One thing that caught my eye this week was the revelation that the States still has legislation waiting to be drafted from 2003.
I had to read that twice because I assumed I had misunderstood it. Not legislation waiting to come into force. Not legislation awaiting some commencement date hidden in the small print. Legislation which, more than 20 years later, has still not even reached the drafting stage.
I have no idea whether the legislation itself is good, bad or indifferent. That is not really the point. What interested me was the thought that somebody, somewhere, once considered it important enough to spend taxpayers’ money investigating, consulting upon, debating and approving, only for it then to sit quietly on a shelf while 23 years drifted by and everybody moved on to other concerns.
Which made me wonder how much of the States budget consists of things that once seemed terribly important and now barely merit a mention.
Government budgeting has always puzzled me. It appears to start with last year’s spending, add a bit for inflation, add a bit for pay rises, bolt on a few fresh ambitions and then, when the total turns out larger than expected, everybody gathers around looking concerned and starts discussing how much more tax will be needed.
Life never worked like that on a farm.
If I decided I needed a new shed and 20 years later I still had not built it, I would probably conclude that I did not need the shed after all. Government appears to take a different view. The shed remains in the file. The aspiration remains in the file. The people involved retire, move on or disappear altogether, but somehow the idea itself acquires a kind of immortality.
That is why I have always had a soft spot for the idea of zero-based budgeting. Not because it sounds exciting. Quite the opposite. It sounds about as exciting as cleaning out a cow stable. But every so often somebody has to empty the shed and decide what is actually worth keeping.
If we were creating the States of Guernsey from scratch tomorrow, would we really choose to spend money on everything we currently spend money on today?
I doubt it.
The more I thought about those pieces of legislation gathering dust since 2003, the more another thought occurred to me. If they were important enough to investigate and approve, why were they not important enough to finish? And if they were not important enough to finish, why are we still carrying forward the spending habits and assumptions that produced them?
Perhaps that sounds unfair. Perhaps some of those projects were genuinely worthwhile. But 23 years is a very long time. It is long enough for an urgent priority to become a historical curiosity.
And that is where I begin to struggle with the tax reform debate.
I keep being told that GST is necessary because we need more money for hospitals, schools and other essential services. Fair enough. Hospitals, schools and care for the elderly are important. Nobody sensible disputes that.
What I find harder to understand is why, at exactly the same time, we are still discussing eastern seaboard development, redesigning large parts of the Bridge, Black Rock projects and various other ambitions which may or may not be excellent ideas but have little to do with keeping a hospital open, educating a child or caring for the vulnerable.
If money is genuinely that tight, why are those conversations even taking place?
That is not a rhetorical question. I genuinely want to know.
Because if I were sitting around a kitchen table trying to balance a household budget, I would not begin by discussing how to redesign the garden while worrying whether I could afford to repair the roof. I would sort the roof out first. Then, if there was money left, I would think about the garden.
The same principle applies to government.
Fund the essentials.
Fund them properly.
Then see what is left.
Instead, we seem to have reached the point where every aspiration is treated as a necessity and every necessity is used to justify higher taxation.
Which brings me back to GST.
The more I read the arguments, the less convinced I become that GST is actually a solution. Even if one accepts every figure produced by Policy & Resources, GST does not appear to solve the problem permanently. P&R itself acknowledges that deficits are likely to return in future years and that further measures may be required.
That does not sound like a cure. It sounds like a sticking plaster. A sticking plaster may be useful, It may buy time. But nobody mistakes it for a cure.
What worries me is that GST increasingly looks like the first step on a very long road.
Sometimes I picture the chief minister dressed in a Napoleonic uniform, standing outside a hostelry and singing cheerfully to passers-by.
Three percent today.
Five percent one day.
A levy for this.
A subsidy that way.
A vision to pursue.
A mission to renew.
Another fresh review.
Before the bill comes due.
And somewhere in the distance, the taxpayer quietly checking whether there is anything left in his wallet.
The joke, unfortunately, is that there may be more truth in it than we would like.
Because if spending remains the disease, taxation merely treats the symptoms.
Then there is the compensation package.
This is where I really begin scratching my head.
We are told the States desperately needs more money. We are then told that large numbers of households will require compensation so they are not disadvantaged by the new tax.
Perhaps somebody cleverer than me can explain how those two ideas fit together.
If GST is primarily about raising money to fund essential services, that is one argument.
If GST is primarily about redistributing wealth from one group of islanders to another, that is a different argument altogether.
The trouble is that the current proposals seem to contain elements of both.
The more compensation that is paid out, the less money remains to solve the alleged problem. The more money retained by the States, the less compensation there can be.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are trying to have both arguments at the same time.
And perhaps that is because the real problem is not taxation at all.
Perhaps the real problem is priorities.
This week we also learned that Sark is looking at changes to its tax system because it needs more money. There is at least a certain honesty about that. Sark is discovering what every small community eventually discovers.
Aspirations cost money.
At least Sark is not yet standing at Maseline with a begging bowl pointed towards St Peter Port.
Alderney, however, reached that stage years ago.
Now before the letters arrive, I have nothing against Alderney. Quite the opposite. But Alderney provides a useful lesson in what happens when aspirations run ahead of resources. Like every community, it wants good services, good infrastructure and good facilities. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Most of us want things.
I would not mind another 10 vergees around Old Farm. The fact that I would like them does not mean somebody else should buy them for me.
Yet that is the dilemma every small jurisdiction eventually faces.
At some point somebody has to pay.
If Alderney cannot afford everything Alderney wants, it turns to Guernsey.
If Sark one day cannot afford everything Sark wants, it may turn to Guernsey too.
But if Guernsey reaches the point where it cannot afford everything Guernsey wants, who exactly do we turn to?
I suspect we all know the answer.
Across the water.
Which is why I find the independence argument far more interesting than the tax argument.
People often talk about independence as though it were a constitutional matter. They talk about ancient rights, self-government and our relationship with the Crown.
All important subjects.
But independence is also financial.
A community that can pay its own way remains free to make its own decisions.
A community that cannot eventually discovers that money comes with conditions attached.
And that is why the old Guernsey proverb keeps returning to my mind.
‘Le sian qui mange sa croime, ne fait pas du burre.’
He who eats his own cream never makes butter.
Our grandparents understood exactly what it meant.
You cannot spend the same pound twice. You cannot consume today and invest for tomorrow using the same money. And you certainly cannot keep adding new commitments, projects and spending while acting surprised when somebody eventually presents the bill.
If we cannot cure the States of Guernsey’s spending addiction, then GST is not the destination. It is merely the first step on a road that leads to higher taxation, broader taxation and an ever greater burden on future generations.
And if that road ultimately ends with Guernsey holding out its own begging bowl across the water, surrendering financial independence because it could never bring itself to prioritise, then perhaps we should ask ourselves a very simple question.
Is that really a price worth paying rather than tackling the spending addiction itself?
