Cut taxes and cut the growth of the Federal work force: "At a time when workers' pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn..." http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm Someone commenting on the article who has worked in both the Federal and private sectors nailed it on the head: "...I can assure everyone that there are a huge number of Federal employees who do little to nothing all day. I've seen a small section with three outdated "timekeepers" who chat, browse the internet or sleep at least 7 hours of their workdays. However, no one wants to (or can) get rid of them or force them into a productive job (if they could even find one). I have a friend at the VA who says practically no one in his office works more than 30-60 minutes a day. Some even leave early or leave work for long periods during the day. While some Federal employees work hard and even carry the load at their agencies, my examples aren't isolated. This is a travesty. It's also a missing piece in the tax cut debates. Taxes should be cut, but many Federal employees and even whole agencies (who do little to nothing) should be cut out. Unfortunately, no one has had the guts to do this yet. Let's hope more principled and bolder politicians will do this one day. Right now, Federal agencies are growing more at an alarming pace thanks to all of Obama's new bills and his need for new "interpreters" and "enforcers" of the thousands of pages of new regulations. Scary stuff!!
We need to vote against beauracracy, and I think the tea party is doing a good job of pointing us in that direction.
Another thing: those jobs have incredible "security." If you could put a price on "job security regardless of performance," I bet a gov't job is worth even more than their study suggests...