Powered By Blogger

Sunday, July 13, 2014

The Subsidy Fiasco

Every government in the world tends to give free or cheap things to it's citizens. For example India passed Food security bill last year, which made basic food items extremely cheap for poor people. US made healthcare cheaper. Governments always provide people services, that's what they are there for. But the problem is that they provide services cheaper than the market rate.

They provide water, electricity, petrol (gasoline as some of u say) cheaper than it's true value. And they do it using taxpayers money. That's a problem.
I, or anybody in my family don't use a vehicle. So we basically don't care whether the petrol prices rise or fall. But government takes taxes from us and uses a part of it to subsidize petrol. That's why it is available to people so cheaper than the international market from which government is buying (importing) it. I have absolutely no direct or indirect benefit of subsidizing petrol. The only people benefiting from this are the people who use cars and bikes. These people use own vehicles despite other cheap commuting options such as bus or local trains are available. And govt is encouraging them to do so by subsidizing petrol. This is absolutely wrong. You should pay for what you want. Govt also subsidizes diesel, a fuel mainly used by buses and trains. Which is more acceptable as many people benefit from it and people's money is being used for people. But subsidizing petrol makes no sense at all.
The problem with subsidizing things is that people waste those things. When they waste subsidizes things they waste a part of taxpayers money, My money. For example people who use cars, sometimes use it unnecessarily for short distances, they don't maintain vehicles that result in wastage of petrol, Wastage of Subsidized petrol. When you waste things, you should at least be wasting it with your own money.
This is not just about petrol subsidies. You give cheaper electricity, people waste it. You give cheaper water supply, people waste it. You subsidize food, people waste it. You make healthcare cheaper, people won't take care of their health.This is the problem with every subsidized thing or service. It's not that people won't waste things if they aren't subsidized, they still would but at least it would only be their loss and not the loss of taxpayers money.
On the other hand, not giving subsidies would also be unfair.  What if a poor man doesn't afford to pay for unsubsidized electricity,food,etc. Just because he is poor doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to live a better life? This is why subsidies started existing in the first place. To bring equality. To try to make life of poor or common man as luxurious as rich. To Get Votes.
Every common man or poor man wants to become rich. They have an attraction towards the lifestyle of rich people. They want to increase the quality of their life. But they don't wanted to do anything about it. They don't want to work hard, work more and earn money. Politicians use this opportunity. They subsidize things and make it affordable for the common man in order to increase his quality of life. So politicians working to increase quality of life of common man is a good thing. No it isn't. Getting your quality of life increased without having to do anything about it is wrong.
Subsidies exist because they are a win-win scenario for both politicians as well as not-wanting-to-work-hard-population. But they are not, they just seem to be. Money for the subsidies comes only from people. So its politicians game to fool people into thinking that govt is doing something for them. Secondly, it is morally wrong. People must pay for what they get. Thirdly, there is no other solution to stop the wastage-of-taxpayers-money problem than to stop giving subsidies.
We have to now stop this. When a rhetorical question like- Just because he is poor doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to live a better life? -  is asked. We should have the firmness of answering it with a no. No, he doesn't deserve to live a better life. He is poor because of a reason and that's why he should remain so unless he does something for himself.  But to say this, we have to reach a point where we all are given same opportunities initially. When we all have equal chance of getting a good education then only we can blame poor for being poor. Once again, all it comes down to is education. When talent in every child is identified and given a chance to develop so that it can benefit society then only we will become a fair society. I wouldn't say that poverty won't exist in such case, it still would. Because even if we give equal opportunities to all the people, not all of them would utilise it equally. And when people turn out to be poor in such ideal system, it is their mistake. Bit until we invent such ideal system, we have to keep giving subsidies, we have to keep carrying the burden of the poor on the shoulders of the country.

No comments:

Post a Comment