Column | Ambitious cabinet, government gets stuck

It was a sober but impressive presentation that four civil servants gave in the House of Representatives on 19 April. They told about the consequences of a ruling by the Supreme Court. They outlined what it means for the tax authorities to compensate savers on a large scale who may have paid too much tax based on that ruling. The four officials from the Tax and Customs Administration and the Ministry of Finance did not use big words. But for the MPs the message was crystal clear: compensating many savers, as the House and the cabinet seemed to want, is an enormous task. This concerns millions of declarations over different years. The Tax and Customs Administration could even get stuck in implementation if many taxpayers (investors, for example) objected to their (lack of) compensation.

Members of parliament called the officials’ explanations worrying and alarming. “My goodness,” said Henk Nijboer of the PvdA, “whatever you choose, it means a huge mess for implementation.” The operation has now been scaled back until further notice. The cabinet is currently compensating a smaller group, including the 60,000 people who objected to the Supreme Court. Whether more savers will receive money will only become clear later this year after a new ruling by the Supreme Court.

Why am I telling this? Because it shows how easily politicians make big promises. And how difficult it is then to keep those promises. In this case, a majority in the House of Representatives suggested that small savers should all be compensated.

National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen recently pointed out de Volkskrant at the risk of big promises. He sees a parallel between the promise to savers and to the victims of the Allowance scandal. “We are going to compensate everyone, they say, although we don’t know how yet.” As a result, according to Van Zutphen, more and more civil servants are engaged in ‘recovery operations’, and subsequently with procedures about the stalling of that recovery. But a better government is not being built there — a government “with simple rules, which means that there is no need for repair and procedures”. The government is getting stuck in various places.

Because there is often something wrong with those rules. The Council for the Judiciary this week published a list of problem files that give judges a stomachache, because they see that citizens are getting into deeper trouble due to strict government rules. For example, patients who are unable to pay their deductible, due to high legal costs, quickly run into even greater financial problems. The problems in youth care are so great that the judges sent a letter to the cabinet. Children placed out of home run ‘irreversible risks’.

I’ve been having a slight short circuit in my head lately. Or better: I can’t rhyme two things. We have a super ambitious cabinet that wants to implement major changes with a lot of money (climate, agriculture, housing, nitrogen). And at the same time, the smoldering ruins of previous policy are becoming increasingly visible. The government is not functioning in too many places. That requires fundamental repair and reconsideration. But will that really happen if the government continues to push through large, complicated, new policies at the same time? I do not think so.

Marike Stellinga is an economist and political reporter. She writes about politics and economics here every week.