DGS49
Diamond Member
- Apr 12, 2012
- 16,459
- 14,454
It is a happy coincidence that the Government employs people in the process of performing the duties that it rightly performs under the constraints of our Constitution.
The Department of Defense is totally constitutional and employs millions, both in uniform and otherwise. The post office, the patent office, the mint, the Federal courts, and (some) federal departments and agencies employ hundreds of thousands of valuable people.
These employees take their wages and spend the money on houses, cars, products, food, entertainment, and other commodities; they make investments, put money in banks, lend and borrow money...it's all good, and it helps the economy as a BY-PRODUCT of the fulfillment of the rightful obligations of government.
But are there government employees who, truth be told, are ONLY employed by Government because of their contribution to the economy - employees whose functions are either unconstitutional, duplicative, superfluous, or even counterproductive - and could be eliminated with no real reduction in the functioning of government?
The most obvious examples of this phenomenon is in the scores of superfluous military bases scattered throughout the "fruited plain."
Fiscally-sensitive politicians have tried for decades to lower this burden on the taxpayer, and have appointed commissions and whatnot to take base closings OUT OF THE HANDS of the politicians, but it hasn't worked. We are still saddled with scores of these superfluous bases. The fact is that they often are a primary employer in some out-of-the-way location, and to close them down would be a devastating blow to that small community. I live in a little hamlet called, "Pittsburgh," and we have a sizeable Air Force base that could be closed entirely and I would bet that no Iranian mullah, Russian despot or Cuban comrade would give a shit one way or another. In short, it is a complete waste of taxpayer money. Every couple years they talk about closing the base, and it causes our two Senators and several Reps to go into fits of apoplexy, warning that the U.S. itself could collapse if it lost the added security of the 911th Tactical Airlift Wing. Horsefeathers.
But these military bases are just the tip of the iceburg, when considering how many government agencies (and hence hundreds of thousands of employees) are there only through inertia or misguided congressional initiatives. We have dozens of agencies falling all over themselves with anti-poverty programs, housing subsidy programs, small business programs, loan programs, and who knows what else. And even if you can ignore the fact that most of them are blatantly unconstitutional, there is no conceivable doubt that most of the employees could be eliminated if they were consolidated to a rational number of agencies and programs.
When people like me were having hissy-fits about the new trillion dollar deficits at the end of Bush43, Barry warned us that to adopt "austerity" budgets and put all these superfluous government employees out of work would surely lead to a repeat of the Great Depression. So "we" funded not only the continuation of all these people, but paid state and local governments to HIRE MORE OF THEM! None of them were needed, but in the manner of any large bureaucratic agency, they were all hired, and were all deemed "indispensable," within a short period of time.
And now those state and local governments, and school districts, have had to cough up the money to retain those people who were stupidly hired with the short-term Federal money. Predictably, we are told that they are now VITAL to the accomplishment of the missions of all those departments and school districts who hired them, even though we'll collectively be damned if we can figure out what the hell we paid for with all those trillions of dollars.
At what point can we say, STOP! We are no longer going to fund government employees simply because to fire them would supposedly hurt the economy. It's no longer fair to burden ourselves, our children and grandchildren with these superfluous government employees, paying them generously throughout a non-working career, as well as during a long and generous retirement.
I remember many moons ago when I was taking college classes in "Public Administration." I was taught that any good public-sector agency practiced the discipline of "zero-based budgeting." That is, every single expenditure was presumed to have completed its mission and was no longer necessary in the next year's budget. It would only be continued if a demonstrated need was there. "Zero-base budgeting."
It's time to implement that noble philosophy, and if a lot of government employees lose their jobs, so be it. I've lost my job several times during a 45 year working career, and I survived every one of them. No reason why government employees should be any different.
The Department of Defense is totally constitutional and employs millions, both in uniform and otherwise. The post office, the patent office, the mint, the Federal courts, and (some) federal departments and agencies employ hundreds of thousands of valuable people.
These employees take their wages and spend the money on houses, cars, products, food, entertainment, and other commodities; they make investments, put money in banks, lend and borrow money...it's all good, and it helps the economy as a BY-PRODUCT of the fulfillment of the rightful obligations of government.
But are there government employees who, truth be told, are ONLY employed by Government because of their contribution to the economy - employees whose functions are either unconstitutional, duplicative, superfluous, or even counterproductive - and could be eliminated with no real reduction in the functioning of government?
The most obvious examples of this phenomenon is in the scores of superfluous military bases scattered throughout the "fruited plain."
Fiscally-sensitive politicians have tried for decades to lower this burden on the taxpayer, and have appointed commissions and whatnot to take base closings OUT OF THE HANDS of the politicians, but it hasn't worked. We are still saddled with scores of these superfluous bases. The fact is that they often are a primary employer in some out-of-the-way location, and to close them down would be a devastating blow to that small community. I live in a little hamlet called, "Pittsburgh," and we have a sizeable Air Force base that could be closed entirely and I would bet that no Iranian mullah, Russian despot or Cuban comrade would give a shit one way or another. In short, it is a complete waste of taxpayer money. Every couple years they talk about closing the base, and it causes our two Senators and several Reps to go into fits of apoplexy, warning that the U.S. itself could collapse if it lost the added security of the 911th Tactical Airlift Wing. Horsefeathers.
But these military bases are just the tip of the iceburg, when considering how many government agencies (and hence hundreds of thousands of employees) are there only through inertia or misguided congressional initiatives. We have dozens of agencies falling all over themselves with anti-poverty programs, housing subsidy programs, small business programs, loan programs, and who knows what else. And even if you can ignore the fact that most of them are blatantly unconstitutional, there is no conceivable doubt that most of the employees could be eliminated if they were consolidated to a rational number of agencies and programs.
When people like me were having hissy-fits about the new trillion dollar deficits at the end of Bush43, Barry warned us that to adopt "austerity" budgets and put all these superfluous government employees out of work would surely lead to a repeat of the Great Depression. So "we" funded not only the continuation of all these people, but paid state and local governments to HIRE MORE OF THEM! None of them were needed, but in the manner of any large bureaucratic agency, they were all hired, and were all deemed "indispensable," within a short period of time.
And now those state and local governments, and school districts, have had to cough up the money to retain those people who were stupidly hired with the short-term Federal money. Predictably, we are told that they are now VITAL to the accomplishment of the missions of all those departments and school districts who hired them, even though we'll collectively be damned if we can figure out what the hell we paid for with all those trillions of dollars.
At what point can we say, STOP! We are no longer going to fund government employees simply because to fire them would supposedly hurt the economy. It's no longer fair to burden ourselves, our children and grandchildren with these superfluous government employees, paying them generously throughout a non-working career, as well as during a long and generous retirement.
I remember many moons ago when I was taking college classes in "Public Administration." I was taught that any good public-sector agency practiced the discipline of "zero-based budgeting." That is, every single expenditure was presumed to have completed its mission and was no longer necessary in the next year's budget. It would only be continued if a demonstrated need was there. "Zero-base budgeting."
It's time to implement that noble philosophy, and if a lot of government employees lose their jobs, so be it. I've lost my job several times during a 45 year working career, and I survived every one of them. No reason why government employees should be any different.
