Even the brilliant Michael Barone will say about some politician who has been in office for a long time that he or she has devoted many years of “public service.” With no disrespect of Michael Barone, he is trying valiantly to be non-partisan, but we all know that public service is what volunteers who pick up trash on the highway do, not politicians. I could even be persuaded that firefighters and the police do public service, at least most of them. A firefighter who rushes into a burning house or a police officer that responds to a domestic violence call is doing public service. A politician who raises our taxes with phony “cap and trade” or votes for state-run heath care to give the government absolute control over every living soul is doing public damage, not public service.

No one understands this better than the great Thomas Sowell. May he live forever.

In a column from November 24th he said:

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems— of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

Many of the things the government does that may seem stupid are not stupid at all, from the standpoint of the elected officials or bureaucrats who do these things.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

The great economist James Buchanan has given a scholar’s analysis to this thinking, in his Public Choice Theory which holds that polticians and bureaucrats approach everything the same way actors in the private sector do, from their own self interest.