No. 59: Washington Should STOP
December 1st 2010 21:36
Last Friday, after Thanksgiving, I decided to feed a bit of the excess Turkey meat to our little Chihuahua. No matter how much was placed in her plate, she continued begging for more. She was insatiable to a fault. After lifting her up to my lap, I quickly felt that she had grossly overeaten. It reminded me of our U.S. Government and its bloated bureaucratic appetites.
As I grow older, this sad situation becomes increasing obvious -- our government is inept at using the STOP button. It seldom can even downsize. For many years, I have shouted that we Americans are throwing too much money down the proverbial bottomless pit of our central government to misuse, abuse, and foment difficulties here and abroad.
The biggest rub is that from childhood onward we have been taught that we are free to create, think, say, and print all that we conceive. This may still be true in most cases, but our bloated bureaucracy is like the termite. It eats away at our freedoms just as the termite eats away at the wood in our homes.
Usually, without fanfare—almost silently, in fact, we pay people to sit at their desks or in conference rooms with the implied or written order to devise ways to give us enhanced services, better protections, to make our infrastructure more modern and sound, or to control us through more taxation. Often, we infer that this is always done in our best interests. Thankfully, many times this is true, but the opposite is pervasive and stares at us from our dwindling paychecks, evening news, and the Internet.
I can think of a few root causes for the bloated-government nightmare:
1) Too many private sector jobs have been lost to overseas employment. In some cases, these jobs have been replaced by government employment at all levels. After all, it is politically easier to just spend more on government hiring than explaining to the people why their jobs are going away. We were fed a bill of goods back in the seventies by so-called economic experts touting our “positive” evolution to a “service economy.” Yet, it is difficult to find a learned freedom-understanding economist who believes this garbage any more. Simply put – instead of expanding our money supply with original dollars via invention, mining, agriculture or manufacturing, Washington sells bonds (debt instruments) to a quasi-government entity (the Federal Reserve), then that entity prints more money! (Incidentally, the “Fed” shoves this in our faces by printing “Note” on our paper currency.) This not only inflates and devalues our dollars, but it further injects us into the downward spiral of indebtedness when these same bonds are sold to other nations so we can continue purchasing their goods and services.
2) Unions – I will not take the time explaining the historical good and bad of their existences and actions, but we all recognize that far too often they are used politically by those in power and seldom work solely for the nation's interests. (i.e. John L. Lewis and the coal strikes during World War II.) The largest unions in America are now populated by civil servants. By their nature, their union leaders must work for their members' good, even if by doing so they work against the taxpayers' benefit.
3) Upward mobility – In a past Sanityroad.com post, it was mentioned that for a bureaucrat to rise in the ranks, he or she needs more subordinates. This situation often creates unnecessary “make work” jobs just for advancement purposes. Multiply this situation by tens of thousands and it is easy to see how a large bureaucracy gets FAR TOO LARGE..
Some states, like Florida, have legislated “sunshine laws,” that demand the review of all departments, agencies. laws and regulations periodically. Those no longer deemed necessary or are outmoded, are eliminated. Why has the Congress never allowed such legislation to go beyond committee?
The U.S. Federal government must hit the STOP button today! Congress or the President should place a freeze on non-military hiring. Just enacting a wage freeze is not enough. There should be an empowered, independent panel created (much like the base closing ones), that reviews all departments and agencies for efficacy. Those determined to be unnecessary should be eliminated at once!
To add insult to injury, the Federal government average employee wage is reported to be in excess of $100,000 per employee per year. This is around twice what a private sector employee can expect to receive. This is untenable and downright unjust.
Please keep it between the lines.
| 70 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief