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Government burdening taxpayers
Published 1:10pm Monday, February 16, 2009I write in response to Tim Hunt’s letter anent recovering the economy through the creation of government jobs.
And I preface this commentary by expressing my appreciation and admiration of retired Colonel Hunt’s many years of service to this country in the U S Army. But Colonel Hunt, it’s obvious they didn’t teach you much about free market economics when you were going through paratrooper school, sir.
The cockeyed notion that government jobs can be the salvation of a temporarily lagging economy was the brainchild of John M. Keynes, an arrogant economist much regarded by Franklin Roosevelt whilst FDR was working his New Deal voodoo economics. Keynes (and you can Google this about him, Colonel) believed that nobody in the United States was capable of managing not only the government, but are all of us that incompetent of making even the most minor decisions with any competence. Hence, government ought to make all the decisions for everyone and be the ultimated decider who worked, where they worked, when, at what wage etc. And FDR tried to make this economic philosophy the core of his New Deal.
The consequence was that the high unemployment rate FDR inherited when he took office had about DOUBLED by the end of his second term. Why? He created so many make- work jobs which required financing, that he had to raise taxes precipitously. The government took so much money out of the economy in taxes that business couldn’t raise the funds to expand or stay afloat,and catastrophic layoffs ensued.
Jump to our present situation. The so called “Economic Stimulus” bill promises to create from 4.5 million to 5 million new jobs. But 3 to 3 and -a- half million of those new jobs will be government jobs. Now, what do government jobs produce? Products like soap, shoes, automobiles, or services like restaurants, dry cleaning, plumbing, electrical repair? No. Govertment jobs produce bureaucracies and bureaucratic rules to justify their continued existence. And huge bills for the taxpayers to pay for the salaries and benefits of the people in those jobs.
We currently number about two-hundred -eighty million people in this country, three hundred million if you count the illegal aliens. Our employed workforce is around one hundred-twenty million. Add up all the Federal, State, County, Municipal and public educational employees, and the number is close to twenty-three percent of the workforce.THE AVERAGE COST OF A PUBLIC EMPLOYEE, FEDERAL, STATE, COUNTY, MUNICIPAL, SCHOOL DISTRICT, NATIONWIDE, IS ABOUT $96,000 when you include salaries, benefits,etc. Three and a half million new government jobs times that $96,000 average cost is another 336 billion every year from here to eternity. And where will the money come from? Why the seventy seven percent of the workers who aren’t government workers will have to pay it. It gets even worse, because FORTY NINE PERCENT OF WAGE EARNERS PAY NO FEDERAL OR STATE INCOME TAXES. When you do the math, the addition of all those government jobs Tim Hunt wants will add roughly $7,400 to the annual tax bill of everytaxpaying worker in the country. For years to come.
But Mr. Hunt, it got wose just yesterday, the day after the House and Senate Democrats passed this wasteful bill, for it was then that our new Treasury Secretary announced that this money might hold us through the quarter ending in March, but he would have to be back for more before then.
Mr. Hunt, the government shouldn’t be burdening the taxpayers and our economy with even more bureaucratspoking their snouts in the public trough right now. If anything, we need to get rid of the dolts who let this happen with their lack of diligent oversight. The dollars we have, and precious fewer they become with every government assault on working Americans’ paychecks, are best left to work on Main Street than to be wasted in Washington. Our purpose and our salvation from this mess is to reduce government, not grow it. Look at the mess the government has made of things. Don’t hire more of the idiots.
Bill Schulz
Fergus Falls
