Abolish the ASUC.

That's the nice thing about being a pundit. You can muse all day about proposals that will never come into effect. If you're really good at it, you can even get paid to shuttle between Fox News and MSNBC giving the American people your not-so-expert opinion.

But why would I write this? Wouldn't defunding the ASUC destroy student life? After all, despite the well-documented problems of the ASUC, does it not perform useful functions like distributing money to student organizations or sponsoring groups that provide enjoyable or useful programming?

Surely, it does. But let us remember that a body's existence is not necessarily justified merely because said body may have beneficial effects. Rather, in an age when government spending is measured in trillions of dollars, let us use this as a parable to think about some crucial issues: taxation, individual choice versus public services, incentive as a motive, and spending based on cronyism.

Every year, Cal students are forced to pay, as part of their registration fees, $55 for the ASUC. Not a fortune, not really something that most of us think about, but it's something that's coming out of our pockets or our parent's pockets, out of loans that will need to be paid back with interest or out of financial aid that itself has to come from somewhere.

(Coincidentally, another lesson learned from the registrar's Web site: We also pay $4.50 a year for an ethnic studies fee. What makes ethnic studies so crucial that it deserves a special subsidy is unclear as of press time, but I do know I am out two bottles of Two-Buck Chuck.)

Sure, you say, we pay $55, but look at the range of groups that get funding from the $1.68 million pool of money that now exists. Everything from great entertainment (SUPERB) to the endearingly nerdy (Model UN, Quiz Bowl) to the overtly political (College Republicans, Students for Justice in Palestine) to the mildly bizarre (Unicycle Basketball Club.)

Indeed, this is why so few students have asked why the ASUC continues to receive million-plus dollar budgets from student fees as complaints about rising educational costs abound. Everyone gets a piece of the pie.

Well, not everyone. Plenty of students don't participate in any of the multitude of ASUC-funded organizations that exist. They might be involved with Greek life. They might spend their time on very successful organizations that prosper without student fee dollars such as the Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity or the nationally-featured California Patriot magazine or, indeed, this very publication. They work at a job or an internship. They keep up with the challenging academic curricula.

There is no reason that they should be forced to subsidize the students that choose to participate in ASUC-funded groups. Instead, everybody ought to be free to spend, or not spend, their $55 as they choose.

I would argue the same is largely true with the state and federal governments: if certain non-essential public services truly are so important, why haven't citizens created private organizations to handle them?

Fundamentally, this is a matter of whether we put our trust in the wisdom of government or in the wisdom of the individual. The argument against devolving this bit of pocketbook power to the individual might go something like this: If you do not force students to pay this tax to the ASUC, then student groups will run out of funding and have to close down. In turn, this would hurt student life as a whole.

Of course, if these student groups are that important, wouldn't the individuals involved in these organizations pay a membership due to support that group's activities? If the answer is no, the question ought to be raised about how truly vital these groups are.

There is a prevailing culture of distrust in the individual. We are thought to be somehow lacking by the powers-that-be, incapable of contributing X amount to a cause we care about. We need to have the decisions made for us by a group of 20 students who are beholden to a small, but vocal, minority of students that puts them into office. They know better.

And like receiving government subsidies destroys an individual's will to work, organizations receiving ASUC subsidies lose their incentive to progress. Student groups that are unfunded by the ASUC find manifold ways to raise money from corporate sponsors, private donors, non-profits or good old fundraisers. There is a very concrete benefit to this process--many individuals get to practice useful skills that will be invaluable in the future. But why hit up businesses for cash when you can just tax your fellow students at half the effort?

There are legitimate purposes for which taxation can be justified--the protection of the basic rights to life, liberty and property and the provision of infrastructure that is almost universally used, such as roads. But most spending by both the ASUC and our real government is not in this direction--it is for the creation of a utopian society, something that can only be acheived by restricting the rights of the individual to control his or her own destiny.

There ought to be a serious re-evaluation of what we expect from our government. Until then, we will continue to rob Peter to pay Paul. A $55 tax may not be much, but our nation is in trillions of dollars of debt. And the reasoning behind the two is surprisingly similar.

Tags: