Why do tax dollars fund lavish lifestyles for bureaucrats?

When people are outraged at over-the-top lifestyles of corporate executives, I couldn’t care less unless I happen to own stock in the company in question. But when the lavish spending for a jet-setting exec is being paid for out of tax revenues, then I start caring. It’s bad enough that there’s such an institution as the International Monetary Fund, but it’s worse when the French socialist who heads the IMF lives a champagne lifestyle paid for by money that ultimately came from taxpayers of the nations who fund the organization.

I have no idea whether Dominique Strauss-Kahn is guilty of the rape he’s been arrested for, but I’m glad the case is shining a light on the free-spending ways of international bureaucrats who aren’t really accountable to anyone. Slate has a story this week outlining the kind of money Strauss-Kahn spends and the lifestyle he leads. It’s worth a read.

In the absence of a market, there’s no accountability. Even if it turns out that he’s innocent of the rape allegations, taxpayers have been raped by people like this for long enough. The state is a parasite, and the “super-state” made up of international organizations is a parasite that’s answerable to pretty much nobody. Why do we allow this to go on?