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All
of our U.S.
politicians
should be
put in
reform
school
immediately÷New
Zealandâs
reform
school. We
have a thing
or two
hundred to
learn from
the small
country down
under that
has done the
impossible÷trimmed
the size of
its
coercive,
regulatory
and taxing
government
and lived to
tell about
it.
While
we have been
fattening
into the
most
engorged
leviathan
state on the
planet, New
Zealand has
been on a
diet of lean
liberty. New
Zealand has
peeled away
suffocating
layers of
fat
government
to permit
freedom to
breathe and
flourish.
ãRolling
Back
Government:
Lessons from
New
Zealand,ä
by Maurice
P. McTigue,
former New
Zealand
cabinet
minister, is
a school
primer on
moderation.
McTigueâs
educational
lecture is
reprinted in
parts by
permission
from
Imprimus,
the national
speech
digest of
Hillsdale
College <www.hillsdale.edu>.
New
Zealandâs
reform
government
asked each
agency just
two vital
questions:
ãWhat are
you
doing?ä
and, ãWhat
should you
be doing?ä
Then it told
each agency
to eliminate
what it
should not
be doing.
Reforms
reduced the
number of
government
employees
with the
Department
of
Transportation
from 5,600
to 53. The
number of
parasitic
employees
with the
Forest
Service was
slashed to
17 from
17,000.
McTigue
himself used
to be the
Minister of
Works. He
ended up
being the
only
employee
left when
the process
was applied
to its
28,000
employees.
As McTigue
says, most
of what that
Department
did was
construction
and
engineering,
and there
were plenty
of people
who could do
that without
government
involvement.
Did
New
Zealandâs
new flexing
of
freedomâs
muscle kill
all those
jobs? No.
Government
just stopped
taxing
producers to
transfer to
those
employees.
The need for
those jobs
still
existed and
private
companies
happily
employed
those
skills.
Freedom
allowed
those
workers to
earn three
times as
much and be
60 percent
more
productive.
Reform
freed up the
things
government
was doing
that had no
reason being
done by
government.
New
Zealandâs
wave of
freedom sold
off
telecommunications,
airlines,
irrigation
schemes,
computing
services,
government
printing
offices,
insurance
companies,
banks,
securities,
mortgages,
railways,
bus
services,
hotels,
shipping
lines,
agricultural
advisory
services,
and more.
Productivity
rose; costs
dropped.
The
institution
of high
levels of
transparency
and
significant
consequences
for bad
decisions
had the
following
results: the
size of
government
was reduced
by 66
percent
measured by
the number
of
employees;
the
governmentâs
share of GDP
dropped to
27 from 44
percent;
surpluses
were
produced;
the
surpluses
were used to
pay off
debt; the
debt dropped
to 17 from
63 percent
of GDP; the
remainder of
the surplus
each year
was used for
tax relief;
the income
tax rate was
reduced by
half and
incidental
taxes were
eliminated.
With
reform
results like
that, we
taxpayers
will even
volunteer to
foot the
school bill.
Load âem
up; ship
âem off.
Floy
Lilley is a
land use
attorney
with Shroads
&
Lilley, P.L.,
Amelia
Island,
Fla., and is
vice-chair
of
Sovereignty
International.
She is the
most recent
recipient of
the coveted
Veritas
Award from
American
Agri-Women.
Illustration
by John
Bardwell
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