Broke Government, Broke People: When the System Starves the Very Hands That Feed It
“A nation isn’t broke because it doesn’t have wealth — it’s broke because it refuses to value the people who create it.”
If your government is in debt, it’s not just a policy failure—it’s a symptom of economic decay.
And in a system where the majority of public revenue comes from taxing labor, a broke government means a broke population.
Let’s follow the flow:
1. Labor Is the Foundation—But It’s Undervalued
Governments don’t tax billionaires proportionally.
They don’t tax wealth effectively.
They tax you—your income, your purchases, your property (if you're lucky enough to own any).
So if your wages are stagnating, if your job doesn’t cover rent, if inflation eats your paycheck—guess what?
The government’s broke, too.
Because its funding is your economic activity. If you're struggling, so is it.
2. Corporations Pay Less and Take More
While workers face rising costs and tax pressure, corporations:
Minimize taxes through loopholes
Keep wages low to maximize shareholder value
Receive subsidies, bailouts, and incentives
Lobby to weaken the very institutions meant to regulate them
This creates a reverse pipeline:
Profits go up
Wages stay flat
Taxes go nowhere
Public services go underfunded
And the average person is left paying twice—once through taxes, again through privatized services and corporate markups.
3. The Government Borrows, but the People Pay
With a weak tax base, the government turns to debt.
But debt isn’t neutral—it comes with interest. And those interest payments often enrich the same financial institutions that lobbied for low taxes in the first place.
So while we cut education, healthcare, and infrastructure, we somehow always have funds for:
Military contracts
Corporate bailouts
Tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy
It’s not a funding issue. It’s a priorities issue.
4. Scarcity Is Manufactured. Dependency Is Designed.
When public funding is rooted in labor—but labor is cheapened—scarcity becomes the default setting.
Yet we live in the most technologically advanced, resource-rich period in human history.
What’s scarce isn’t money.
What’s scarce is equity, accountability, and the political will to challenge extraction at the top.
A System That Eats Itself
A government that can’t fund basic needs, but can fund war and wealth protection, isn't broken.
It’s functioning exactly as designed—to serve power, not people.
At the Equitable Future Initiative (EFI), we’re calling for a full redesign:
Fair compensation for labor
Transparent taxation based on extraction, not just production
Public wealth reinvested into the commons
A move toward a post-scarcity, needs-first economic model
Because a future worth living in starts with valuing the people who hold it up.
Want to fix a “broke” government?
Stop breaking its people.
