An Excellent Illustration of the Seen and the Unseen of Regionalism
This week’s fun event (see link) brought to you by a friendly NC Regional Council of Government and paid for with your taxes. Wonder why we’re having to look at really bad ideas like toll roads? It’s because we’re spending tax money on this kind of activity. And this is an excellent illustration of Bastiat’s “Seen and the Unseen” in action in government.
As we expend confiscated tax dollars to produce, supervise, and attend an event like this, the real costs are camouflaged by the big bold statements on all of the literature, hand-outs, posters, etc that say “Paid for by XYZ Company and a grant from the ABC federal agency”. So everybody in a government agency in the region that POSSIBLY uses buses get’s their CoG generated e-mail or mailing telling them about and inviting them to this great FREE event “Paid for by XYZ Company and a grant from the ABC federal agency” to “learn about great new ways to provide sustainable transportation” to your organization. Oh, and there’s a FREE cookout lunch too! What a bargain.
So now we have a number of government tax payer funded employees who get this notice and because this event is connected to their Regional Council of Governments AND ABC federal agency, and their operation gets funding for certain programs from both of these agencies, it’s probably a good idea to attend to show we’re engaged. So they go to their boss and say, “The CoG and ABC Federal agency are promoting an event Wednesday and I would like to go and I think it’s good for us to be represented at this event”, or their boss comes to them and says the same and off the employee goes to this FREE event “Paid for by XYZ Company and a grant from the ABC federal agency” and promoted by their local CoG.
Now back to Bastiat and the Seen and the Unseen in government. The Seen is a free event “Paid for by XYZ Company and a grant from the ABC federal agency”. Now we know that the only real cost is “Paid for by XYZ Company and a grant from the ABC federal agency”. So, maybe some tax dollars are spent but hey, it’s FREE federal money so that doesn’t really count. Now, the Unseen. The salaries and benefits of a few hours, to a whole day of X number of government employees. In most cases the cost of a government agency vehicle to carry said employee to and from event OR the cost of everything involved in reimbursing said employee for the use of their vehicle. The loss of the productive, or semi-productive work that is not done by this government employee which is what they were supposedly employed to perform. And the biggest Unseen is the fact that this whole event and all of the cost and loss of production that happens is because somebody in an office in DC thinks it is a good idea to start a program to promote propane bus or some other green idea of folly. Wow, what a really expensive FREE event!!
Now, in the world of capitalism there is at least one little bright spot. And it is the one part of this whole event that should be celebrated but in general in government circles is villianized, the capitalists who build and sell the propane buses because at least they are returning part of the dollars involved in this whole exercise to the private sector through their production. And I’ll bet there’s one of the fabulous FREE events coming to a location near you soon! REMEMBER BENGHAZI!!
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