From: bzs@ussr.std.com (Barry Shein)
Subject: Re: A governmental milestone
Organization: The World
	<16237@ksr.com>
Distribution: ne
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 02:55:36 GMT


>From: cher@ksr.com (Mike Cherepov)
>I am quite curious to see the Fed employment stats broken between the
>military and the rest.  The military was emphatically excluded from
>Reagan's intent (more vigorously asserted than followed) to shrink the
>government.  For Carter, the growth of the military head count was not
>top priority, to say the least.  I'll try to look up some stats on this
>and the stuff below.
...
>I am not sure what your point is.  That it is unreasonable to believe
>that Congress, especially post-1984, was more inclined to grow the
>non-military Fed employment than Reagan?  There is no doubt that the
>economic left (eg, Harkin, Jackson, or Cuomo) is more enthusiastic
>about public-sector growth than economic conservatives like Jack Kemp,
>Reagan, or Tsongas.

Your original claim stated nothing about military vs non-military,
perhaps you believe this was tacit but I certainly didn't.

There is absolutely no credible basis for including Reagan in a list
of economic conservatives. I have little to judge Kemp or Tsongas on
other than some words they have said.

All I hear when someone makes this claim is that they agree with
Reagan on some other classical conservative issues, his tough talk to
commies or whatever, and then paint him with the broader brush to make
their hero more acceptable, in spite of all the facts.

And Bush thus far has proven even worse than Reagan on this front.

I think the confusion arises over the fact that Bush and Reagan (and
from your comments about growth in federal govt employee rolls being
somehow not as bad because it may have been largely military) engage
in something I would call crypto-conservatism.

By this I mean that they in fact spend more than the predecessors they
excoriate, much more, but they spend it on political conservative pet
projects so it's ok.

Raise the federal budget by 300%? Well, ok, just so long as it's not
spent on poor people or health care for the elderly or education, none
of that "liberal waste" and goes to SDI and the military then we'll
still call you an economic conservative.

The federal budget went from about $500B to $1.5T under Reagan/Bush.

Their attempts to blame it on Congress are unfounded and are even
being abandoned as so much claptrap by Bush as this election
progresses, the facts just don't bear out this wishful view.

So now you express this same view essentially: Well, perhaps Reagan
and Bush increased federal employment (the original question), and
Carter lowered it, but wait, they did it in the military so maybe it's
not like *really* raising the budget.

I really wish conservatives would just say what they mean: We are all
in favor of tripling the federal budget in a decade and driving the
country under in debt so long as the money is spent on what *we* want.

>A comparison
>of state employment in Democrat and Republican-controlled states would
>be a good test of this theory.

Perhaps, I suspect you'll be disappointed as everyone is just grabbing
for everything they can and party affiliation is almost irrelevant.

You have a very idealistic view of such things which isn't likely to
be borne out by the facts.

>Whatever you have in mind, I am heartened by your implicit statement
>that trying to slow public-sector growth is to one's credit.

It is where it is, and it isn't where it isn't.

Look Mike, the cold-war is over, sweeping generalizations like these
are the stuff of the last 90 years of this century, and have gotten
the entire world into a lot of trouble. I hope people begin to wake up
to the fact that the world is no longer best dealt with by jumping
onto a favorite 'ism and clinging for dear life.

I am suspicious of all 'isms. Anytime someone says to me they believe
in lowering public sector growth or whatever, they usually mean they
believe in lowering only that which they don't want, and are happy to
turn their head to that which they do (e.g. your remark trying to
separate military vs civilian public sector growth above, either costs
me the same, personally I'd prefer teachers to pencil-pushers in the
pentagon, but apparently you disagree.)

--
        -Barry Shein

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