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I agree with social security, as it's simply a direct monetary transfer program, and I personally view these, such as progressive taxation, as vastly preferable

I agree with social security, as it's simply a direct monetary transfer program, and I personally view these, such as progressive taxation, as vastly preferable to Federal control of services for many reasons. But, Medicare is a state-owned Insurance company, and if I remember correctly, constitutes around 50% of the country's health spending. Also, Do your numbers include contractors? My understanding is that there is a trend of using contractors in all areas of the federal government, and I personally consider contractors to be defacto federal employees. They have the advantage of not being able to belong to public unions, which I consider anti-democratic, but the disadvantage of losing the sense of being a patriotic public servant participating in the betterment of the Republic.

rayiner 13y ago
The numbers do not include contractors, but including the number of contractors in the tally is difficult. Is an engineering working for Lockheed on the F-22 a federal employee? If you take upper-bounds estimates for the number of federal contractors (7-15 million), then he would be considered an employee. But it's not like the federal government wasn't hiring Lockheed to do the same sort of work in 1965. There are some estimate suggesting that this broader count increased from 12.6 million in 1990 to 14.6 million in 2006: http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2011/jan/06/gerry-connolly/rep-gerry-connolly-says-federal-workforce-hasnt-gr http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2011/jan/06/ge.... This is a 16% increase, but U.S. population grew 20% in that time, and real GDP grew 62% in that time. I don't disagree with the general sentiment. I think a focus on reducing the size of government is great, and I think it's great that the government is leaner, relative to population and relative to GDP, than it was 20-30 years ago. But throwing your hands-up and saying the inevitable trajectory of government is unbridled growth actually undermines that. If nothing can convince you that government can shrink, and is shrinking, then it makes no sense to continually push to keep a check on the size of government.

rayiner 13y ago

The numbers do not include contractors, but including the number of contractors in the tally is difficult. Is an engineering working for Lockheed on the F-22 a federal employee? If you take upper-bounds estimates for the number of federal contractors (7-15 million), then he would be considered an employee. But it's not like the federal government wasn't hiring Lockheed to do the same sort of work in 1965. There are some estimate suggesting that this broader count increased from 12.6 million in 1990 to 14.6 million in 2006: http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2011/jan/06/gerry-connolly/rep-gerry-connolly-says-federal-workforce-hasnt-gr http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2011/jan/06/ge.... This is a 16% increase, but U.S. population grew 20% in that time, and real GDP grew 62% in that time. I don't disagree with the general sentiment. I think a focus on reducing the size of government is great, and I think it's great that the government is leaner, relative to population and relative to GDP, than it was 20-30 years ago. But throwing your hands-up and saying the inevitable trajectory of government is unbridled growth actually undermines that. If nothing can convince you that government can shrink, and is shrinking, then it makes no sense to continually push to keep a check on the size of government.