Politicians don't build roads, the people do

Many politicians like to publicize their administrative achievements by saying how much work they have done for the people. Statements like "I planned the construction of this street," or "that sewer was done under my direction" are frequently heard. It sounds as if public works projects are rewards granted by politicians.

Such comments sound convincing. As a result, many simple-minded Taiwanese feel grateful to politicians or consider them caring and hard working because new street lights are set up or streets are properly paved. However, such thoughts are totally wrong.

The funds for public construction projects come not from politicians themselves, but from the taxpayers. Politicians who take credit for streets and bridges show that they have forgotten who the master of a country should be.

Let's take a look at some statistics. Government expenditures on public construction can be represented by the fixed capital formation in the national income account. This amounted to NT$184.8 billion in 1989. The figure increased to NT$350.4 billion in 1992.

In 1993, the year James Soong (宋楚瑜) became provincial governor, it went up to NT$422.7 billion and rose to NT$473.3 billion in 1994. The figure stayed at around NT$500 billion in the years from 1995 to 1998. Not considering the fluctuations in commodity prices, the annual government expenditure from 1995 to 1998 was almost 2.5 times that of 1989.

Given that the government spent 2.5 times more money, it is only natural that more public works were completed at that time. But the people mistakenly attributed such results to officials working particularly hard. The truth, however, was that the government had more money to spend. Why? One reason was that our people worked hard, so the gross national product almost doubled during that period.

Most of the money spent by the government comes from either taxpayers or revenues received from selling government-owned assets. Sometimes the government simply borrows money, which needs to be returned later through money raised via tax hikes or selling government-owned properties. In other words, public works are built with the people's money.

My point is that there is no need for people to feel grateful to politicians who build sewers and roads for us. On the contrary, we should carefully watch to see whether politicians have wasted or embezzled our money or whether politicians use construction budgets to buy off voters.

Chen Po-chih is professor of economics at National Taiwan University.