Everyday we pay for items and services that we chose to fulfill our needs and make our life better.
We do this voluntarily. We do this by our own choice. If we are not satisfied with our purchases, we can get a refund or replacement, usually with the willingness of the provider to ensure we, as their customer are satisfied.
However, this does not work with the government. At every level, it takes our money, by coercion and at times threats, forcing us to buy services and items that are not needed.
I want my money back.
A recent News-Press article shared the “joy of discovery” of several UCSB professors, who on our dime, got acknowledged for such absurd usage of our money to “prove” an economical experiment that if you pay students to exercise at the gym, would they continue if not paid. Really.
Our money is paying students to work out.
I want my money back.
Another professor used my money to study why the mind wanders to satisfy his own curiosity. Any Applied Scholastics’ home schooler knows that the mind wanders from a subject if there is a misunderstood word or concept, too steep a gradient or a lack of mass.
I want my money back!
Our governor of California, with America’s highest gas tax and high personal income tax, loves spending our money: $20,000,00 on studying vaping, funding illegal alien-owned business in the amount of $50 million, high state government employee pensions, the high speed rail to nowhere, yet can’t get water to the central valley farmers.
I want my money back.
Our federal government loves spending our money on useless projects like spending $700,000 of our tax money in England so experimenters can hook zebrafish on nicotine, or $22,000,000 to bring Serbia cheese up to international standards, or spending $4,658,865 to study the connection between drinking alcohol and ending up in the ER. Maybe if the zebrafish drank alcohol, he would not get addicted to nicotine.
Government, all who work for or are funded by our money, seems to forget that we, the taxpayers, are the customer.
And good customer relations is to always deliver more than what you receive in compensation. Unfortunately, now it is the opposite.
Imagine what would happen if we all asked for our money back.
Gillian Christie is CEO of Christie & Co., a Santa Barbara business.
Gillian Christie
The author lives in Santa Barbara.
