FEDERAL WORKFORCE SOARS

Too Big, Too Expensive

It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money.

P. J. O'Rourke

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

Gerald R. Ford

Once upon a time, our federal workforce was relatively small, as, per the Constitution, the Feds had much less to do.  In those days, the cost wasn’t all that bad, as the workers traded high salaries for job security and a small pension.  That bargain worked until FDR was unable to stop the unionization of government workers.  Look it up – he felt they should not be able to unionize.

Since then, both parties have added more departments, agencies and so on, taking on responsibilities better served by the private sector.  At the same time, the unions demanded market-equivalent salaries, even as they refused to give up their pensions, retirement health care and job security.

Are we getting what we pay for in our taxes?  I say, no.

Biden’s Work Force Padding

Already way too large a workforce, Biden wanted to increase the size of government, as well as expanding the areas governed at that level.  It should be noted that during Covid, despite every government worker getting his/her salary and benefits, countless excuses were made for why everything took so long.  We waited roughly 2X the outside estimate to get a passport renewed.  Even as they are overpaid and over-compensated, these workers don’t show private-sector productivity. 

Looking at openthebooks.com, a nonprofit that examines state and federal spending, there were at the end of 2022 1,502,017 executive agency employees (not the entire federal government) with average salaries of $96,818, a huge increase.  Trump actually significantly decreased the employee count compared to Obama. 2023 and 24 are probably going to be even worse, though our country has a federal deficit of $34 TT.  Biden also increased salaries in Dec ’23 by 5.2% overall.  They had already gotten an 11% raise in the prior years.  Exceeding 16% over three years…wouldn’t you love to have experienced that yourself? 

More Excessive Spending

In Biden’s term, he spent $225MM on his White House payroll – the largest ever.  At the same time, he has a staff turnover of 77%; it costs a lot to hire, so that is an appalling number which adds to personnel cost. His staff numbers are 152 higher than Trump.  Dr Jill has the same number of staffers as Michelle Obama (24), a number that makes no sense; she has NO real job.  Melania had 11.

Biden also issued a ton of executive orders which expanded the size, scope and power of the federal bureaucracy. 

Given the latest news on Harris, it would be nice to have the numbers on her staff. We do know that the turnover was huge as well; you have to wonder how tough it is to work for them, since the compensation is now better than the private sector.

Given that Trump is used to hiring and firing (we know this), and he has had to make tough choices on trimming staff to be profitable, you can expect that another Trump presidency will see a huge drop in the size of government.  Can we even hope to see the Executive shrink, starting with the Dept of Education?  I can hope.

Great Statistical Data