Tranemo’s municipal poet
Tranemo municipality wanted its own poet in residence and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee gave them funding to the tune of SEK 900,000. The idea is that over the course of a year, the poet will produce one poem a week about things happening in the municipality to “see” local residents.
When the municipality was criticised for this, it defended itself by saying it wasn’t the municipality’s money, it was the State’s. But someone has to pay for the State’s money too. And that’s the taxpayers!
The municipal poet of Tranemo is thus an excellent example of how even the public sector engages in rent seeking. It is not uncommon to see this kind of initiative at municipal level because the municipality has been given money by the State or the EU for a particular purpose. As far as the municipality is concerned, this is “free” money because it comes from a different part of the public sector. Large-scale waste becomes rationalised.
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