How Local Government Budgets are Grown

By Roger Oliver

Recently I attended our Sheboygan Common Council meeting to support Aaron Guenther’s Freedom of Information request. It was like a Kabuki theater, everything in slow motion. Lots of mumbo jumbo waffling seemed like. My impression was that the council is more bureaucracy than good government. Also, it appeared the job of the City Attorney is to protect the Common Council from the citizens. 

An item on the agenda was the presentation of the findings of a housing survey done by a woman who specializes in this sort of thing. Who knows how much that cost? It took her 10 to 15 minutes of charts and graphs to tell us what any high school economics student should know and any local citizen could tell you: there is more demand for housing than supply. No kidding? For me, it was a BFO report (Blinding Flash of the Obvious). Any local real estate office could have provided most of the details just for the asking.

Like most economics studies these days, it was a rationalization for government control of the local housing market. The text on the slides was too small to read and the graphs were mostly unintelligible. Her recommendations were to do something, which was never specified, other than to dream up another program that will cost the citizens money.

There are many reasons for the housing shortage, most of them caused by the same economic hubris at the national level, causes beyond the reach of the Common Council. Notably missing in the report was any mention of local government rules, regulations and taxes that discourage and even block supply. How about asking the housing contractors why they are not jumping on this opportunity? I was a bit disappointed that our local conservative aldermen didn’t challenge even the need for such a study. They do so well on other subjects.

The fallacious presupposition that sparked this show of bells and whistles is that government can and should control the economy. But the economy is just the sum of billions of human decisions. It cannot be controlled, but the urge to try is irresistible. For all their efforts, all they end up controlling is us, the citizens. They do this by using the law to plunder your wealth and threaten your freedom, property and livelihood. Check out Frederick Bastiat’s short pamphlet, “The Law”.

It has become an unchallenged article of faith that human government can and should solve all problems, given enough time, money and technology. It isn’t just the “those” people we elect to office who assume this is their job; we, the people, pressure them to “do something”. After we elect them, complacency sets in, adding to the haze of what goes on in the Common Council. We don’t know and we don’t care how we are plundered so long as government keeps promising to give us what we want.

It is said that most Americans still believe “in” God, but when it comes to worries about what we will wear or eat or where will we live, our faith is in autonomous human government. We don’t believe God, so we no longer seek His Kingdom and righteousness.

The only tool the civil government has is the threat of violence in all its forms from a parking ticket to capital punishment. It has a monopoly on legalized violence. The only legitimate function of civil government, therefore, is to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good

(1 Peter 2:13-14). Attempts to control the economy direct the weapon of government against those who do good, the productive class. It always makes things worse.

But it is never too late to start doing what is right. That starts with us as individuals and families. God help us.