Do people who are paid from the public purse have a conflict of interest when voting for their representatives? Surely they have an interest in any candidate who promises bigger government? Should they be allowed to vote in local elections? What about county (U.K.) / State (U.S.) elections? Should different standards apply when public employees are very much a minority and when public employees are a significant minority like in France (over 20%)?
There is a precedent: members of the U.K. House of Lords are not allowed to vote in elections (possibly Parliamentary elections only).
Sort of. They aren’t allowed to vote for members of the House of Commons because, well, they’re Lords and not a part of the common folk. That was the whole point of having a House of Commons in the first place.
Also, someone benefiting from the government isn’t necessarially “pro big government,” they’re just probably going to be pro-whatever it is that benefits them, just like anyone else.
Speaking as a government employee, where’s the conflict of interest? I’ve already got my ricebowl and it makes no difference to me whose signature is on my paycheck. And why would I want a bigger government? I want the rest of you poor bastards to be out there in the private sector, earning money and paying taxes so I can be supported in the style to which I’ve become accustomed. So quit fooling around on the internet and get back to work.
The English lords didn’t get to vote for the House of Commons, because they already participate directly in the Parliament. The Queen doesn’t get a vote either, for the same reason (she is the third part of the Parliament).
When I was working at a non-government, not-for-profit organization, our boss addressed a group of public employees about the organization’s aggressive legislative agenda. She noted that to achieve all the goals, there would have to be a tax increase.
At that moment, she said half the audience – a group that would have benefited directly from increased government spending in those areas – turned her off completely. She could actually see the shift in the group’s body language.
It seems that when it comes to taxes, there’s not as much conflict of interest as one might think.
They pay taxes don’t they? Why do you think that they would favour bigger government when they already have a job.
Maybe they want less government and less tax taken from their pay cheques. Maybe the want a bigger safety net and are willing to pay for it through taxes. In short they face the same decisions and taxes that everyone else face. Of course they should have the vote.
Surely politicians themselves have a greater self interest and yet they are allowed to vote aren’t they, and rightly so as it is their rights as citizens of a democracy.
The whole point of voting is to have someone in government who represents your interests. This applies to government employees no less than the rest of us. You might as well be asking if women should be allowed to vote on abortion issues, or gays on gay right legislation, or beavers on Federal weland protection acts.
Wait, beavers do get to vote in this country, right? Or is that only Canada?
Anyway, point is, voting is a way of making the country more closely reflect your own, personal interests and goals. It’s impossible for there to be a conflict of interest in the voting booth, because the voting booth is where the interests of the country are determined. Hell, it’s legal (not to say expected) for politicians to vote for themselves. If that’s allowed, what’s wrong with a government employee voting on government programs?
What about Folks in the Military (can you imagine ‘gong there’)? Won’t they just vote for people who promise Military pay raises and “more” Military?Same with folks on Socila Security.
What if your spouse, sibling, parent, or offspring work for the Government – don’t you then have a conflict by this thinking?
What about anyone in a Univerity Biology Lab who is on a Government Grant? DOT workers on DOT grants …
It is too slippery a slope … better just to say trust folks to vote out people who they think are spoending thier money unfairly or unwisely
Isn’t it also the case that people have many split loyalties. Some people will vote for someone of the opposite party just because they like the candidate as a person. Some people will only care about a candidate’s position on abortion, or gay marriage, or guns, or any other social issue.
Government employees are not a voting bloc. The only example might be at a very local level such as teachers and school district employees voting in a school board election which is held during a non-regular election time (say March 1st or something.)
The whole idea in a democracy is that everyone has their own interests and is entitled to a “say” in our collective government that decides between competing interests. Otherwise, one could argue that a better system would be to have wiser people than the average John Q. Public decide who will represent us. So, in this regard, I don’t see why you should start ruling certain interests out.
Much more worrisome, it seems to me, is when people go beyond just voting and contribute large amounts of money to candidates who then do things that clearly benefit their own (often very narrow) economic interests. Strangely enough, objections to this very obvious conflict-of-interest, whereby those with largely purse-strings to begin with can effectively get more votes and can consider elections as investments that pay handsome returns, seem to be muted.