Politics is about winning control of a public budget, ranging from small town or municipal to regional or national, provided by the taxation and revenue collection as outlined by the governing laws or constitution. To win, the political grouping must state convincingly and for all to understand, how it plans to use these funds to improve the quality of life for all the constituencies it represents. Having won control, the task is to set priories of budgeted line items as communicated to the voters.Providing common services (health, garbage collection, education, security, building inspection, water supply, electricity distribution and more) to a constituency are standard budgeted issues which require an annual cost increase to cover inflation. New development items such as a public hospital, school or community centre and its initial running cost can take a long time to plan and construct and are funded under capital appropriation, sourced out of current revenue, soft loans or grants, before the operational cost is absorbed into the regular budget. New ideas such as asking home-owners to separate their garbage or changing building codes are even more difficult to implement. Moving a line item from the current budget can cause crime.
Having been duly elected to serve, a politician is now a policy-maker or director prioritizing which existing budgeted line items gets more funding, which development projects are implemented or completed and which new budgeted line items are added. In the private sector managers will delete or reduce budgeted line items based on efficiency (cost to benefit), in the public sector no line item is reduced far more deleted, because a budgeted line item represents much more than just an expense for a service provided, it means contracts, jobs and ultimately votes. Hence, experienced politicians know that policies which are driven by efficiency can cost them their own careers.
The politicians have to establish numerous committees which would in turn call for expensive studies by receptive consultants; in most cases the cost of the study is more than the cost associated with the budgeted line item under review, just for the politicians to protect themselves from the voters. This is why lobbyists or activists, whose approach to the politician is a different type of efficiency (cost to votes), gets more out of the politicians.
Lobbyists or activists are managers with a cause other than profits (health, human rights, renewable energy, consumer rights, environmental protection, food producers and many, many more) who influence politicians’ actions by presenting the facts, the cost and how many it will benefit. Most are funded by business sectors and industries to push their agenda, but some are mouth pieces for politicians who have their own agenda to promote. These are the real policy-makers. The elected politician can make the necessary changes to a constitution but, through no fault of their own, cannot implement change.
For people to be suitably represented, they must join a group or association and select an experience lobbyist or activist that can promote their cause.
Rationale
T.A.J & Associates Company Limited uses this occasion to comment on topics that have been covered, both academically and by the mainstream media, to add its opinion and point out investment opportunity, not to invoke any social action.
