Why Are Government Workers Essential?
By: Jerry Roth
Tags: Politics, Leadership, Big Government, Business, Capitalism

Our Government Has Become Too Big To Fail.

Photo by Marco Oriolesi on Unsplash

The government shutdowns of the past were the “sky-is-falling” crises that flooded the news channels. Allegedly, 800,000 workers were either working without getting paid, or temporarily laid off.

Another news crisis was the shortage of “qualified” workers created by the success of the Trump Economy. That businesses and their people were making money and having fun again was never reported, but the inability of companies to find enough workers was.

The fact that there are 800,000 people employed by the government, who are apparently dispensable, should bother you. And the need for them to work somewhere else should be the solution.

President Reagan famously thought the U.S. had entirely too much government when he quipped, “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency. Even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”

Since 1965, the federal government¹ has grown 3.5 times bigger — 350 percent. The total number of federal government workers is about 7 million. To get a sense of size, Walmart, as the biggest private employer in the world, has 2.3 million workers total.

There must be millions in the government who already have bookkeeping skills, electrician skills, plumbing skills, computer skills, and office skills. Many, if not all, these skilled, qualified people, could be relocated to private employers. Private companies earn profits and pay taxes. Government departments do not.

In October 2017, POGO (Project on Government Oversight)² posted this:

Professor Paul C. Light warned that the blended government workforce as a whole “may have grown so large and poorly sorted that it has become a threat to the very liberty it protects.”

His dire conclusion:

“It may have become so complex that Congress and the president simply cannot know whether this blended workforce puts the right employees in the right place at the right price with the highest performance and fullest accountability.”

Incidentally, none of those measurements have ever applied to our government. No politician has ever asked, “Are we paying too much?” Those are the kind of measurements that private enterprise, capitalist companies use. Companies like Trump is used to running.

What would happen if the government were to let millions of people go? Besides the benefits to the private sector, how would a smaller government effect our economy, our country, our society, our way of life? Would we miss it? Would we be more vulnerable? Would we be weaker? Or stronger?

Consider the Law of Cause and Effect. The effects of big government are the cause of laziness.

When everyone is willing to work, willing to take responsibility, willing to take care of their own, capitalism and society bloom, blossom and thrive. When anyone, no matter how many, decide they can’t work, or won’t and don’t, someone has to “help” them.

That is the biggest reason for the growth of government — the idea, the belief, that we should just “let the government take care of them”. Or worse, “Why doesn’t the government take care of it? There ought to be a law”.

For 106 years, the effect of new laws and regulations have made the government bigger and bigger. The law that started it all was the 16th amendment which made it legal for the government to collect taxes.

Not once, in 106 years, has the government downsized despite recessions and depressions, inflation and stagflation, Democrats and Republicans, the black vote and the women’s vote. Along the way, hundreds of companies have had to trim their payrolls like gardeners trim their bushes, but our government has never trimmed anyone.

So if taxes are the cause, what are the effects of big government?

The number of people who live below the poverty line. The number of homeless people, especially veterans. The number of people on government programs, welfare, food stamps, housing and other allowances. The number of illegal citizens. The number of incarcerated people. The number of street gangs. The deterioration of our infrastructure. The amount of garbage in the streets. The overall decline of our social morals.

The number of extra-large money contributors who “sway” the rules and regulations in their direction. The cost of doing business in America. The list is long of people and companies suckling at America’s teat. And let us not forget the ridiculous debt racked up by well-meaning politicians “just trying to help the poor”.

Whether you agree or disagree with any or all of this, you cannot deny our problems are now far too big for even our giant government to fix. We cannot keep borrowing more just to continue living like we have been.

To truly understand how our government works, imagine you have a credit card that only requires you make the minimum payment every month. You also have a job you can’t be fired from and your health care is free. Plus there is a nice retirement pension waiting for you when you get to the ripe old age of 62.

Every worker employed by the biggest employer on the planet has pretty much the same benefits. Their cost is covered by making the rest of us pay more taxes. Add in the bail-outs of several “too big to fail” companies that lobbied their way to get that big and used every trick in the IRS’s handbook to avoid paying taxes, plus the myriad companies that were given tax breaks and free money to produce planet-saving products that failed and ultimately filed bankruptcy, and one has to wonder, where does it end?

It is a very long list indeed, of things our government spent our tax money on in the name of “We can do it better than you”.

The futility of our situation is most visible in the current state-of-affairs. There is no way someone like Trump, a business person not a politician, can waltz in and start reducing the size of the government. So long as Chancy³ and their band of freeloaders are in charge, the size of your government will not only stay big, it will get even bigger.

I’m sorry, did I just say “freeloaders”? Hmmm, that’s what the governor of California called every taxpayer in the state as he quietly passed another tax increase.⁴

But just think, if enough of us were to complain, if enough businesses were to offer something of value to entice government workers to jump ship, if enough people were to take responsibility and take care of their own, if enough freeloading taxpayers were to say, “Enough is enough!”, we might be able to at least get started.

It won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick, and it might not be painless. But it will be absolutely necessary for the survival of America, its Constitution, your freedom and your liberties. Ours and our kids. Maybe even the planet — for all you climate huggers…

¹ Federal Government Growth Continues While Federal-Employee Numbers Hold | National Review

² Contractors and the True Size of Government (pogo.org)

³ Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi

⁴ Gov. Brown calls taxpayers “freeloaders” (mtdemocrat.com)