From: yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken)
Newsgroups: ne.politics
Subject: Re: A governmental milestone
Date: 27 Sep 92 12:51:40 GMT
Distribution: ne
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In article <16237@ksr.com> cher@ksr.com (Mike Cherepov) writes:
>In article <BZS.92Sep22210851@ares.std.com> bzs@ares.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>>It is perhaps worth pointing out, however, that the last time Federal
>>employment DROPPED was under the Carter Administration (that trend
>>ending in 1981.)
>
>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.

So the military is *not* part of the government? Hiring accountants for
the FSLIC or investing in scientific research is BLOATED GOVERNMENT
SPENDING, but Star Wars and invading off shore medical schools is
something not having to do with the government? Do you think that the
military is not paid with taxes?

>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 local and state figures support such view,

If you compare what government expenditures would have been if the
Weiss Economic conversion bill had been passed to government expenditures
under Reagan/Bush's corporate/military welfare budgets, you would certainly
find a massive difference. Your idea of fiscal conservatism seems to
be limited to public statements that one is against big government.

>as Democrats are more prominent in state governments.  I would expect
>Republicans to be better at containing state employment.  A comparison
>of state employment in Democrat and Republican-controlled states would
>be a good test of this theory.

Test California under Reagan vs. California under Jerry Brown and then
look at California under Pete Wilson. 

>Perhaps you are hinting that I am unreasonably partisan, - hard for
>me to gauge - but surely not by ne.politics standards?  Maybe you
>are just trying to say that Reagan is a damn hypocrite on this issue?
>Whatever you have in mind, I am heartened by your implicit statement
>that trying to slow public-sector growth is to one's credit.

The hypocrisy of the Reagan right on cutting government expenditures
(triple the budget and give away the cashbox to the politically well
connected while whining about the damn welfare cheats) is only matched
by their hypocrisy on moral values (Terry Dolan and Rep. Bauman spring
to mind), their hypocrisy on human rights ("We are shocked, absolutely
shocked to find that there is torture going on in this establishment")
their hypocrisy on the Vietnam war (Newt and Danny were too precious
to risk in a war which they vehemntly supported) their hypocrisy on ....


-- 


yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu

Newsgroups: ne.politics