"Every failure of government somehow becomes evidence that government was underfunded...The Leaking Bucket Wants a Bigger Hose" - ha-ha, you do have a way with words Mr. Arnell!
The REAL question though is: what can we do (other than open revolt!) to break the vicious cycle you describe?
To my mind, two changes are needed:
1) Severe, permanent and LEGISLATED limitations to the power of governments (e.g. governments cannot be involved in any business of any kind, be it selling cannabis or insurance, transporting oil and gas or providing any services the private sector provides; govts cannot increase taxes or introduce new taxes without a referendum; maybe wipe out all "regulations" to begin with - a law is a law, a "regulation" is a govt creation designed to circumvent law!), and
2) Politicos must answer with their PERSONAL WEALTH for any deficit they incur. This too has to be law. Once we bankrupt a couple of them - very publicly! - the rest will take notice.
Where I run into a problem is, how do we bring these much-needed changes about (once again, short of open revolt)?? Obviously, our current govts would not legislate themselves out of all this power and money!
Would love to know your thoughts on this.
(P.S. I apologize for the capitals - this platform does not allow for bolding!)
I think you are asking the question underneath the whole piece.
It is easy enough to say the bucket leaks. It is harder to figure out how to take the bucket away from people who profit from the leak.
I agree with the direction of what you are saying. Government has to be fenced in again. Politicians should not be able to buy applause with borrowed money and then retire before the bill arrives. That is one of the great frauds of modern politics. The promise is public. The applause is immediate. The invoice is someone else’s problem.
Your point about personal wealth gets to the heart of the incentive problem. Right now, politicians can vote for deficits, waste money, fund disasters, reward friends, wreck budgets, and then walk away with a pension, a book deal, a lobbying gig, or a cable news contract.
That’s fucked up.
If a private citizen defrauds someone, he can be sued, prosecuted, bankrupted, or jailed. If a business owner lies to investors, there are consequences. If a contractor steals from a client, he does not usually get to say, “Sorry, I’ll step down from the project.”
But in politics, stepping down is often treated as accountability. That is not accountability. That is retirement with better timing.
So yes, there is a serious argument for personal consequences when public officials knowingly create deficits, misappropriate funds, hide liabilities, or vote for spending they know cannot be paid for. At minimum, pensions should be on the table. So should clawbacks, fines, disqualification from office, and prosecution where there was actual fraud or deliberate concealment.
On the “revolt” question, I understand exactly what you mean. I am not calling for violence, and I do not want to see the country go there. But I also think it is dishonest to act shocked when people start using that word after decades of being robbed, lied to, taxed, regulated, inflated, and ignored.
When lawful accountability disappears, people eventually ask what options are left.
That is not because ordinary people are naturally reckless. It is because institutions lose legitimacy when insiders are protected from consequences that would destroy anyone else.
So the peaceful answer has to be serious enough to make revolt unnecessary. Not symbolic hearings. Not “ethics reviews.” Not another blue-ribbon commission. Real penalties. Real audits. Real clawbacks. Real pension loss. Real prosecution where crimes occurred. Real limits on taxation, debt, emergency powers, and regulatory abuse.
The public also has to stop treating government services as free. Nothing is free when it is paid for with taxes, debt, inflation, interest, or your children’s future earnings. The first step is getting people to see the bill.
That is why I create words for things people already feel but have not been able to name. “Taxphyxiation” gives a name to something people already feel. They know life is getting tighter. They know the government keeps asking for more. They know the last pile of money did not fix the last problem. They just have not always had a word for it.
How do we get there short of revolt? Probably the hard, slow way: state reforms, ballot initiatives where possible, primary challenges, local budget fights, audits, public pressure, pension reforms, spending caps, and making every tax hike discussion begin with one question:
What happened to the money you already took?
Until that question becomes unavoidable, the leaking bucket will always demand a bigger hose.
Thank you so much for sharing your views, Mr. Arnell! I think you are one of the smartest people out there, and I value your opinion. "Taxphyxation" is a great word! It's worse in Canada than it is in the US, and that's saying something because in the US it's bad enough.
To my mind, we have three options: 1) open revolt, 2) removing ourselves from the reach of these governments as much as we can (there are ways to do that, and a good start is to refuse any of their "help" - that's how they get you!), and 3) trying to fix the problem by democratic means.
I agree with your comment that it's dishonest to act shocked at the idea of a revolt. I am still hopeful, however, that it will not be necessary. History tells us that bloody revolts become inevitable when other options are exhausted, and usually have a lot of innocent victims. Please refer to my 'Atlas Shrugged' postings for more on that.
The real answer is we should have hung EVERY politician 50 years ago and drafted new politicians for one term only. They drafted us kids for their war and we still had to pay for it when we came home.
Look what that got us, endless wars and endless debt and endless corruption. Now our government is too big to function, too corrupt to be fixed.
"Every failure of government somehow becomes evidence that government was underfunded...The Leaking Bucket Wants a Bigger Hose" - ha-ha, you do have a way with words Mr. Arnell!
The REAL question though is: what can we do (other than open revolt!) to break the vicious cycle you describe?
To my mind, two changes are needed:
1) Severe, permanent and LEGISLATED limitations to the power of governments (e.g. governments cannot be involved in any business of any kind, be it selling cannabis or insurance, transporting oil and gas or providing any services the private sector provides; govts cannot increase taxes or introduce new taxes without a referendum; maybe wipe out all "regulations" to begin with - a law is a law, a "regulation" is a govt creation designed to circumvent law!), and
2) Politicos must answer with their PERSONAL WEALTH for any deficit they incur. This too has to be law. Once we bankrupt a couple of them - very publicly! - the rest will take notice.
Where I run into a problem is, how do we bring these much-needed changes about (once again, short of open revolt)?? Obviously, our current govts would not legislate themselves out of all this power and money!
Would love to know your thoughts on this.
(P.S. I apologize for the capitals - this platform does not allow for bolding!)
Thank you.
I think you are asking the question underneath the whole piece.
It is easy enough to say the bucket leaks. It is harder to figure out how to take the bucket away from people who profit from the leak.
I agree with the direction of what you are saying. Government has to be fenced in again. Politicians should not be able to buy applause with borrowed money and then retire before the bill arrives. That is one of the great frauds of modern politics. The promise is public. The applause is immediate. The invoice is someone else’s problem.
Your point about personal wealth gets to the heart of the incentive problem. Right now, politicians can vote for deficits, waste money, fund disasters, reward friends, wreck budgets, and then walk away with a pension, a book deal, a lobbying gig, or a cable news contract.
That’s fucked up.
If a private citizen defrauds someone, he can be sued, prosecuted, bankrupted, or jailed. If a business owner lies to investors, there are consequences. If a contractor steals from a client, he does not usually get to say, “Sorry, I’ll step down from the project.”
But in politics, stepping down is often treated as accountability. That is not accountability. That is retirement with better timing.
So yes, there is a serious argument for personal consequences when public officials knowingly create deficits, misappropriate funds, hide liabilities, or vote for spending they know cannot be paid for. At minimum, pensions should be on the table. So should clawbacks, fines, disqualification from office, and prosecution where there was actual fraud or deliberate concealment.
On the “revolt” question, I understand exactly what you mean. I am not calling for violence, and I do not want to see the country go there. But I also think it is dishonest to act shocked when people start using that word after decades of being robbed, lied to, taxed, regulated, inflated, and ignored.
When lawful accountability disappears, people eventually ask what options are left.
That is not because ordinary people are naturally reckless. It is because institutions lose legitimacy when insiders are protected from consequences that would destroy anyone else.
So the peaceful answer has to be serious enough to make revolt unnecessary. Not symbolic hearings. Not “ethics reviews.” Not another blue-ribbon commission. Real penalties. Real audits. Real clawbacks. Real pension loss. Real prosecution where crimes occurred. Real limits on taxation, debt, emergency powers, and regulatory abuse.
The public also has to stop treating government services as free. Nothing is free when it is paid for with taxes, debt, inflation, interest, or your children’s future earnings. The first step is getting people to see the bill.
That is why I create words for things people already feel but have not been able to name. “Taxphyxiation” gives a name to something people already feel. They know life is getting tighter. They know the government keeps asking for more. They know the last pile of money did not fix the last problem. They just have not always had a word for it.
How do we get there short of revolt? Probably the hard, slow way: state reforms, ballot initiatives where possible, primary challenges, local budget fights, audits, public pressure, pension reforms, spending caps, and making every tax hike discussion begin with one question:
What happened to the money you already took?
Until that question becomes unavoidable, the leaking bucket will always demand a bigger hose.
Thank you so much for sharing your views, Mr. Arnell! I think you are one of the smartest people out there, and I value your opinion. "Taxphyxation" is a great word! It's worse in Canada than it is in the US, and that's saying something because in the US it's bad enough.
To my mind, we have three options: 1) open revolt, 2) removing ourselves from the reach of these governments as much as we can (there are ways to do that, and a good start is to refuse any of their "help" - that's how they get you!), and 3) trying to fix the problem by democratic means.
I agree with your comment that it's dishonest to act shocked at the idea of a revolt. I am still hopeful, however, that it will not be necessary. History tells us that bloody revolts become inevitable when other options are exhausted, and usually have a lot of innocent victims. Please refer to my 'Atlas Shrugged' postings for more on that.
The real answer is we should have hung EVERY politician 50 years ago and drafted new politicians for one term only. They drafted us kids for their war and we still had to pay for it when we came home.
Look what that got us, endless wars and endless debt and endless corruption. Now our government is too big to function, too corrupt to be fixed.
I wonder if politicians can be replaced by AI?