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A reader sent me a link to this story, and the more I looked into it, the more it struck me that it is a microcosm of the relationship between ordinary citizens and people who work in government. 

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In the eyes of many people in government, citizens are resources to be farmed for fun and profit. Politicians and many government workers make virtuous noises about being “public servants,” but the reality is that they, as with most people, are looking out for themselves. 

As long as you understand that, you can develop the appropriate attitude toward government: buyer beware. The government has a place in the great division of labor in society, but you should take its promises of virtue and compassion as seriously as the corporations that make performative donations to charities for branding purposes. 

Stay cynical, in other words. Your cynicism about the good deeds of others will serve you well. There may be plenty of virtue and charity in the world, but most people, most of the time, are looking out for themselves first. That is especially true when people perform their virtues in public. 

In this case, the story begins with Bianca Virnig, who won an election to the Minnesota House of Representatives. Virnig worked at an educational nonprofit called “Brightworks,” which sounds all warm and fuzzy. Education, YAY! Nonprofit! Double YAY! 

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Minnesota has a part-time legislature, and many of our lawmakers have jobs on the side–sometimes real jobs, and sometimes makework created to keep a powerful person on the payroll. Brightworks apparently cut Virnig’s hours and pay for obvious reasons, and Virnig sued the company for doing so. 

Unsurprisingly, the parties settled, with Virnig getting a payout of nearly $110,000.

What gets interesting, though, is that the Democrat majority of the Minnesota House of Representatives kicked in over $10,000 to pay her legal bills. Because, well, they can. Politicians were looking after their own and all that. 

During Tuesday’s meeting of the Rules Committee, DFL House Majority Leader Jamie Long said that Virnig was an employee of an organization that drastically reduced her hours and pay after she was elected to the House last year. According to Long, that change in Virnig’s job occurred because she had taken on the new role as a state legislator.

After the alleged change in her job, Virnig and her then-employer, BrightWorks, negotiated a separation of employment agreement.

A “nonprofit educational cooperative,” BrightWorks provides education services, programs, and resources to school districts and other members of its network. Virnig worked as the director of health and safety for the organization.

Eventually, Virnig and BrightWorks reached a settlement agreement. However, the details of that settlement agreement were not made available to legislators before they voted on whether or not to pay for Virnig’s legal fees.

Discussing the proposed payment to Virnig’s legal counsel, Long said, “We are proposing that we pay for those legal costs, as other employers would in other legal disputes.” The majority leader further stated that because the dispute arose from Virnig’s status as a legislator, it was appropriate for the House to pay the sum.

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Nothing too surprising about that, I suppose. Not exactly taxpayer-friendly, though. 

When I first thought about writing this story, I was just going to snark about politicians looking out for themselves, but then I wondered: who is Brightworks, and where does THEIR money come from? One thing I learned over the years is that almost any nonprofit claiming to do good work is somehow connected to the government. 

More often than not, you will find that nonprofit employees are political activists, legislators-in-waiting, campaign workers in between campaigns, and/or lobbyists for tax dollars. 

And guess what?! That is Brightworks! It is a “nonprofit” or “non-governmental organization” (NGO), but it is funded by kickbacks from school districts that are “members” who pay “dues.” It was even CREATED by the legislature and is nongovernmental in name only. Much of what it does is to accomplish goals indirectly that cannot be done politically within the government. 

There are countless such organizations, of course. At the local, state, federal, and international level you will find that most “NGOs” are government-backed. 

So let’s recap: an employee of a “nonprofit” funded through tax dollars gets elected to the legislature. She wants a nice payout from her employer, so she sues it for not paying her enough to work less than she was. She gets a nice payout from tax dollars funneled through that organization, and the taxpayers also pay all the legal fees involved on both sides of the “dispute.” 

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Everybody wins–as long as they are funded by taxpayer dollars. The taxpayers lose out entirely, paying 100% of the costs for both the employer and employee in this case. 

The Minnesota Parents Alliance sums it up perfectly:

Brightworks, a creation of the MN legislature, operates as a nonprofit by collecting membership fees from public school districts. $10K of state tax dollars being used to sue for $108K of local tax dollars that move from a nonprofit under the authority of the legislature to a member of the current majority. Also of note, Virnig was a school board member in 196 prior to winning the 2023 special election, a district that elects to pay membership fees to Brightworks. The same district where the teachers union just plugged nearly $100K of teacher’s dues (paid by tax dollars) into a campaign to keep a single parent candidate off the board. Tonight the board rejected the application of that candidate, who still managed to get 30,000 votes against her union-endorsed opponent, to interview for one of two vacancies that were announced immediately following the election. This is a snapshot of the status quo in MN and it’s overdue to be disrupted by working people who can not afford more of the same.

In sum, the taxpayers were taken for a ride in order to pay a nice little bonus to a newly elected State Representative whose prior salary was paid for with tax dollars. Both the legal fees and the settlement came out of tax dollars, and then tax dollars were funneled through the teachers’ union to keep the school board seat the same person had in the hands of the tax-farming blob that keeps our kids undereducated. 

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This, my friends, is how government really works. All the warm and fuzzy words about the wonders of education, taking care of citizens, building a better future, and all that rot really boils down to “public servants” taking taxpayers for a ride. 

Are there good teachers? Yes. Do some nonprofits do good work? Sure. Are there sincere politicians? Of course there are.

But if you default to cynical interpretations of events you will rarely be wrong.