't even know the names of the people who actually make the product, from machinists to engineers to assembly workers. A kind of front line class distinction also comes into play, since college degrees and prestigious universities trickle down as rank does. In today's world an MBA or degree in marketing outweighs a degree in engineering by a mile...and maybe therein lies the problem. Front line supervisors bear the brunt of the pain, for they are most often called on to give out the pink slips. They tend to be 50-50 in their sympathies, which has given rise to the term "Kisses up and kicks down" and vice versa. The former attitude is definitely the better career path in this generation of corporate managers these days. Vassar Bushmills touched on this when he wrote how the corporate culture had changed since the 1970's.
     Government is much, much worse.   
     In government we know that from 55%-70% of taxpayer dollars go to administrative costs, and not to the end-users, beneficiaries, or ultimate mission of a division. The money goes to bureaucrats, a high percentage of which are either redundant or just plain useless. 
     For example, Virginia is constitutionally required to balance its budget and in a few days the general assembly meets for the 2009 Winter session. The governor (Tim Kaine, soon to be head of the DNC) has been laying ground work for raising new highway revenues since late summer, even though it was recently revealed that over 50% of his highway budget goes to paper-pushers. We've been complaining at least that long, but even local talk radio seems to miss the connection. Interestingly, and here a key, the governor nor his adminsitration is willing to provide a great deal of transparency about how tax monies have been spent in the past, or will be in the future. This is the job of state watchdog groups, not just to watch, but dissmeninate.

     We favor (encourage) grass roots involvement in matters of taxes and how they are spent. Even the smallest locality spends millions of dollars, usually from revenues (federal grants, state matching funds, etc) that came from outside the area. My father told me years ago that there is a narcotic effect when a man who has never seen a check for more than a thousand dollars is suddenely hired, or elected, to spend millions. To some this is unimagined power. To others, this is a scary unreality.
     Most citizens who feel we need to get a handle on local publi spending, get together and nominate a candidate who, if he/she wins, as like as not will suddenly change stripes. There simply is something about "sitting up there", on local cable television, that is also narcotic. There is something that is also near irresistable, and that is to become a member of the inner circle of local governent. A big fish on a little pond. When a new council man or member of the county board is elected, he/she comes in as a "newbie", and outsider, and can, if the others deem it so, to remain that way, if he doesn't go along. The pull to be accepted is almost irresistible.
     My suggestions: Grass roots groups that select candidates to sit on the local government must provide a never-ending support group, a shadow government, so as to provide moral and legislative support for that person once in office. Don't turn and walk away, as they did in Califiornia. You cannot know the pressures they're up against...not unlike the seductions your local congressman gets when he goes off to Washington. There's money, too.
     As to taxes, especially, always analyze the bureaucratic flow through. Many state and local services are unnecessary. Do no be afraid to end them, as well as the jobs they protect. Never be afraid to let a bureaucrat go, for in the larger scheme of things, that will either save two front line jobs, or, reduce the taxpayers' burdens.
     Every bureaucrat should have to go to work everyday thinking they could lose their job that day. Once they realize that the power to fire comes from the people, they will get the message.
      Do those things and before you know it, you'll be ready for the big leagues, public schools.
Robert Hightower
President
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