During the 2023 elections, many promises were made, which were fulfilled in 2024. It is not, of course, about promises to reform the state, but about giving gifts to citizens, in the form of various benefits and subsidies, the cost of which they cover themselves. Such distorted generosity of the government's Sly Santa Claus is summarized in an annual report. This year, every tax-deductible Pole paid PLN 6351 for the gifts they received. That's PLN 1,601 more than in 2023 and almost only what it was in pandemic times.

Milton Friedman noted that the most inefficient way to spend money is to spend other people's money on other people's needs. Unfortunately, this practice is precisely the essence of how the restive state operates. Politicians, whose ultimate and most important intention is to win the next election, willingly and generously offer their constituents further benefits, subsidies and other gifts, the cost of which is covered... by taxes. This is why every year the package of various “bonuses” with which we are governed expands.

In 2024, we received as many as 13 gifts from the government's Sly Santa Claus: from additional pensions, to the valorization of child benefits from 500 to 800 zlotys per month, to grandmother's benefits, or benefits for flood victims.

Someone might say that giving away some of these gifts was simply necessary. For example, the PLN 2.1 billion aid to flood victims - would we want to deprive them of it? This is, from the perspective of the here and now, a valid objection. However, the very fact that the flood caused massive damage to civilian infrastructure and buildings is largely the fault of those in power - past and present. It is all about negligence in the care and expansion of flood control systems. If it were not for this negligence, aid on such a scale would not be necessary. Unfortunately, it's fair to say that almost every one of Wise Santa's gifts is related to an area characterized by years of neglect.

Although our The Sly Santa Claus Report has a humorous touch, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute is seriously concerned about the politicians' constant awakening of social appetites among the electorate. The state of the Polish budget is deteriorating and the level of investment to GDP is falling, the result of a lack of focus on fundamental reforms of the most important areas of state operations. Politicians' attention is scattered among the various clients of the system - be it miners, pensioners or families - making them forget that the real prosperity of all Poles comes not from government handouts, but from a more resilient private sector. Wealth is created, not decreed - allowing the free creation of wealth under a stable legal and tax system is still the gift we are all waiting for.

Source, WEI