Ego and Politicians

Politicians have great egos. They think they can make a difference. They are willing to go through a lot to prove or disprove the point. Some spend huge amounts of their own fortunes to get elected. What does this say about politicians? We can use Meg Whitman as an example to illustrate (we could have used Michael Bloomberg as well).

Now we read that Meg Whitman spent at least $85 million to win the Republican nomination for Governor in California. She presumably will spend even more in the general election campaign.

Now Whitman is a billionaire supposedly, so I suppose that this is not much to her. But the question I want to ask is can she not find a better use for this money? What about charity? She could give this to the Gates Foundation, for example, and improve health around the world. Or if she is only concerned with California, then to some California charities.

To choose spending this on her campaign, she has to believe that she is better for California than the next best candidate by more than the value of the charitable contributions. Now most politicians hardly ever make a difference. So she must have a really, really, big ego.

The question then is whether you really want as a Governor someone who is so sure they are great. It seems to me that politicians who self-finance their campaigns are super egotists. The fact that they spend their own money demonstrates their confidence, but it also demonstrates something about them.

Or it could be that they do it just to show off. They want to be powerful in and of itself.

No More California Dreamin

I grew up in California, and was a beneficiary of the great services the state provided. I went to UCLA and UC Berkeley, and got a great education. But today, the California dream is waning, as this article in the NY Times points out.

California's new budget deal is not going to help. The fundamental fiscal problems that plague the state are not addressed. California needs two things: eliminate referenda and eliminate proposition 13, that limits property taxation. The former creates spending, the latter limits the ability to pay for it. Without property taxation California relies on taxing high incomes, which are both mobile, and highly procyclical. The referenda support extra spending without considering where the funds are to come from. The system is obviously totally broken.