Mom, Can I Grow up to Be a Buraucrat

The following chart makes that case. Since the beginning of the recession (roughly January 2008), some 7.9 million jobs were lost in the private sector while 590,000 jobs were gained in the public one.  And since the passage of the stimulus bill (February 2009), over 2.6 million private jobs were lost, but the government workforce grew by 400,000.

Plus, as you know, according to the latest numbers from Bureau of Economic Analysis, the average federal civilian worker now earns double what private-sector workers earn when factoring in wages and benefits ($119,982 vs. $59,909). And the gap is increasing.  According to Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, in 2000, the average federal worker earned 66 percent more in total compensation than the average private-sector worker. By 2008, that ratio had risen to 100 percent. That’s serious money.
Peter Orszag, the soon to be leaving OMB director, has  explained the differences in pay by saying that public employees have more diplomas (probably implying that they are smarter) than private employees:

But the truth is that a comparison of federal and private-sector pay, even by occupation, is misleading because the employees hired by the federal government often have higher levels of education than their counterparts in the private sector — even within the same occupations.  When you factor in the education and experience of the federal workforce, there is no statistically significant difference in average pay levels.

Translation: We are better than you.

Edwards, however, shows this is nonsense. He writes:

Some people argue that the federal government has a unique high-end workforce, which deserves to be paid handsomely. But let’s consider some ordinary and mundane offices in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2010, the USDA’s Office of Communications employed 77 people and paid $9 million in wages and benefits. That works out to $117,000 each for these public relations workers, which is close to the overall federal compensation average. Or consider that the 62 employees of the USDA’s Office of Chief Economist earned an average $177,000 each in wages and benefits in 2010. It isn’t just rocket scientists that are earning high federal compensation, it is also workers in many run-of-the-mill bureaucratic jobs.
More importantly, the federal workforce has always had a heavy contingent of skilled professionals such as lawyers. So that is not new, and thus it cannot explain the dramatically faster growth in federal compensation compared to private compensation [...].

Besides, if these diplomas are what gave is the health care reform, the financial bill making its way to Congress and the stimulus, then I would argue that we would be better off if  high-school dropouts to run Congress.
That being said, if bureaucrats have job security, their workforce grows during recession, and they make increasingly more money, being a proud public sector employee should become your little ones’ dream. In this context, wanting to be a fireman or a princess is so yesterday. (Big Government)

So, government apparatchiks (“agent of the apparatus”) are prospering.
Unions get bail outs, exemptions from taxes you’ll be paying, and special deals. Because they are part of the base of the party.
Union Pensions are bankrupting companies and states everywhere. So what. Big Deal.
The Hispanics are being pandered because they are also the base of the party. So Obama’s campaign speech last week on Illegal Immigration was for them, not you.
So if you’re a party appartchik or a wanna-be apparatchik, you’re In like Flint.
But government gets it’s money from taxes.
Only 50% of people even pay taxes.
But hey, if you’re unemployed, the government will pay you to be unemployed and dependent on them.

Persistent unemployment nationwide is threatening to inhibit consumer spending. The latest figures from the government on Friday underscored the depth of the problem, with the economy adding only 83,000 private sector jobs.
There was no relief in sight from Washington, either. Congress left on recess Friday having failed to pass legislation that would have extended unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
On the small-business side, credit concerns are keeping some companies from spending. And on the consumer side, while spending and confidence numbers continue to be weak, personal income has risen for three months straight and savings rates are relatively high. That suggests people now have cash but are just sitting on it.
So they’ll just print more money. Who cares.
It’s not like they want the private sector to create jobs, not really.
Obama has been “focused on jobs” for 18 months now. And you can smell the rotting corpse of neglect and contempt from here.
But “he cares”…


When Obama could have passed comprehensive immigration reform – when he still had 60 Senate Democrats – he didn’t lift a finger to push it. Now that he can’t pass it – it is too late in the year, he doesn’t have 60 votes, and many Democrats will defect – he aggressively pushes it in a national speech.
The opportunism and hypocrisy of his attempt to manipulate America’s Latinos into forgetting his previous inaction is transparent and obvious. Polls show him losing Hispanics due to high and continuing unemployment and losing Congressional seats in the bargain, so Obama has dug up the immigration proposals of former President George W. Bush, dusted them off, and made them his own. He knows it won’t pass. But he hopes that it will reignite Latino enthusiasm for his failing presidency and anger at Republicans for frustrating immigration reform.(Dick Morris)

It was just the latest in cynical political ploys.
Pure Politics. No actual conviction.
So the bottom line is, guess what is likely to be one of  the next great “bubble” to burst.
You got it, Government Apparatchiks and their dependents.
And guess who’s going to bail them out!
Now that’s “Hope and Change” for ya…