public service – RI Future

In between telling its readers the street price of pot, claiming exclusives and scoops other outlets have already covered, and trying to force-feed readers another slideshow, the misnamed GoLocalProv also publishes a few right-wing to “centrist” commentators. The one who is (in Douglas’ Adams’ famous words) “mostly harmless” is Russell Moore; the former Warwick Beacon reporter / Caprio for Governor campaign worker. But Moore’s most recent column stepped into strange territory. Moore states:

Nobody can tell me that the government bureaucrat is a public servant but a private sector business owner isn’t. Without the private sector, and the risk takers that keep the engine of commerce running, we wouldn’t have a public sector.

Yes, that’s a collection of business class-babble. And a lot of it is untrue. Let’s unpack this a bit more, when Moore gives us his definition of public service:

…when someone starts a business and employs people, and pays taxes, there’s no doubting that that too is public service.

Nope. Paying taxes is not a public service. Paying taxes is part of a citizen’s social contract with the government so that government can provide genuine public services so that someone’s private service can function. Starting a business is not a public service. It’s a decision you make with the intention of gaining profit. Employing people is not a public service, it’s something you do so that you have the productivity to turn a profit.

Moore’s definition of public service is so expansive, we can even turn it on its head a bit. If employing people is a public service, then surely being employed is a public service as well, since you provide productivity for someone else to make a profit while also earning income to pay taxes. Heck, it’s so expansive that it covers everyone in the country, since there is no one who does not pay tax at some point.

Meanwhile, genuine public servants (Moore’s “government bureaucrat” – gee, I wonder why that word was picked…) are out there doing things like enforcing laws so that other private citizens don’t destroy Moore’s business owner’s profits. Or putting out fires so that other negligent private citizens don’t destroy Moore’s business owner’s profits. Or registering and regulating businesses so that fraudulent hucksters don’t destroy Moore’s business owner’s profits. And they do it all without expecting that they’ll make more money if they do their absolute best. Unlike a private business, if the government earns more than it spends, it doesn’t necessarily get to keep that money and expand capacity or reward productive employees (or overcompensate executives as some less scrupulous businesses do).

Instead, public servants get what the whims of legislators (and by extension, voters) and the negotiating skills of their union representatives bring them (and that latter bit was hard fought for and continues to be hard fought to protect). Yes, they get paid, they get benefits, etc., and they have stronger protections than private sector workers, but they’ve fought hard to keep those.

Okay, let’s go to another Moore gem:

…far too often it seems like the needs of the private sector get lost in our political dialogues. At times, it seems like we’ve lost sense of the interconnectedness of the two sectors.

Take that first part of the sentence and compare it with recent legislative history. Let me point out that the General Assembly did not introduce and pass a set of 25 bills to improve conditions for the struggling citizens of this state. They certainly did not create a new executive office complete with a cabinet secretary position tasked with looking for ways to make life better for the state’s hardest hit citizens. The focus of the “Moving the Needle” package was business.

It’s odd for Moore to be the one suggesting we’ve failed to consider how government and business are interconnected, when he routinely calls for lower taxes, less spending, and laxer regulations. All of that translates into fewer public services that can benefit business or keeping the rules and laws enforced.

But my favorite part of Moore’s off-kilter argument is back in that first bit I quoted: “Without the private sector… we wouldn’t have a public sector.”

Look, I don’t care where you stand in politics; left, right, up, down, etc… you should have enough knowledge to know this isn’t true. You don’t have to look far back to see public sectors existing without private sectors. The fact that the idea of private industry is only a relatively recent concept should be enough to dissuade you of this notion. Now, don’t get confused and think that I’m suggesting that a world without a private sector is preferable (they’re clearly not). I’m saying that, regardless of ideology, you have to acknowledge that it can, has, and probably will continue to be done.

In contrast, there is virtually no flourishing and peaceful private sector that has existed without a public sector. You can’t have a market if there’s no one there to ensure that people play by the rules.

Public servants have been under attack for the last few years. While the State has been willing to break its contracts with public servants in the form of pensions, it’s been more than willing to keep its contracts with private business with the 38 Studios bonds being the best example. Media often asks for the insight of business into government, whereas it rarely asks public servants their opinions and wouldn’t dream of asking for their insight into business. The writers who grace GoLocalProv’s pages routinely insult public servants and portray them as barriers to progress, impediments to business, drains on the economy, and a thousand other such insults. Now, Moore is trying to appropriate the good feelings Rhode Islanders hold for public servants by expanding the label to cover those in private service (but specifically business owners, not all private sector workers).

I know that the pageview journalism GoLocalProv engages in is a relatively shameless enterprise, but I hope some of its writers (oh, I’m sorry, “mindsetters” trademark yadda yadda) have a sense of shame when they publish ill-conceived articles that fail to understand the fundamental differences between “citizenship” and “public service.” We shouldn’t get those confused, though I know it’s a bit hard not to for media folks sometimes.

So in the 2011-2012 General Assembly class, roughly 1 in 4 legislators were lawyers. Now, that’s a considerable over-representation. Thus it’s not surprising to me that the legislature typically starts its session about the time court gets out.

Lawyers are also adept at writing laws, typically in legalese (despite there being more efficient and understandable ways to write legally binding documents in plain English). Any legislator or citizen that wishes to pass a bill must likewise be able to write in language understandable to lawyers, but much more difficult to parse for the average person.

This over-representation of the legal profession (and other professions) has led some to point out that our legislature is vastly different from the people it represents. This is a national phenomenon, as RIPR’s Ian Donnis pointed out in October. Mr. Donnis limited his discussion to Rhode Island’s federal officers, but our farm team, state government, is also vastly different from the people it represents. So the question is, how do you create a legislature more representative of the people of Rhode Island?

Moderate Party Chair Ken Block has a “solution”: shorten the legislature’s amount of time in office to three months a year. That idea might appeal to the small-government types Mr. Block sort-of represents, but it’s ultimately irrelevant to the question above. Whether it’s one day or twelve months without holidays or weekends, how often the legislature meets is not going to.

We have to make Rhode Island’s legislature more representative of its people.

Yet, there remains little incentive to serve. Beyond the amount of abuse you’re going to take (we can argue whether that abuse is warranted or not), the legislature is a demanding job for little pay. Your constituents need your assistance at all hours, regardless of whether you have cows to milk or legal documents to file. You are reasonably likely to spend the period from June to November running for office; though a number are fortunate enough that Rhode Islander apathy and Democratic inertia combine to allow them to run unopposed or avoid either a primary or general election.

A problem small-government types like Mr. Block run up against is that we consider that legislative work is “public service.” So is fire-fighting, police work, or any of the other various services that governments provide. Yet all of those workers are compensated. There has been so much antagonism towards compensation for RI legislators that 30 lawmakers refused their mandated raise. While far too many of us struggle to make ends meet, these lawmakers are literally turning down money.

Recognizing that there is a disconnect between the constituent and their representative, that the latter is in a privileged position, hurts no one. But attempting to pass off that the solution to this issue is halving the number of months the legislature serves is disingenuous at best and intentionally misleading at worst.

Few working people have both the time to take off or the money to spend to mount an effective campaign against incumbents. Among those that can, even fewer are likely to find employers who are willing to let them leave work early, or take a break to field constituent calls. Is it any wonder why such a system favors the wealthy, the different, the unrepresentative would-be representative?

We need to reform our campaign finance laws, and we need a wage for our lawmakers that would allow them to take care of themselves and their families while being able to give their full undivided attention to the needs of their constituents and their state. Until then, we will have to rely on those extraordinary individuals that heed these words from Rep. Teresa Tanzi’s keynote speech to Netroots Nation 2012:

You need to join me. Take the next step, run for office. Yes, you. The one with the family, the job, the crushing load of schoolwork, the fuller than full plate. YOU! Anything less than full participation will not be enough.

Now, can you hear I’m talking to you? I need you standing beside me when the doors close to the public, and the negotiations begin. I need you sitting beside me, after the debate ends, the votes are taken and a proposal becomes law. I need your voice to be the voice of all the women, families and children who are voiceless and invisible. I need you to join me. You. I am talking to you.

EXTRA: It was pointed out to me that a reduction to three months would also likely reduce the likelihood of a public hearing on any specific bill.

Tag: public service

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