Fiscal schizophrenia

In our country, our people have delegated all their rights regarding the legislative, executive, and judicial branches to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) for the sake of protecting their interests, both for today and tomorrow. They fulfill this transfer of rights through the power of the budget. Therefore, the public exercises its rights concerning income, expenditure, and oversight through the budget. For this reason, the "power of the budget" is the history of democracy and taxation.

In a democratic parliamentary system, voters fulfill their demands regarding public services through the voting process. The wishes of the voters are reflected in the practices of political powers as a result of the votes they cast. Thus, the budget is a political document that reveals the voter's preferences for the public economy.

Institutionally, in democratic countries, the legislative body maintains its sovereignty over public administration with the help of the budget. During the preparation and approval of the budget, the legislative body gains the opportunity to authorize and oversee the actions of the executive branch.

The legislative body's adoption of the budget bill—which may manifest as the modification or rejection of certain articles—signifies the exercise of its political authority through the power of authorization and oversight. Thus, the budget carries a political character. However, with the Presidential government system, this situation has become controversial in terms of the TBMM.

Various pressure groups can also significantly influence the political preferences of the legislative body. Pressure groups are organizations such as associations, unions, professional chambers, the informal economy, and cooperatives formed by people with shared interests.

Parliamentarians and political parties articulate the people's wishes to the legislative body. The political cadre holding the majority in parliament turns the citizens' will into a government program and has the bureaucracy implement it.

Budgeting is at the very center of the political process in terms of reflecting the demands of interests and interest groups, both openly and covertly. Budgets are an attempt to distribute financial resources through political processes. However, as a result of a kind of split in their personalities, parliamentarians fall into the logic of political investment and "greetings to the voter" in order to direct resources to their own constituencies, acting both to serve the public interest and to secure private and regional interests as if they were assuming the persona of a voter. The term "Fiscal Schizophrenia" is used to describe this tendency of parliamentarians to pursue both public and private interests, expressing these conflicting personalities and attitudes. In other words, it refers to the hypocrisy in their personalities. We must get rid of this wretched structure within politics that is in a state of Fiscal Schizophrenia; a structure that maximizes its own interests instead of the country's interests, and that says "I will do whatever is commanded" to their party leaders instead of acting for the benefit of the country. Fiscal Schizophrenia has now spread to every area of politics. We must get rid of this fiscal schizophrenia, which has had a contagious effect on every area of politics, so that the country is not wasted any further. Our people must get rid of this political understanding that only maximizes its own interests. Otherwise, they will no longer be able to hold onto their seats.