So, I have an issue. My issue is the DMV. Well, not just the DMV by any means, but it's an example of something I see developing in many non-elective bureaus of the US government.
The DMV (in Wisconsin, likely different for each state) charges $35 for a driver's license or learner's permit, and $25 (I believe) for a State ID. Now, that in itself I have no issue with. It's steep for a bit of plastic, but I understand there are costs involved with processing information and paying every cog in the machine to move a stack of papers one space to the left, right? Right?
Well, the problem I have is that I'm already paying taxes to support the extant bureaucracy. The explanation I was given, from someone that has worked in the DMV, is that they don't get enough from taxes. Ok, maybe they were misinformed. But it makes my neck itch.
Why, you ask? Well, there's this little thing called capitalism (groans heard, acknowledged 
). Capitalism is fine, it works ok, sort of, that's not the issue of this post. I'm not going to bash it here. The problem I have is thusly: In private capitalism (as I understand it, mind), competition increases efficiency because paying every guy that waves a sign around on the road to get you to buy a pizza a 50k/yr income is a massive waste of resources that could be spent on competing with others. If the DMV is not getting enough money from taxes to support their State ID program (which is OMG SOCIALISM or something, I dunno), and they need to charge money for their IDs beyond a nominal deterrent for careless loss (and I can tell you, $35 in my financial position is not in the least bit nominal), what entity competes with them to keep that money from ending up in the hands of Joe Dropout?
In addition, if a venture is non-competetive without tax support, is it sane for a state-run body to fill their coffers in the same way as private businesses? I'm speaking specifically of my city's public transit system (Milwaukee) facing its financial crisis with substantial yearly fare increases combined with lowered services. As a result, private solutions seem to be rapidly eroding MCTS's viability - I see daily fewer city buses than non-city. It's just weird to me. Milwaukee literally could not survive as it is without the bus service (I think you'd have to live here for long enough to see how many low to mid-class workers depend on it to understand), and yet people with vehicles (my parents included, both federal employees) are outraged at the thought of supporting it further with taxes. NIMBY problem I suppose.
I realize these issues must be debated somewhere (and often), but I'm a lowly IT-Dev student in a technical college, not a poli-sci major or even remotely interested in spending time on a course for it. I post this here because I legitimately am interested in the opinions of the forumites here - you guys have excellent, informative debates, which I'm usually only able to sit on the sidelines for. So what do you think?
It's possible there is someone corrupt siphoning off money. It seems to be fairly easy to get away with due to people being lazy and being willing to trust an accountant to do the accounting.
Something I'd have to know is whether they raised wages or benefits recently? Also, I think pretty much all the states are terribly short of funds. I read a week or two back that Massachusets is going to a 4 day school week.
Long story personal experience story follows about corruption in local government:
For example, in my small town we had a sewer commisioner who made 3% of all profits made by the sewer. Their excuse for forcing people to hook up was that septic tanks were draining into the local lakes. This is true for lakeside residents. However, they tried to make everyone in a couple of townships hook up (my dad lives right on the border between the two about a mile from the lake). It would have cost 9000$ (I think? I was like 10 and was sad my dad was too busy to practice baseball as often as before) per household, and they were going to charge us twice for hooking up a small apartment we rent out 30 feet from our house. My dad did his own water samples, found out they were lieing about the water quality, started a petition with other unsatisfied people and managed to get it on the ballot. (they made my dad collect signatures from both townships, despite first telling him it only needed to be voted down on the ballot in one township for the other to be considered voted down also. This was a blatant lie. The opposite was true, if one township failed to vote it down through the ballot, both townships would adhere to the plan. This forced a mad scramble to get enough signatures in the second, larger township before the deadline.) To shorten the story, the commissioner tried every sneaky bureaucratic way to avoid allowing the people to vote and then tried to manipulate the vote by giving trailer park owners the right to vote for all the residents (in return for being charged once for the whole trailer park, wtf) and similar schemes, but it was placed on the ballot in time and voted down by the majority who didn't want it. After this, they decided to go around our house and only give it to the people who requested it in the first place due to their actual need
After a couple years the sewer fund was deeply, deeply in debt and the treasurer was convicted of embezzlement, the Commisioner retired immediately and moved down South somewhere where they don't have a pending investigation, thereby escaping all responsibility; and the price for the service skyrocketed. Due to the fact all records relating to money were "lost", they had to hire a lawyer/accountant, who dicked around in typical lawyer fashion and achieved nothing, was paid $100k+, then they had to hire another one while the first pressed a legal claim for more compensation. Now, it seems the sewer people are gearing up for another round of battles with the residents who don't want their service by joining a regional sewer authority, claiming that it's in response to the corruption they've already shown. Of course, what this will allow them to do theoretically is to simply go over the resident's heads by pointing to something we can't influence. It's funny though because it's already bit them in the ass because the regional sewer authority seems to have somewhat conflicting desires with the local sewer board and is making a nuisance of themselves according to the local paper. Also, I should note that everyone related to the sewer problems were conservative because for some god awful foolish reason this town trusts them with their money. I think it's the fact we have more churches per capita than most of Italy and a large chapter of Michigan Militia probably doesn't hurt either.
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if you think there is a problem, check out some facts. The budget documentation should be available to you as the public in a Freedom of Information act I would assume. If you can give us that we'd be able to help you out a lot more.
If you're asking whether the local government should be able to increase taxes while reducing service, it really matters on a couple things. The first would be whether it's simply trying to make up revenue lost from the state or federal government. That's where the budget comes in handy to check, especially if you can compare it with the previous years. If it turns out lost revenue isn't the case, I'd say you might have a corrupt official(s) somewhere, who is probably in charge of or related to the actual accounting somehow.
The lack of state and federal funds are likely the largest role in this though, because in today's times silly things that benefit the everyman like education and public transport pale in comparison to the importance of two unpopular wars that obviously must be "won" at all costs, and those costs are determined by the companies who supply the war material. However, anytime money is moving around people are tempted to take a little bit for themselves and I wouldn't put it past them to settle on reduced state and federal aid as an excellent camouflage for pinching a bit.
Also, I believe your concerns about "Joe Dropout" are unfounded.
1:Your implied disdain for people on unemployment benefits is misguided. In order to qualify (at least in Michigan) you must have held a full time job within a certain time frame beforehand; and held it for I think at least 6 months and to have lost your job through no fault of your own, IE the company fails or downsizes. This is also I think about 2/3s of whatever you made at your last job. If "Joe Dropout" was being paid minimum wage at his last full time job, and "Joe McFactory" made $30 an hour operating heavy machinery before being laid off through no fault of his own, "Mcfactory" is actually taking much more of your taxes than the dropout. The same goes for "Joe McMastersinbusiness." Wisconsin could have a system that is vastly different I suppose, but Michigan's really isn't heavily geared towards benefiting the poor, uneducated, or lazy over the wealthy, learned, or industrious. Even if it's on a sliding scale, the scale would have to be extreme for the benefits to scale dishonestly as your former wages become lower.
2: I'm not very knowledgeable on state budget laws, but I would guess that any surplus or profit goes into a special account. At this point the government has several options, the most logical of which is relatively safe investment, perhaps in Federal bonds or the highest interest bank account possible. They could also transfer it to budgets with a shortfall, one of which like you said could be unemployment benefits. However, I'd guess that the system is designed (before corruption) to generally not make a profit except through an incorrect, accidental forecast and thus there is no need for capitalist competition within the government. I suppose I could argue that private taxis provide some competition, but not all cities have a large fleet of them available.
Also, here is a link I just found. I'm too half conscious from the need to sleep to go through stuff about budgets now though.
http://www.dot.wisconsin.gov/about/budget.htmEDIT 2: I talked to my dad about Michigan unemployment benefits and there is a cap of $1300 monthly. I suppose it could be argued that having a cap benefits the poor more than the wealthy who pay more into the system. This is a good argument, if a selfish one. I'd say though in my opinion that if you can't live off $1300 a month while being able to keep the benefits, even with a part time job which is allowed, you're living too well for an unemployed person and if your wages were high enough to hit the cap you should have some saved up for hard times anyways.
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Topic: Capitalism in gov't, etc. (Read 2113 times)