........................................................................... Nope....this is just about the number of apples to go around.... Govt. can get bigger if US Sustainable Business is addressed first....and will... Get even more apples than before..... Problem is....it ain't happening at the moment..... It's just stealing more apples and chopping down more trees.... Just not the way it works.... Too many clowns in office.....
libertad: Ever hear of the economic multiplier effect? I know that you sit around and chew on your money, but most people spend it. One persons payment is another person's taxable salary, so it is NOT a zero sum game. At this salary level the mulitplier effect is less than if the money is invested lower on the income scale, or say, in NASA, but as an exercise you should look up how much the government gets back in taxes for every dollar invested in each program. Since you consider offhand all government spending as an expense rather than an investment, I suggest that you do not use an exchange, roads, airports, internet, any drug originated with funds from an NIH grant, any doctor who's school is subsidized by the NIH, or any item developed from research done by NASA, DARPA, or the DOE, or buy any item shipped here over sea lanes kept safe by the Navy's efforts for a week. Then tell me that all government spending is wasteful and nonproductive. As for the facts of salary increase stated here, I am not sure that they are facts, but I'll see. I do know that the outsourcing of government functions has been a patronage crony reward scheme. The Army is more cost efficient and better able to feed and do its own laundry than KBR for instance, and the Navy does its own overhauls more cost effectively than Northrop. Thank Reagen and Bush 1 for starting it and Clinton and now Obama for continuing,( if he is) for the contracting out where we get half the increase in the common good for twice the price.
If anyone thinks by raising federal employee salaries from $40,000/year to $100,000/year or more and raising taxes proportionally will somehow make the economy better, they are living in a fantasy land.
The government is ABUSING their power to set pay scales and number of employees. Without MAJOR OVERHAUL AND A HUGE SCALING BACK OF GOVERNMENT, AMERICA WILL FAIL FINANCIALLY BECAUSE OF IT! Do you think it's possible that Obama and the Progressives WANT THIS? THAT IT'S PART OF THEIR AGENDA? If one considers the facts, such a thing cannot be ruled out. And.. he DID promise to "transform America", did he not?
While there is some justification for the government getting involved in large scale projects, like highways and power plants, most of the time government grants and subsidies will just create a vicious cycle, and negatively affect private businesses and economy in general. I suggest you read Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, or Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson. Both of them an eye opener.
All good arguments in this post. But nobody has made the gov't efficiency argument yet. For example, around 70% of gov't defense contracts are over budget and behind schedule. So extra spending on those projects is not resulting in extra efficiency. I'm sure that many NASA and other gov't projects are also in bad shape. So, paying more money to employees has not increased efficiency.
all government employees are overpaid, underworked, lazy, stupid, and underqualified. they have actual retards making 40k a year. yes, mentally handicapped individuals that dont do ANY work because they are related to someone.
"all government employees are overpaid, underworked, lazy, stupid, and underqualified. they have actual retards making 40k a year. yes, mentally handicapped individuals that dont do ANY work because they are related to someone." That's not even counting those in congress!
They give all the federal employees raises so they can collect more taxes so they can pay higher wages to federal employees! Its like a death spiral but goes up! Pretty soon Federal employees will be making a million dollars per year just so the government can have a higher tax revenue! This makes sense to any government economist. Sure its absolutely insane to the rest of us, but hey...we dont run this country. What did you think? That this country was run by the people, for the people?