Posted on 04/17/2012 1:26:08 PM PDT by Jerome Hudson
In their new book, Debacle: Obama's War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future, Grover Norquist and John Lott, Jr. explain just how bloated the pay and benefits of government workers have become.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
That compares to state and local government workers who make $80,000 and federal workers who bag $120,000 taxpayer dollars in pay, pension, and benefits.
So how many government workers are there in America? In Debacle, Norquist and Lott report that "there are 2.2 million federal civilian workers, 1.5 million active-duty members of the armed forces, 5 million state employees in the 50 states, and 14.1 million local employees."
The cost to taxpayers over a government workers career is sizable. Norquist and Lott explain that the hiring of a single federal worker at age 25 will cost taxpayers between $2.73 million and $8 million in wages and benefits, depending on the speed with which the government worker is promoted.
As Norquist and Lott note, "federal law requires that government look to see what jobs now being done by government workers could be done by the private sector." But we know that isn't happening; even the liberals in the Clinton Administration cited 850,000 jobs that could be done by private workers. Indeed, as the authors explain, the average savings to taxpayers when hiring a private worker instead of a government worker is 30%.
Norquist and Lott's book is chock-full of similar policy solutions and insights designed to reduce the burden big government places on taxpayers. Voters and lawmakers should read it.
Andy why shouldn’t they. Deciding what is best for everyone is a tough job.
This has been going on for years and only gets worse and worse.
Animal Farm all over again isn’t it?
QUIZ: Can anyone remember what Hitler did to cement his power?
Take over the bureaucracy.
There is honor among thieves.
This is NEVER going to happen. First off, most of these jobs don't need to be done at all, by anyone.
We must cut the size of government by ten fold but it's going to take a constitutional convention to do it peacefully.
My concept would be simple. With the exception of the military all government offices and agencies simply cut 20 percent across the board. The cut would be 20 percent by personnel count and 20 percent by budget. So if an agency has 100 employees and 1 million budget they are cut to 80 employees and 800k budget.
Do this for 5-10 straight years.
Then begin to eliminate federal agencies completely.
If the feds employee 2.2 million civies, realistically we need that to be 250k or less. In other words the federal Government is some ten times the size that it should be.
So why didn’t more people apply for civil service jobs 20 years ago?
“Work harder, slaves! We’ve got a big party in Las Vegas to pay for!”
federal/state/etc workers should pay more for their health care.
double downing or triple dipping on govt pensions have to be prohibited....sure, add to your existing pension, but you can't get a military and then a federal pension and then collect SS as well...there has to be some kind of index....
I know I'll get flamed...but it has to be said....
Check out the Enabling Act of 1933.
Our republic could never grant obvious plenary power to a President. Instead, we have Obamacare.
Thanks Jerome Hudson.
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