Today’s conservative anger is built upon an illusion
I think it’s fair to say that the fundamental animating belief of the modern conservative movement is that government in general, and the federal government in particular, has grown so large that it now dominates the private sector and threatens our liberties and our economic prosperity.
It has become Leviathan, hungrily gobbling up more and more of the hard-earned wealth of the citizenry that it was intended to protect. That’s the theory anyway. If I have it wrong, I’m sure I’ll be corrected.
So let me ask what may seem an impertinent question: Is that really true? We’ve all heard the rhetoric for decades now, repeated so often in so many forms by so many people that it is now accepted as unchallengeable truth in many quarters. But are there hard data to back it up? Is the government payroll soaring year after year, sucking the economic lifeblood from private enterprise? Is it taking more and more of what we earn as individuals? Is the federal government taking an ever bigger slice of the economic pie in general?
The data reflected in the following charts would seem to argue strongly that none of that is true, that the Leviathan that so terrifies many Americans is largely a fictional construct. Taking the questions posed in the above paragraph one by one, let’s address first the notion that government payrolls are soaring.
The above chart, found at the economics blog Calculated Risk, tells us that if you exclude teachers, total government payroll as a percentage of the workforce has actually declined since 1976. A second, similar chart at Calculated Risk that includes educators shows government payroll flat, rather than declining, over that same period. (The mini-peaks you see every 10 years represent temporary Census workers).
So the answer to the first question is no. Government payrolls are growing no faster than civilian payrolls, and if you exclude teachers have actually declined significantly as a percentage of the workforce.
The next chart attempts to address the second question: “Is the federal government taking more and more of what we earn as individuals?” Drawing upon data that we discussed earlier this week, compiled by the conservative Tax Foundation, it demonstrates that for every income group, the average effective income tax rates have fallen significantly since 1980. So again, the answer is no. In fact, as individuals, we are actually paying less and less of what we make to the federal government and keeping more and more.
Chart by Jay Bookman, from data compiled by Tax Foundation.
Of course, the personal income tax is just one of several sources of revenue for the federal government. The most important question of all is the final question: “Is the federal government taking an ever bigger slice of the economic pie in general?” Is it feeding at the trough, becoming bigger and bigger, until it threatens to consume even our economic seed corn, as many argue?
Chart by Jay Bookman, using data from Office of Management and Budget Historical Tables
Again, the answer is no. For 40 years now, federal revenue as a percentage of GDP has bounced around within a relatively narrow range. (In 2009, it fell to 14.8 percent, a level not seen since 1950. I didn’t include it in the chart above out of fear it would be misleading. That artificially low rate is a product of the deepest recession since the Great Depression.)
However you want to measure it — the ratio of government employees in the workforce, average income tax rates, total federal revenue — government is not increasing its death grip on the American economy and by many important measures is taking less of a bite than it ever has. In other words, the basic narrative driving today’s conservative anger has no real basis in fact.
You are now free to move about the cabin and argue with each other.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
356 comments Add your comment
Mick
September 10th, 2010
12:21 pm
I’d say today’s conservative anger is built on rush, hannity and fox.
Jackie
September 10th, 2010
12:26 pm
Do you think the so-called conservatives will put forth an effort to read and understood the material presented?
Keep up the good fight!
September 10th, 2010
12:26 pm
We dont care about the facts! We have our irrational fears! We also know that government employees make more, except that they dont!
Wonder how many slurpees I can hand out today?
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:30 pm
And something else as covered by Market Place on NPR yesterday,
“Getting money from earlier federal programs out into the economy has run into a bottleneck. There aren’t enough federal workers to award and manage all those government contracts.
John Dimsdale: The problem, says Allison Stanger, the author of “One Nation Under Contract,” is the number of federal employees today is the same as it was in 1963.
Allison Stanger: Yet the federal budget in real terms in that the same period of time has more than tripled. And that enormous gap is filled by contractors.”
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/09/09/pm-federal-workers-overwhelmed-by-contracts/
So the stories of an army of federal workers are a bit overblown…private gov’t contractors might be a bit more accurate.
“Skinner: These contractors may not have the government’s best interest in play here. I do not believe it’s healthy to have contractors managing other contractors.”
Yep…that about sums it up.
Deep throat
September 10th, 2010
12:30 pm
One doesn’t have to look far and see waste and incompetance in the federal government, have you been to the airport recently, any major airport, it doesn’t matter, have you call the IRS for clarification on anything, oh what about the SS people, they are all idiots, lazy and could not hold a job in the private sector.
ByteMe
September 10th, 2010
12:31 pm
In case it doesn’t come to you what the little mini-blips in the first chart are about, think about what the Constitution mandates us to do every 10 years….
stands for decibels
September 10th, 2010
12:34 pm
But but but Jay, really smart people told me downstairs that us private sector employees were a vanishing species.
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:35 pm
ByteMe @ 12.31,
Good catch
Keep up the good fight!
September 10th, 2010
12:35 pm
Deep throat…here’s your slurpee!
stands for decibels
September 10th, 2010
12:37 pm
One doesn’t have to look far and see waste and incompetance in the federal government, have you been to the airport recently
Who needs statistical analysis, when we could read an anonymous poster’s totally objective anecdotal recollection?
Deep throat
September 10th, 2010
12:39 pm
Open your eyes, its all there to see if you get your head out of your !!!!
Mick
September 10th, 2010
12:40 pm
JC
Nice work taking on the anti-union talking points. Union is a bad word in the south, I wonder why?
stands for decibels
September 10th, 2010
12:40 pm
The above chart, found at the economics blog Calculated Risk
You are learning well, Grasshopper.
stands for decibels
September 10th, 2010
12:40 pm
Union is a bad word in the south, I wonder why?
Do the words “former slave state” mean anything to you?
Matti
September 10th, 2010
12:41 pm
And what does all that anger get y’all? It won’t make me want to hear what you have to say. It won’t make me want to be like you.
If your position is valid: — you can support it with FACTS, not rumors and theories, — you can use reason, not prejudice, — you aren’t afraid of listening to other perspectives, — you welcome the chance to answer questions and do not berate someone for asking, — you can speak intelligently on the subject without flinging out the President’s middle name in all caps.
Oh well, there is no perfect world. Only this one.
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:43 pm
Deep throat,
“they are all idiots, lazy and could not hold a job in the private sector.”
My mom worked for the federal gov’t for nearly 40 years..starting out working on some of the first missile guidance systems…when she retired she was making about 1/2 of what she could have been making at a private contractor, which were always trying to recruit her b/c of her skill set.
She stayed out of sense of duty and out of a sense of patriotism. Those are your gov’t workers..the ones that make sure the food you eat doesn’t have disease in it, and when it does is takes steps to recall those products…those employees are the one’s that make sure lead is not in children’s toys or formula…those employees are the one that make sure grandma receives her ss check on time…every freakin month.
Do only bureaucracies create issues for people to have to deal with…gee call AT&T customer service and see.
Paul
September 10th, 2010
12:43 pm
“I think it’s fair to say that the fundamental animating belief of the modern conservative movement is that government in general, and the federal government in particular, has grown so large that it now dominates the private sector and threatens our liberties and our economic prosperity.
It has become Leviathan, hungrily gobbling up more and more of the hard-earned wealth of the citizenry that it was intended to protect. That’s the theory anyway. If I have it wrong, I’m sure I’ll be corrected.”
I think that a fair assessment of ‘the conservative movement’ but if the implication is ‘the conservative movement’ is what we’re seeing in the Tea Party rallies and the declining poll numbers for the administration, well, I don’t think that’s accurate.
IF that’s not the implication, then the rest of this doesn’t apply. If it is, it does.
I’d say much of what we see today gets back to the words of James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid.” While others were going round and round, he cut to the core issue. That, and concern over the federal government greatly expanding debt while consumers and businesses are reducing theirs.
Larry Sabato of UVA recently said the anti-incumbent mood is not anti-incumbent: it’s anti-Democratic Party. That’s quite a pronouncement. He predicts the results of that here:
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/ljs2010090201/
To your other points: gov’t payrolls may not be expanding but isn’t the cost of those payrolls is markedly higher than for private industry? At the local, state and federal levels. And those costs continue long after the employees stop working, given retirement and health care costs.
As far as tax receipts, it’s true as far as the federal goes. But N-GA and RW-(the original) have both noted: add in local and state taxes and peoples’ angst is ‘government.” Local, state, federal – it’s ‘government.’
Bubba Bob
September 10th, 2010
12:43 pm
My conservative anger is built on our excessive, ever expanding, and unsustainable debt.
It seems the left doesn’t worry about it so I guess I shouldn’t either.
Midori
September 10th, 2010
12:43 pm
that cogent, relevent and erudite “rebuttal” @ 12:30 has me gasping for breath!! :eyes:
Deep throat
September 10th, 2010
12:44 pm
HUSSEIN HUSSEIN HUSSEIN
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
12:44 pm
So let me ask what may seem an impertinent question: Is that really true?
———————-
Yes, it’s true. One example–education. Would you argue, Jay, that our children are better educated since the federal government started involving itself? Every international study we see proves my point. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Didn’t think so.
buck@gon
September 10th, 2010
12:45 pm
Federal Payroll? Jay, people aren’t nearly as concerned about that as they are federal spending. Besides, there are a lot more contractors now, AND the budget coming from the sixties and seventies was more greatly dominated by defense. Now we’re at 60% towards entitlements!
Spending through 2008? Again, you appear to be making an argument ON POINT directed at conservative concerns, but you aren’t! You print payroll charts that go all the way to 2010, but your spending charts stop at 2007 or 2008. Why? Because this is a perfect example of the ever more obvious technique that the ajc uses to skew its news and editorials–SELECTIVE EDITING. You don’t give all the information because you can’t handle the truth, Jay.
Come on, I’m waiting for your reply!
HEADLINE:
JAY BOOKMAN’S CAREER AND “SUCCESS” IS AN ILLUSION / COX NEWSPAPERS IS A BIG REVENUE RATHOLE.
Subheading: Too cowardly and feckless to editorialize with the truth; prefers straw-man arguments.
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:45 pm
@ 12.43,
Should be: Do only GOV’T bureaucracies create issues…
Palin fan
September 10th, 2010
12:46 pm
Everyone knows that Obama’s socialist plan is to make government bigger and therefore take away our liberties and freedoms. It defies common sense to say otherwise. Just look at Obama’s friends and heros – they’re maxists, socialist, and/or fascists!
Just look around and make up your own mind without drinking the koolaid pumped into you from the lame-stream media.
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:47 pm
Bubba Bob,
“My conservative anger is built on our excessive, ever expanding, and unsustainable debt.”
So then you are against extending the Bush tax cuts?
Bubba Bob
September 10th, 2010
12:47 pm
Bailout,
Don’t say that. We know that the dept. of ed. has only pushed us forward. We are so much better off. Just look at our schools today!
Back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s we educated a society that could put a man on the moon in just 10 years. Today we can’t even get half our kids educated.
Midori
September 10th, 2010
12:48 pm
Buck,
do you talk to Elvis, too?
buck@gon
September 10th, 2010
12:48 pm
Oh, and the ANGER part of your statement is something to address too. We are angry because vapid or liberal dolts like you are giving us the “news” every day that is about 1/3 of the story and decreasing in ratio day by day.
Let me know if you need some hay bales to stuff into clothing for your boxing workouts.
Bubba Bob
September 10th, 2010
12:48 pm
jew,
I’m against extending the tax cuts if they will cut spending as well. Ending the cuts while still spending excessively won’t work.
Are you for cutting entitlement programs?
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
12:48 pm
Jackie: Do you think the so-called conservatives will put forth an effort to read and understood the material presented?
—————————————
Do you think the leftards can write a sentence using proper grammar?
If you’re going to pretend to be smarter than everyone else you might want to be more careful, idiot.
Deep throat
September 10th, 2010
12:50 pm
Jewcowboy, I should clarify my statement, I do not put our military and some of ots affiliates in the same cat. as the typical federal worker, but as I said you don’t have to look far.
Keep up the good fight!
September 10th, 2010
12:51 pm
Bubba…. now take a breath. Yes the debt has been out of control for years. But the Republican in the past 8 certainly did their job of expanding it and cut taxes at the same time (can you say double whammy)… and then they left a recession. Now we are 20 months into efforts to first try to deal with the recession and then to start dealing with the debt issues while still governing. So when exactly did you develop this anger? Did you just put down the slurpee, oh say, with the election of Obama? And do you think that the debt will magically disappear if the Republicans come back? How much more debt do the Republicans want us to take on…demanding tax cuts be extended to the rich?
Soothsayer
September 10th, 2010
12:51 pm
Jay, unfortunately your argument assumes the Right bases their beliefs on “facts” and not what Rush tells them.
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:54 pm
Bubba Bob,
“Are you for cutting entitlement programs?”
Why of course….cut SS benefits to all boomers in half.
But seriously…I am as concerned right now about our debt load as I am about the sluggish economic recovery. The time for the gov’t to spend is during a recession…the time to cut back is when times are good. Save for a rainy day.
Gov’t spending cannot be equated to an individuals spending b/c they have two entirely different sets of responsibilities.
Bubba Bob
September 10th, 2010
12:54 pm
Keep,
I’ve been against excessive debt since Reagan. I thought Bush was crazy for claiming to be conservative and then spending like crazy.
I stated clearly….raise taxes if you cut spending. Don’t keep spending like crazy and just raise taxes. Would you run your own home that way?
I think that I will vote for people who will stop our debt.
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:55 pm
Deep throat,
“I do not put our military and some of ots affiliates in the same cat. ”
Why not..they are some of the worst abusers of our tax dollars.
jewcowboy
September 10th, 2010
12:57 pm
@ 12.54,
“I am as concerned right now about our debt load”
I am NOT as concerned right now about our debt load
Sheesh…time for some food.
Bubba Bob
September 10th, 2010
12:57 pm
jewcowboy,
Spending during a recession at the levels we have been spending is neo-Keynesian craziness.
We need to make hard decisions now. Our kids and grandkids will be paying back this crap so we can have $5.00 lattes.
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
12:58 pm
Hey leftards, sure the Republicans ran up the debt. Did you elect the Idiot Messiah to just continue President Bush’s policies, or to change them?
Idiot Messiah: Failure.
Keep up the good fight!
September 10th, 2010
12:58 pm
Bubba…I will also vote for people who have expressed plans to address the debts and to bring some sense into matters. Simple smarter government. Glad we agree. Unfortunately, the only ones that seem to have a plan are generally in office and the lock step march and rants of the right for political gain are impairing any ability to have a rational discussion of what should be done to bring about that smarter government.
Bubba Bob
September 10th, 2010
12:59 pm
“Gov’t spending cannot be equated to an individuals spending b/c they have two entirely different sets of responsibilities.”
If the Gov’t ran their finances like a household should we wouldn’t be in this mess. The government wants power and they give out money to get it and now it’s time to pay the piper…we’re the ones who have to dance now.
Deep throat
September 10th, 2010
12:59 pm
Liberals are stupid, if the tax cuts help put people back to work that generates more tax revenue, if the government continues to demonize business theres no increase in workers equalling less tax revenue. I know this is simple math, but maybe you’ll get it.
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
12:59 pm
The Idiot Messiah changed President Bush’s policies, all right. He’s turned a $400 billion deficit into a $1.4 trillion deficit.
Heckuva job, Idiot Messiah!
Jay
September 10th, 2010
1:00 pm
Buck, the tax rate chart ends in 2007 because that’s the latest year in which we have such information.
The gov’t revenue chart ends in 2008 because — as I pointed out in the piece you didn’t read — the number in 2009 is artificially lowered to 14.8 percent because of the recession. In other words, including that data would have HELPED my argument, but I did not use it because the impression it would create would have been false.
It would appear as if your anger is interfering with your cognitive skills.
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
1:01 pm
Leftards will never acknowledge a simple fact: After our President Bush enacted his tax cuts, tax revenues went UP.
Don’t fear facts, leftards.
Mr Right
September 10th, 2010
1:01 pm
Wow, what a relief to know we have a smaller gov. than in the past ! ( jk )
FrankLeeDarling
September 10th, 2010
1:02 pm
Don’t drink the tea
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
1:02 pm
Jay, you haven’t responded to my question…is the education system better now that the federal government has been involved in it for the last couple of decades?
Bubba Bob
September 10th, 2010
1:02 pm
Jay,
Unfortunately you are arguing around the symptoms. Time to hit the disease. Excessive debt.
All these other charts and figures are a waste of time.
A private sector employee
September 10th, 2010
1:02 pm
“I think it’s fair to say that the fundamental animating ”
How very fair of you, Jay. You and Obama’s “a reasonable man”. How nice of both of you to determine what is fair and reasonable.
To bad you are both WRONG.. but lets continue:
“animating belief of the modern conservative movement is that government in general, and the federal government in particular, has grown so large that it now dominates the private sector and threatens our liberties and our economic prosperity”
That is not a belief. that is a symptom. The overwhelming belief is that INDIVIDUALS know how to allocate and spend their money better than the federal government. Therefore, as a last resort, the Federal Government should only allocate and spend money on things that cannot be allocated any other way… like spending for common defense or an interstate highway system. And if one believes that individuals know how better to spend their own money for their own families than politicians, then one believes that growth of government (in general) is not bad. The Democrats spent $860B of taxpayer money. I could well have used MY portion of that to pay MY bills and for things that I need rather than to pay the myriad of crap that the Federal Government spent it on.
Can you see the difference in what I wrote and what you believe, Jay? You , fundamentally, don’t even understand the problem. So you try to explain the problem by showing employment in government in the last 30 years… sans teachers to make the chart look good… without also showing their future impact (especially the impact of the last 2 years). That is like looking at the impact of SS spending/income of the last 80 years without looking at the next 20. You explain the first 20 chapters without revealing the ironic twist of the last chapter…. and that is fundamentally dishonest. So, you miss the point AND you are intellectually dishonest.
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
1:03 pm
Mr. Right, anyone arguing that would be a liar or an idiot.
Keep up the good fight!
September 10th, 2010
1:03 pm
Oh lordy…I am going to need more slurpees!
Mr Right
September 10th, 2010
1:04 pm
It would appear as if your anger is interfering with your cognitive skills.
Yea Jay, start talking down to him, a typical tactic of the left !
Soothsayer
September 10th, 2010
1:04 pm
Conventional politics is characterized by this truism: “leaders” are actually “followers” of the status quo constituencies. Conventional leadership (Clinton, Bush, Obama, et al.) never reach beyond what the fiefdoms which fund their campaigns consider “healthy” to their own self-interest.>/strong>
Humans only change when there is no other choice. Thus we can safely predict that the nation’s Balkanized constituencies and fiefdoms will resist any systemic reform until the status quo’s collapse is visibly inevitable. Then it will be too late for modest policy tweaks to pass as “real reform.”
The majority of voters do not vote, leaving the field clear for the nation’s Balkanized constituencies and fiefdoms to control the machinery of governance. As long as the bottom 80% are bought off with SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid and unemployment, their political silence (and thus complicity in the status quo) enables the top 5% to operate with a free hand, electing “leadership” devoted to full-spectrum defense of the status quo.
Republican or Democrat, it doesn’t matter; the American Empire continues apace, as do all the other primary fiefdoms: the National Security State, the drug/prison gulag, the Sickcare cartels, the defense industry/Pentagon revolving door, the education “industry,” etc.
Conventional politics will reign supreme until the citizenry reach a point of realization that compells them to rise up and lead their “leaders” to systemic transformation.
Truth on a silver platter.
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
1:05 pm
How is the home mortgage industry doing now that the federal government is involved?
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
1:06 pm
How is the auto industry doing after several decades of increasing federal government involvement?
JohnnyReb
September 10th, 2010
1:07 pm
Where’s the charts for all the government intrusion and collateral damage from the good intentions?
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
1:07 pm
How is the family structure doing after several decades of federal government welfare programs?
AngryRedMarsWoman
September 10th, 2010
1:08 pm
When my love originally enlisted some 20+ years ago, the meals were brought to the field by actual soldiers who did the cooking…that is, if the meal were even hot because most times in the field you just got some cold sammies that were dropped in right along with the men or you ate C-rats or those new-fangled MREs that were apparently nothing like the nice ones they get today.
“But over the years the Department of Defense has taken a page from the playbook of many corporations and slowly backed away from operating its own foodservice. The Defense Department began its exodus in the late 1980s by contracting most cafeteria functions, with the exception of cooking, to outside companies.” Nation’s Restaurant News, April 28, 2003 by Paul King
And today even the cooks are being outsourced. Rather than having an “army” of soldier-cooks, you have firms like Sodexho and Aramark providing the meals to our troops and sometimes even the personnel to serve the meals.
Look, I am not trying to starve our fighting men and women…and I am sure they don’t want s^%*-on-a-shingle every day…but is contracting everything really good for the military or the US Government as a whole? The number of people actually employed by the government may be correctly reflected in the chart above, but that only tells a part of the story. Payroll does not include independent contractors. My own company plays this game sometimes too – terminating someone to reduce SWIB and then contracting with a company or even sometimes the former employee to render the same services – it is still an expense, it just hits at a different place on the balance sheet. Anyway, citing flat payroll as proof that government is not oversized is misleading, IMHO, because the government, including our fine military, has outsourced and continues to pay for many many many services thus keeping them off of the “payroll”. Happy Friday to all.
Mick
September 10th, 2010
1:08 pm
The name calling emotional diatribes from some tend to be a bit sophomoric. Try sticking to the facts if thats possible.
Lil' Barry Bailout
September 10th, 2010
1:09 pm
Bottom line–President Reagan was correct. Government IS the problem.
Mick
September 10th, 2010
1:11 pm
**Government IS the problem**
Especially when we have repubs who don’t know how to govern.
Mr Right
September 10th, 2010
1:12 pm
How is the home mortgage industry doing now that the federal government is involved?
The bigger question is , is there any industry doing better with gov involvement ? Any place any country it don’t matter, to much gov control will screw it up !
Jay
September 10th, 2010
1:12 pm
barry writes:
“Leftards will never acknowledge a simple fact: After our President Bush enacted his tax cuts, tax revenues went UP.
Don’t fear facts, leftards.”
In 2001, the year Bush took office and the year he signed his tax cuts, federal receipts totalled $2.215 trillion.
Adjusting for inflation, they didn’t reach that level again until 2006, a whole five years later. By 2008, his last full year in office, federal revenues were up a whopping $73 billion — a whole 3.3 percent — over 2001.
Don’t fear facts; fear lies that masquerade as facts.
Hootinanny Yum Yum
September 10th, 2010
1:13 pm
Please show same charge including federal, state and local educators.
Also, please show chart trending average governmental employee annual salary vs. average private sector salary.
Hootinanny Yum Yum
September 10th, 2010
1:14 pm
Chart, not charge.
jm
September 10th, 2010
1:15 pm
David Brooks column in the NY Times today is good reading for anyone who believes we need to jack up the educational focus on Math Science Technology and Engineering. Or someone who wants general info on why we are where we are.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/opinion/10brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
jm
September 10th, 2010
1:15 pm
Here’s a revised family (country) wealth manifesto.
The saying goes: the first generation builds wealth, the second generation maintains and grows it, and the third generation pisses it all away.
Here is a possible corollary for the US: the first 100 years built the US nation, the second 100 years maintained and grew it, and the final 100 years (1976-2076) will have peed it all away. Recycle process…
Looks to be pretty accurate. Hopefully not.
Wes
September 10th, 2010
1:17 pm
Jay,
While you’ve been very kind to provide some data that supports your thesis let’s look at a slightly different metric: government expenditures which are outpacing receipts and added to our debt. I’d think that the expenditures make a much better gauge for the size of government than the money coming in.
I don’t know if it’s possible to measure, but you might also want to consider the impact on the private sector from regulations rather than just the employees. Also contractors might not be included in the graph you showed.
John Birch
September 10th, 2010
1:17 pm
The Federal budget for 2010 of $3.55T is about 25% of the total economy (GDP around $14T) so less than 6% of the country’s employees control 25% of the spending!!!! When you throw in state and local governments, government controls about 35% of the GDP.
Jay
September 10th, 2010
1:18 pm
Hootenanny, as I pointed out, the chart INCLUDING educators is available at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/09/government-employment-since-1976.html . It shows total government payroll as a proportion of the workforce, including educators, as flat or very slightly down.
Bosch
September 10th, 2010
1:18 pm
Been saying that for years, Jay. Conservatives listen to half truths and sensationalism from the Limbaughs instead of reading for themselves and thinking things through. Most are not capable of critical thinking. They define government spending as socialism, which is almost laughable in its ignorance. They scream for lower taxes when we have one of the lowest tax rates on Earth. They blame government, when they are part of the government — they are scared of things that MIGHT happen based on their own prejudices…….
Wes
September 10th, 2010
1:19 pm
I also wanted to mention one other thing. The thing that irritates me is the lack of representation. Most reps have about 650,000 constituents. How much of a say do you have if you can’t even convince one of 435?
JKL2
September 10th, 2010
1:20 pm
I like the comparison between today’s taxes and the Jimmy Carter era. I understand Obama is doing everything he can to bring back the misery index, but I thought even you kept away from the Pres. Carter references.
Mr Right
September 10th, 2010
1:22 pm
Mick
September 10th, 2010
1:11 pm
**Government IS the problem**
Especially when we have repubs who don’t know how to govern.
Them stupid repubs are messing everything up they should know better, Oh wait, I guess we do have a Dem. president, a Dem controlled House and a Dem controlled Senate ! Sorry, my bad !
AngryRedMarsWoman
September 10th, 2010
1:22 pm
Would also like to see the average cost per head for government employment compared to private sector…including all benefits such as healthcare and pension.
I applaud the folks who worked for the government back when it paid crap wages…but don’t blow smoke at me by saying it was all about altruism because even back then they were getting a nice pension package. All we heard about for decades was how the government could not hold on to good workers because the pay was bad, so the pay keept climbing to match salaries in the “real world”. The problem with that is everyone forgot about the pensions…well, not everyone.:) I hate to pick on cops because they risk their lives and all that, but where else can a person with only a high school education go and make a tarting salary of $40k with yearly increases and benefits and then work for 25-30 years and retire at 50-55 with a lifetime pension of 80% or more of their average salary over the last 5 years….and be young enough to take another job while pulling that pension? Please find me an example of a non-union private-sector job with a pension like that and then tell me again how necessary it is that government salaries match private salaries.
JJ
September 10th, 2010
1:25 pm
All data is 1,2, and 3 years old.
By every measure the largest hiring block in the last 18 months has been federal and local governments.
JKL2
September 10th, 2010
1:26 pm
Bosch-
When you pass a socialist monstrosity like obamacare, it’s OK to define government spending as Socialist.
Don’t forget that you now have to pay that federal retiree a salary that’s close to, if not higher, than they earned while working for the rest of their lives. Of course that doesn’t count since it comes from a different pot, right?
AngryRedMarsWoman
September 10th, 2010
1:27 pm
But Jay…I still don’t see where the analysis of government employment numbers includes anything about the amount of outsourcing that is going on. How many schools, for example, no longer operate their own cafeterias and instead contract for that work? If I have an office with 5 employees and I fire them all and contract with a staffing agency to provide 5 people to do the work then my payroll is $0 but I am still paying someone to do the work, right?
stands for decibels
September 10th, 2010
1:27 pm
Less than 6% of the country’s employees control 25% of the spending!
So you’re saying they should hire more people, so that more people will be involved in these spending decisions?
Jeepers, you guys come up with some weird-ass talking points. It’s not quite as weird as the ever popular “I lie awake nights fretting that rich people pay too big a share of federal income taxes” but it’s close.
Bosch
September 10th, 2010
1:28 pm
JKL2,
“When you pass a socialist monstrosity like obamacare, it’s OK to define government spending as Socialist.”
Name one way that the new health care bill demonstrates socialism.
Keep up the good fight!
September 10th, 2010
1:28 pm
Local governments are hiring? Now that is real news that contradicts real facts. Have a slurpee!
Mick
September 10th, 2010
1:28 pm
mr right
I am referring to the previous administration, specifically the war of choice. I happen to like the present gov’t, so that’s just my opinion.
Curious Observer
September 10th, 2010
1:29 pm
However you want to measure it — the ratio of government employees in the workforce, average income tax rates, total federal revenue — government is not increasing its death grip on the American economy and by many important measures is taking less of a bite than it ever has. In other words, the basic narrative driving today’s conservative anger has no real basis in fact.
I’ll buy it, except for the part about federal employment. Here, Jay’s source, as well as Jay and the taxpayer, has been flim-flammed.
Remember this word: contractor. A contracting employee does not count as a federal employee, nor does his/her salary count as payroll. President after president has gotten by with the claim that he has “reduced federal employment.” In fact, just the opposite is true. As Civil Service employees retired or otherwise left federal employment, they were replaced by contracting employees—staff members hired by companies like Lockheed, EDS, Boeing, Perot Systems, etc. They performed the same jobs as the Civil Service employees, but
1. They did not count as federal employees;
2. They did not count as federal payroll expense;
3. They cost more per employee than Civil Service employees because the contracting company added on about a 20% profit per employee.
Agency heads loved it—they could add employees without having them count either as employees or as part of the agency budget. Politicians loved it—what could be better than being able to boast of having reduced federal employees? Contracor companies loved it—here was a new source of profit. The only party being screwed—and quite unknowingly—was the gullible taxpayer/voter.
Now consider this: contracting employees made up, and still make up, as much as 43% of the staffing of federal agencies, including our own CDC.
Now the Obama administration is trying to inject a little honesty into federal hiring. Positions previously held by contracting employees are being converted to Civil Service positions. See that little bump at the end of your first chart? That’s the initial impact of this conversion.
And now, as the late Paul Harvey would say, you know the rest of the story.
JohnnyReb
September 10th, 2010
1:30 pm
Jay, here’s some reality on government becoming too big, intrusive, and unwanted.
In response to the unpopular healthcare reform bill, a/k/a Obamacare, Discharge Petition #11 is being circulated in Congress and sufficient signatures will force Nancy Pelosi to allow an up or down vote on repealling the bill. Democrat Representatives that opposed Obamacare, especially those up for reelection, will be pressured to sign the petition to provide sufficient signatures. The up/down vote will put Representatives on the spot, National TV for sure, and could result in repeal of the bill even before the new congress is seated.
Mick
September 10th, 2010
1:30 pm
AngryRedMarsWoman
I guess you should have been a cop if it such a great deal.
Mr Right
September 10th, 2010
1:30 pm
So what do you like about them?
washedup
September 10th, 2010
1:30 pm
So my anger is built on an illusion. .well, at least now I have a direction to aim it. .oh, wait. .where did it go?
JKL2
September 10th, 2010
1:35 pm
Bosch- Name one way that the new health care bill demonstrates socialism?
I guess I just one of those stupid conservatives who can’t figure out how socialized medicine demonstrates socialism. I think the naming convention must have confused me…
TaxPayer
September 10th, 2010
1:35 pm
You are now free to move about the cabin and argue with each other.
Actually, I’d feel a lot better if we kept the cons strapped down during the whole flight.
Left wing management
September 10th, 2010
1:36 pm
In a sense conservativism is always built on an illusion, going back to the ancient Roman defenders of the Republic who were arch enemies of Julius Caesar’s attempt to turn Rome into an Empire. But in that case it was largely a case of pure right of tradition against an upstart project with different designs to resolve a society and political system in crisis. Conservatives of this stripe used to be called “paleo-conservatives”. For them, tradition was the ultimate authority for what is and should be. But more recently a new breed has come along, made up largely of former Marxists, Trotskyists, etc, people like Bill Kristol’s father, George Will, Ronald Reagan, etc. These people believe in a lean state, partly because big government has a corrupting influence and undermines the nation’s virtue, which is what makes it capable of fulfilling its (self-appointed) mandate as empire. So in a sense these people go against the spirit of the paleo-conservatives.
But in more recent times, something else has taken hold, which is a kind of mish-mash of all of these tendencies. If you asked Sarah Palin who Bill Buckley is, I seriously doubt she’d be able to make an intelligent response. And that’s partly because in this day and age, though the conservative movement is carried on the shoulders of people like Buckley, nowadays it’s the talk radio and Fox News culture that carries the day. And this is what hearkens back to ancient Rome in a sense, for nowadays conservatism is the opposite of what it was for Buckley, Irving Kristol and co., an elite group of contrarians catering to a self-styled elite remnant culture in the face of a tide of unwashed masses cozying up to a paternalistic state. Nowadays, the very people who watch Fox and cheer for Sarah Palin are the same people who the next breath will militantly tell you not to tread on their social security. In other words, confusion reigns.
Several decades back, Bill Buckley’s rallying cry for the conservative movement was the image of standing athwart the runaway train of the modern state – animated by a spirit of creeping collectivism – yelling “stop!!!!”. Nowadays though, this same movement has devolved onto a cohort of loud voices who seem confused about what this really means. On the one hand, the society is changing in some ways faster than ever – immigration, sexual mores – while on the other hand the state is at its leanest in decades. Far from provoking a rethinking, however, this odd configuration only leads to greater retrenchment of a basically schizophrenic position.
Bosch
September 10th, 2010
1:36 pm
JKL2,
Well, at least you’re brave enough to admit you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about to say that Obamacare is socialist. Congratulations.
JohnnyReb
September 10th, 2010
1:38 pm
re, my post @ 1:30. I forgot to add, it will be interesting to see how many John Kerrys we have in the House. How does that go — I was for it before I was against it, or is it, I was against it before I was for it?
Jefferson
September 10th, 2010
1:39 pm
G(rumpy) O(ld) P(eople)
Paul
September 10th, 2010
1:39 pm
MarsRedWoman
““But over the years the Department of Defense has taken a page from the playbook of many corporations and slowly backed away from operating its own foodservice. The Defense Department began its exodus in the late 1980s by contracting most cafeteria functions, with the exception of cooking, to outside companies.””
That’s not just DoD, it’s the entire federal government. And they didn’t embark on this of their own volition (word of day, Bosch) – they are following public law as outlined in Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 “Performance of Commercial Activities.” Basically, is says operations that aren’t inherently governmental should be provided by the private sector. IF there are significant cost savings. Cooking is not an inherently governmental action, whereas shooting off a howitzer is.
You are correct – there are still massive monetary outlays while the number of government employees drops.
It should also be noted that, altho cost savings are necessary to transfer functions from the public to the private sector, it’s just the nature of the beast that there is very, very oversight or control over cost growth in contracts. About the only limitation on growth is the availability of funds. It’s not at all unusual for an activity to transfer to the private sector and after just a few years have total costs higher than what it cost the government – because the appetite for “I want this and that and the other” from the people receiving service from the contract is never-ending.
AngryRedMarsWoman
September 10th, 2010
1:39 pm
Mick
September 10th, 2010
1:30 pm
“I guess you should have been a cop if it such a great deal.”
Married one….even he would tell you it is a heck of a deal. Those lifetime pensions are the bomb. I will reiterate that I do not begrudge the cops what they get – the job is tough. I am just sick of hearing how government workers got the crappy end of the stick – now that their salaries have been for the most part right-sized, they got it going on with that and the pensions and those civil service panels that mean you can basically never be fired.
My own fault for busting my butt in college and law school and not looking closer at the benefits that the government offered – now it is too late to get in on the goodies because at least many local governments have phased out the lifetime pension for new hires. Just gonna have to keep saving for my own retirement.
Paul
September 10th, 2010
1:40 pm
make that “that there is very, very LITTLE oversight or control over cost growth in contracts.”
Bosch
September 10th, 2010
1:41 pm
Paul,
“volition”
impressed. I am.
Jackie
September 10th, 2010
1:42 pm
@Li’l Barry
It seems the amount of knowledge increases so rapidly that we can not keep up. Your assertion that our children are less knowledgeable than we are is not factual. Go to a first grade class and pay attention to what is being taught; you will be surprised.
http://www.countdown.org/armageddon/knowledge.htm
JKL2
September 10th, 2010
1:42 pm
Castro finally admitted after 60 years that communism doesn’t work. How long is going to take obama to admit it?
PS: never, because he’s the smartest man in the world and so he will suceed where everyone else in the history has failed. (Then blame Bush)