I wonder if anyone ever thinks about how fast the federal government is growing.

USA Today did two very interesting articles in the last couple of months. The data in these reports is staggering. While unemployment continues to be at a catastrophic level and small businesses are struggling to keep their head above water, while home sales are at the lowest level in decades, home foreclosures remain at record high levels and tax revenues are dropping, the federal government continues to expand!

Not only is the federal government expanding its average pay, it is outpacing private sector jobs. Does anyone else find this reprehensible! Does anyone else wonder what this administration can be thinking! At a time when the small company I work for is laying off workers for the first time in its 22 year history, at a time when my company is instituting pay cuts and benefit reductions, the federal government is increasing its size and increasing the pay of its employees!

Some of the startling finds of the USA Today report:

• According to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data, the number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession,

• Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of all civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

• Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — this during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

• Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

Obviously no one would dispute the individual worker earning as much as their skills will allow but, how does their employer (the Federal government) justify a massive increase in payroll while their income is falling?

A new address

Wanted to let everyone know they can now reach "The Second Ride" blog at

http://www.governmentvsliberty.info/


spread the word to all your liberal friends!!!

I wonder if anyone ever thinks about how big the federal government has become.

Unless you live in Washington DC, for most of us the Federal government is kind of abstract. We all think about it when we fill out our tax forms and if you are retired you have interaction with the Social Security department and Medicare but day to day I don’t think most of us are thinking about the government. Heck, when it was shut down during the budget impasse a few years ago, a majority of Americans would not have even noticed if it were not for the hysterical media.

How big is the Federal government? Well it’s the biggest employer in the country with almost 3 million employees (1) counting the postal service. With an annual budget of over three trillion dollars in 2010 it is almost 22% of the country’s GDP (3).

Now it makes sense that the federal government would always be getting bigger. The country’s population and economy is growing so the government would have to expand to perform the same function for a larger economy. To make some sense of it, we must compare the size of the government with something else in order to get a feel for how much the government really is expanding. As I said, federal spending is equal to almost 22% of GDP and if we look back to say, 1913, we see that Federal spending was just 2.5% of GDP.

Another way we can look at federal spending is to compare it to the population. In 1960 the population was 180 million people and 2010 it is about 300 million, an increase of about 60%. Federal spending in 1960 (numbers converted to 2005 dollars) was $628 billion and in 2010 $3300 billion so an increase of over 400%. Yes you read that correctly 3300 billion dollars!!! A 400% increase!!!! (2)

“But wait” my liberal friends tell me, “think of all the good the government does”. We don’t have space in one blog to look at the total federal budget, so let’s take a quick look at just one department to see “how much good they do”.

The Department of Education was founded in 1979. Going back to my first blog it is hard to figure out how education can ever be thought of as a “Federal responsibility”. It would appear to be the whole thing is absolutely unconstitutional. But liberals don’t really worry about that, so let’s just concentrate on what the department is really doing.

To think about this historically, the United States put men on the moon without a department of education, we won two world wars without a department of education, we created the largest most productive economy in the world…without a department of education. Today the Department of education has a work force of 4200 and not one of them is a teacher. The budget for this department is 63.7 billion. My liberal friends tell me this department provides vital dollars to help the states pay for education, but where do those dollars come from in the first place? FROM THE STATES!!

So here is how it works. The federal government takes tax money from the citizens of a state, it uses most of that money to pay for the payroll, benefits, insurance, office, desks, chairs and bottled water for the 4200 employees in Washington and then it sends some of the same money back to each state and acts like it is doing you a favor! Here is a thought, if we just left that 63 billion dollars in the states and let them use it to hire teachers how many teachers could we get? That might be close to an extra 1 million teachers.

So what do you really think would do the most for education, an extra 1 million teachers or 4200 federal employees sitting in an office building in DC?

1)http://www.opm.gov/feddata/HistoricalTables/TotalGovernmentSince1962.asp


2) http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2011-TAB/pdf/BUDGET-2011-TAB.pdf

3) GDP is a measure of the “gross domestic product” of our country. GDP is basically a number that includes all economic activity that happens in the U.S. If my company hires a new worker for $40,000 that adds $40,000 added to the GDP, if that employee then helps produce product that we sell for $10 that adds $10 to the GDP.

I wonder if anyone ever thinks about why we have all these laws?

Let’s just expand a little on my entry about the continuing expansion of federal control over our lives. In the first post we looked at trying to analyze if we as citizens wanted to support or oppose a new federal law, rule or regulation.

Now let’s talk about the motivation of the government, or more correctly the people within the government for purposing a new law. You can’t really be sure what some individual member of congress might be thinking when they put forward a new law. Even their stated reasoning might be hidden or clouded by political rhetoric. I think there might be only three reasons a new law or regulation would be brought up.

It helps the government better carry out its constitutional duties.

The Patriot Act might be a good example of this. After totally missing a large group of people in this and other countries planning to fly airplanes into buildings the federal government though it was too restricted in carrying out proper intelligence gathering. The congress passes a law to help the government do a better job. (As a side note the liberals cried like babies about the end of democracy when a Republican president signed the law but have been completely silent when a Democrat President continues it. But liberal hypocrisy is a topic for a week of blogs.)

Buying votes.

The recent bailout to state governments (called a jobs bill by the left) that was passed this week could be a fine example. The same week the federal government slashes over 7000 defense jobs it hands out 26 billion to states to mostly pay school teachers. Maybe I am just paranoid but that sure looks like a payoff to the teachers union, especially when you decrease food stamps to pay for it, (well that and the usual tax increases.)

It pushes some social agenda the person thinks is important.

This is the area that includes the most un-constitutional and anti liberty laws. Most are written by well intending government officials who forget the famous quote “the road to hell is paved with good intensions”. Some group of people is suffering some real or imagined social injustice, in rides the federal government to right the wrong. The problem here is the federal government has no money except the money it has taken from the citizens. So now we have the federal government taking money from Peter to give to Paul, as if Paul deserves that money more than Peter who earned it. No matter how well meaning or even successful a program there can be no constitutional defense of this wealth transfer of citizens personal property.

How can anyone indorse this? Who wants to trust some person in Washington to decide who keeps their income and who does not? What is to stop the majority (say lower to middle class citizens) from voting themselves all the property of the minority (say the rich)? The constitution was the instrument that was written expressly to protect the citizens and states from the federal government and protect the minority from the majority. This sadly has apparently been forgotten.

I wonder if anyone really thinks about the Declaration of Independence?

I really love the Declaration of Independence,


I have to look up the big words and I stumble over the old King’s English. But when you read it slowly, the ideas set forth are so revolutionary that, to me, it is the best hope in all history for the human race.

First is the concept that all peoples’ basic human rights are “endowed by our creator” (whomever you might think that is). For the first time in the world’s history, a group of people declared that human rights are not handed down by some government, or person, or secured with some piece of paper. But they are “unalienable” (this is one of those words I had to look up). “Not to be separated, given away, or taken away” the dictionary says. What an amazing and forgotten concept. You are not free because the government says you are free, or the Constitution says you are free. You are free because you were born! A government may deprive you of your human rights but they cannot grant them.

Then the basic rights themselves, listed in order of importance, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The right of life is obvious. Liberty has many interpretations but I like Webster’s “state of being free.” And last, “the pursuit of happiness.” Notice they said “pursuit,” not just happiness. Being happy is not a right but something to be pursued!

And last, the solemn declaration that, should a said government interfere with these basic rights, or as our better educated and learned founding fathers said “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,” not only do we have the right but we have the DUTY to throw off that government to secure these rights. Pretty heavy stuff, even scary. But that is the importance these brilliant men attached to liberty. Thankfully they were willing to risk their futures, their fortunes and their very lives to secure these rights for future generations. We would be negligent if we let these rights to slowly be eroded by a well-meaning but miss directed political class just because we were not willing or too lazy to provide for our own personal security.

In 1776, to “throw off such government” meant picking up arms and standing against an occupying army whose purpose was to suppress the people’s rights at the direction of a king. Today, I think that means continuing pushing back against laws, rules, regulations and the growth of a government. We must push back against a government that, with every expansion, results in the decrease of the liberty that allows us the opportunity to be so happy and productive.

After the Revolutionary War, the founders set about laying out a system of government that would allow for an organized society, but avoid infringing on the peoples’ basic rights. The Constitution dictates the powers of a central government, powers that are limited by design and ripe for abuse by officials that think providing for our happiness is their job.

But that is a subject for another day.

in response to http://www.debatepolitics.com/blogs/4776/29-we-must-put-power-back-belongs.html#comment113

It is not who has the power that is the major problem, it is the federal government has been handed too much power. The majority of new federal law is not constitutional we blindly except every feel good wealth redistribution act by the government because we are afraid of being assaulted by the well meaning but miss guided left. If we think the federal government should not be in the business of dividing up the fruits of its citizens labor we are greedy. If we think the government should not be picking the winners and losers in a free capitalist system we are uncaring. I disagree with the government seizing any person’s wealth just to hand it out to the citizens that the government has decided are more worthy.

Federal Laws

                        I wonder if anyone really thinks about the never ending list of federal laws, rules and regulations that flow out of Washington year after year?(1)

     Now obviously, to have a civilized society we need some laws to set a level playing field for all the citizens. But you would kind of think that at some point, say after a couple of hundred years, you would have all the laws you needed to structure a free and functioning democracy. My concern is that, in most cases, every new law, regulation or rule decrease our freedoms. Take for instance the new health insurance laws, over 2000 pages of new rules that did not exist before passage of this law.

      Before this law, you had the right to decide if you wanted to spend your money on health insurance. You no longer have that right. Before this law, you had the right to decide exactly what options were included with the health insurance you bought. You no longer have that right. Before this law, you had the right to decide if you wanted to have your insurance cover your adult children. You no longer have that right. And the list goes on and on. A 17-year-old college student used to have the right to a credit card without a co signer, no longer. A long time ago you had the right to decide for yourself if you wanted auto insurance, no longer. No longer can you decide if you want to wear a seatbelt, or own a establishment that allows smoking.

 I am not saying that some of the rules don’t have a positive effect.  What I am saying is we are a lot less free than we were 20, 30 or 100 years ago. And our freedoms continue to be infringed upon with every new addition to federal law. It’s a little scary when I think about where it all will end.  

So, I started to think about what we really should consider when we are deciding, as citizens to support or oppose any new federal law and I came up with three basic areas that we should consider when considering some new law.

1.       Is it constitutional? No matter how much good we think a law will do, no matter how much we want a particular regulation to be enacted, it must adhere to the constitution.

The founding fathers were very familiar with the problems of an un-checked government. Heck, they had a king appointed by God. One can’t really disagree with his decisions. So they set out to write a constitution that protected our basic human rights, as laid out in the Declaration of Independence, and limited the power of the federal government to a very basic area of control. They stated very clearly that any powers not granted to the Federal government in the constitution are reserved for the states.  Now, the first few laws passed were pretty easy to understand.  We needed a law against murder because to murder someone deprived them of their basic human right to life. Same thing with stealing, an infringement on you right to liberty. Things get a little cloudier with laws that seize you income so the government can distribute it to someone else.  This type of law now gets the government picking the winners and losers on our system Government give a tax break to people buying hybrid cars, winner, people who buy hybrid cars, losers everyone who paid taxes so it could be given to hybrid car owners. Think about this, this is not the government collecting taxes to support the government, this is the government seizing your property (income) just so the government can distribute it to people the government has decided are more deserving of the fruits of your labor than you are. Thinking of it another way lets say you have 3 TV sets and your neighbor has only one, the government decides that’s not fair, comes to your house, takes one of your TV’s and hands it to your neighbor. No matter how well meaning these wealth redistribution type laws are it is pretty hard to find the power granted in the constitution to allow your property to be seized and distributed as our elected officials see fit.

2.       What are the intended consequences? Will the new law or regulation really accomplish our intent? The new health care bill is expected to improve health care. Yet, in the over 2000 pages, there is almost nothing about health care, only health insurance. Is the only problem with our health care caused and related to our health insurance? Does limiting you options for health insurance and benefits really improve your chances for good health? Will the trillions of new tax dollars spent really improve most people’s health?

3.       What are the unintended consequences? In 1963, the government started mandating seat belts in new cars. No longer did you have the right to decide if you wanted this feature, the government mandated it. As the years went on this mandate expanded from just the front seat to all seats, then to mandatory seat belt use (enforced by the federal government withholding federal tax money to states that did not enact mandatory seat belt laws). So, the government collected taxes from all states, then used that collected money as a bribe to get states to do as the federal government wants but really did not have the power under the constitution to enforce. Then the government, seeing that people still were not behaving like the federal government wanted, enacted laws to make air bags mandatory. “Sorry you don’t get a choice, the people in Washington know what is good for you.” And then we find out that the new federal mandated safety device forced on us actually kills people, from 1993-1996 alone 32 people died from air bag related injuries including 21 children (2). So then we get more laws and now it is not legal to put your child in the front seat of your car. We actually have safety warnings in new cars (another new law) telling you to be careful because your federally mandated safety device could kill you. Now that is what I call an unintended consequence.

We are slowly trading our liberty for the security of mommy government, protecting us from the challenges of life. We are slowly trading away our personal freedom, the one real thing that makes this country great and unique. 

(1)   How Many Federal Regulations are There?
According to the Office of the Federal Register, in 1998, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the official listing of all regulations in effect, contained a total of 134,723 pages in 201 volumes that claimed 19 feet of shelf space. In 1970, the CFR totaled only 54,834 pages.

(2)   The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that since 1990, airbag deployment has killed 227 people in low-severity crashes, including 76 drivers, 10 adult passengers, 119 children between the ages of 1 and 11, and 22 infants. Of the 76 adult drivers killed, 28 were women under 5 feet 2 inches tall, and 4 of the 10 adult passengers killed were females smaller than that height