Rhodes Less Traveled

It may not seem fair to over-scrutinize what a person says when they’re coping with emotional and financial setbacks. Then again, if you insist standing up in public and lecturing the county commissioners on the subject of economics, you should probably be prepared to have someone point out when you’re spouting nonsense.

And that’s all the more true if it’s by no means clear the commissioners understand the subject any better than you do.

Audrey Graf, whose husband Michael faces the prospect of being laid off from his job as a corrections officer at the Kitsap County Jail because of the county’s persistent budget problems, last week informed the commissioners that, “If my husband loses his job, we will no longer be able to afford daycare. The daycare workers will lose income and will no longer be able to pay for their haircuts. There is a trickle-down effect that happens when you pass a budget that lays off needed personnel.”

Um, no.

In point of fact, as a public employee, Mr. Graf’s salary is paid by the taxpayers. Which means that if he isn’t receiving it, there’s simply more left in our pockets to pay for our own daycare and haircuts — or whatever else we might choose.

From the Grafs’ perspective, it may seem as though those dollars disappeared from the local economy. But the truth is, they’re just being spent by someone else.

That’s not to say Mr. Graf doesn’t perform an important function. Many — though certainly not all — public servants do, which explains why we willingly employ millions of them despite the fact that their salaries show up firmly on the debit side of the ledger.

To state what should be obvious, government by itself produces neither wealth nor employment.

Zip. Zero. Nada.

At best, government merely confiscates resources from productive workers in the private sector and use them to fund services society as a whole requires. Where to draw the line regarding which services actually warrant funding is the essence of political debate. But that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s the private sector that underwrites the public sector, not the other way around.

With all due respect to Mrs. Graf, one can make a reasonable argument that her husband’s continued employment as a corrections officer is important in terms of public safety. But to suggest that paying his salary benefits all of us because he, in turn, will re-spend it is to completely misunderstand the whole concept behind a market-based economy.

When a private-sector worker creates something of value where previously nothing existed, the resulting new dollars inevitably trickle down to others through the goods and services he or she buys. But when a public-sector job is created, it simply means existing dollars trickle from the person who earned them to someone else — usually someone a politician considers more deserving.

The point is, there’s a huge difference between “trickle-down” economics and “trickle-around” economics, if you will.

As I say, it’s frustrating though predictable that someone whose grasp of economics is confined to her own circumstances should make the mistake of believing government can actually improve the economy by redistributing someone else’s wealth.

But the real danger comes when those in government start believing it, too.