Tag Archives: Size of Government

I envision us looking back at this statement with great sadness. Let it not be said that no one tried to prevent what is about about to happen.

I’m glad I was able to find a transcript of Congressman Ron Paul’s statement. Youtube videos sometimes vanish. I’m storing the transcript here.

The Christmas Congress

From a Campaign for Liberty email:

Dear Friend of Liberty,

While Americans busy themselves with holiday preparations, the weeks surrounding Congress’ Christmas break can often be the most dangerous time for our freedoms.

After all, we were given the “gift” of our Federal Reserve System just a couple of days before Christmas in 1913.

Part of the legislation being considered before Congress adjourns this year is the $636 billion Defense Appropriations bill.

It’s bad enough that this Congress, which was elected by a country tired of our endless nation-building, is about to vote to keep overextending our military and involving it in unconstitutional interventions, but lawmakers are seeking to include much more than defense items in this appropriations package.

According to the latest reports, legislators may attempt to tack on language forcing monopoly bargaining on every policeman, firefighter, and emergency medical technician (EMT) in the country, as well as extending the PATRIOT Act.

Some in Congress want to add H.R. 413 and S. 1611, the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2009, to the House and Senate appropriations bills.

H.R. 413 and S. 1611 would override state labor laws, increase the power of the federal government to intervene in local arrangements, and continue to strip away the decision-making power of non-unionized workers.

And reports indicate that lawmakers are looking to include a temporary extension of some of the PATRIOT Act’s provisions that are set to expire at the end of the year. These representatives argue that they need more time to debate revisions to the Act.

When it comes to the PATRIOT Act, there’s only one course of action that needs to be taken – once again respecting our civil liberties by immediately repealing the entire bill.

In addition to the massive appropriations legislation, lawmakers could also vote as soon as Wednesday on raising the debt limit on the federal government’s credit card by as much as $2 trillion.

It is long past time Congress began paying down its debts instead of firing up the printing presses. Real change means facing reality and rejecting any further attempts from both major parties to add to our debt.

Government is top employer in southern Calif., report reveals

The most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) reveals that the majority of jobs for the top principal employers in six counties are government jobs.

In the six southern California counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Imperial, more than half of the top employers in those counties, on average, are government entities. (Read more from examiner.com)

The National Park’s Service’s Million Dollar Out-House

THEY DON’T EVEN FLUSH!!! If the national parks department can pay a million dollars for an outhouse, how much do you think the national healthcare system will pay for hospitals?

“Heading to a national park this holiday weekend? As I reported before, if you go to the right one, you may have the privilege of using a million-dollar outhouse.

In Pennsylvania, the National Park Service built a one-seater outhouse that looks more like a chalet than a toilet.”

“When the government spends your money, they decide local slate isn’t good enough. The slate must be imported from Vermont.

They must use flower seed that costs $700 a pound. The outhouse must have windows and a porch. Why does an outhouse need a porch? And of course, the paint must be epoxy that costs $78 a gallon.

When the smoke cleared, more than $780,000 had been spent to build the outhouse. How did they spend that much? Well, bureaucracy costs money.

It took more than a dozen Park Service engineers and architects two years to design the outhouse. That cost over $100,000. Then to oversee the project, a supervisor from Denver lived onsite in Pennsylvania for about a year. That cost another $80,000.

Then they had to get environmental approvals and meet all government construction rules. That meant hiring minority-owned firms; size requirements mandated by the Americans With Disabilities Act; and paying union-like construction wages. It adds up.

And it gets worse. In Montana, the Park Service has built a four-hole outhouse. The cost: One million dollars. Give me a break. ” (from blogs.abcnews.com)

In a Savings Shocker, the Government Discovers That Paper Has Two Sides

“WASHINGTON — With the budget deficit soaring toward $2 trillion, the Department of Justice has figured out how to play its part: double-sided photocopying.

There are other acts of national sacrifice. The Forest Service will no longer repaint its new, white vehicles green immediately upon purchase. The Army will start packing more soldiers onto R&R flights. The Navy will delete unused email accounts.

Three months ago, President Barack Obama ordered his cabinet secretaries to find $100 million in budget cuts for the current fiscal year to emphasize the point that he, too, was serious about belt-tightening. They responded with $102 million. That is 0.006% of the estimated federal deficit.

The list of 77 spending cuts, which the White House is calling ‘the $100 million savings challenge,’ reflects the vastness of government — and its vast inefficiency. Hundreds of millions of dollars in savings were found simply by casting around for areas to trim.” (Read more from online.wsj.com)

Let us never forget that government is a disgusting, lazy, inefficient slob which finances itself by collecting money at the point of a gun. Let us be mindful of this when we consider giving government authority over, say, our healthcare, or anything else.

The Mises Institute’s DC Reality Tour

The following is excerpted from mises.org:

Lincoln Memorial – Erected during the Progressive Era, the idea here is to entrench the perception that the consolidated state is irreversible, not only in fact but also as a matter of faith. Note that this is the “temple of democracy,” but the man is featured with his hands on the fasces.

The Vietnam Memorial – It is a rare case of a monument that isn’t designed to extol the glories of the state. Quite the opposite in fact.

Federal Trade Commission Statues – Hear a private talk about the true story behind the remarkable statues of “Man Controlling Trade.” The horse, you see, represents trade. And who trades? Well, we trade. That’s what the whole of society does, every day. Trade means that people cooperate to their mutual benefit. But look what happens. Some guy comes along and wrecks everything, stagnating progress and bullying us into not trading with each other. And this is supposed to be a great thing? From the government’s point of view, yes. Note that this statue went up in 1942, when prices were fixed, rationing was in effect, and people were being drafted as fodder for the state’s war.

Ronald Reagan Building – Everyone thinks that Ronald Reagan cut the state’s size. He is known as a champion of minimal government. But, of course, they know otherwise in the Beltway. He zoomed up the welfare and warfare state as never before, bringing boom times to the state, and it was especially impressive that he did it even while claiming to do otherwise ï¿½ and being denounced for doing otherwise. In this building, we have truth telling. It is the most gargantuan monstrosity to ever visit the vast real estate of the Imperial City.

Random Congressional Subcommittee Meeting – Visitors have been known to experience severe bouts of boredom.

HUD and The Department of Labor – We visit the massive buildings that ï¿½ unlike Congress, the capitol, and official seat of the government ï¿½ house the institutions that are running the country on a daily basis.

Palaces of the World Bank and IMF – We visit the several palaces of the World Bank and IMF. We discuss the details of the employees’ very high and completely untaxed salaries.

Iwo Jima Memorial – Some are under the illusion that this memorial praising the United States’ offensive invasion force was a memorial for those defending the country. Fortunately the memorial brilliantly lists practically every country the US military has ever invaded, etched around the sides.

The Receptions – What never fails to make the biggest impression are the receptions. The lavish receptions are elaborate, decadent, and ï¿½ most important ï¿½free to anyone with an attitude. One need never pay for a meal, and free scotch and shrimp are promptly available at 3:30 to anyone who knows where to go. This just doesn’t happen in the real world. For these events, tour members are encouraged to wear a jacket or suit and to exude the air of entitlement of a mid-level bureaucrat, party apparatchik, lobbyist, media member, think tank resident, or congressional staffer.

America’s biggest industry: Government

A couple graphics at newgeography.com caught my eye:

National employment peaked in Dec 2007 at 138.2 million. As of Jan 2009, it’s 134.6 million.

The number of people employed by the government is 22.6 million.

Here’s a little trick I call math: 134.6 &#247 22.6 = 5.96

More than one out of six employed Americans working for the government. The economic activity of five Americans pays the salary (and benefits) of the sixth. We cannot afford so much government.

Healthcare and our Ever-Expanding Government

Our government, which already directly employs a seventh a America’s labor force (22 million people), is doing what government does best. It is growing – in size, cost and invasiveness.

Its growth into the healthcare industry is particularly interesting to me because of the enthusiasm with which so many of my liberal friends welcome it.

There exist little-known, little-discussed health rules buried in the recently-passed 1,100-page “stimulus” bill – the one which was forced to a vote in the House twelve hours after it’s midnight release, which not a single Congressman read, and which had been made available to lobbyists, but not Congressional staffers.

There are so many things economically and morally reprehensible about the Obama administration’s attempts at creating wealth from a printing press, one struggles to keep up even with something as important as healthcare.

Bloomberg news recently reported:

“The bill’s health rules will affect ‘every individual in the United States’ (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). . . . According to [former Senator] Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ‘learn to operate less like solo practitioners.’ . . .

Hospitals and doctors that are not ‘meaningful users’ of the new system will face penalties. ‘Meaningful user’ isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ‘more stringent measures of meaningful use over time’ (511, 518, 540-541).”

Central planning doesn’t work. One consequence will be that when centrally-planned healthcare becomes corrupt and ineffective (and it will), we won’t be allowed to quit. Our money will continue to be taken away to support something we don’t want – much like with foreign wars, domestic spying, and all the other ways America’s 22 million federal employees find meaning in their lives.

The best thing government can do is let us keep our money. In a free society, states, neighborhoods, communities, churches, families can socialize or they can not. The effectiveness of different bureaucracies will determine their fate. In Obama’s socialist society, we must all give our wealth to the centrally-planned bureaucracy regardless of whether it serves our needs.

A second consequence will be the rhetorical argument for continued government expansion into our private lives. Once government is paying for our healthcare, regardless of the fact their using our money to do it, they’ll eventually claim dominion over our diets and health-related habits.

Last year, Japan’s government began mandatory tape tests for their subjects . . . er . . . citizens, in the name of controlling healthcare costs. Financial penalties are imposed on local governments and employers who fail to meet the government’s vision of a healthy society.

In the United States, the arguments will be similar. Everything will be blamed – smokers, obesity, greedy businessmen, solar radiation – before the pundits ever cast a scrutinizing eye on government inefficiency.

Here’s another prediction: more government will be proposed as a solution.

(An abbreviated version of this blog entry appears in The Press Citizen)

Labor Force Math & the Size of Government

Size of 2007 U.S. labor force according to CIA World Factbook (including unemployment): 153.1 million

Number of Americans employed in manufacturing: 13.6 million
in wholesale and retail: 21.5 million
in professional and business services: 18 million
in education and health services: 18.7 million
in financial activities: 8.2 million
in the information sector: 3 million
in transportation and warehousing: 4.5 million
in construction: 7.3
in mining and logging: .8 million
in other services such as repair, laundry, and membership associations: 5.5 million
in government: 22.4 MILLION!

That’s one in seven Americans whose salaries come from taxes.

(Read More from counterpunch.org by Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration)

It’s like Ron Paul always says: We can’t afford this government. They should do what the constitution authorizes, and little, if anything, else.