Posted on 05/30/2014 11:11:31 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Does it matter how we compensate government workers? Not just how much, but how? After all, incentives matter in the private sector; what about in public employment?
That is the subject of Against the Profit Motive – The Salary Revolution in American Government, 1780 – 1940 by Nicholas Parrillo, a professor of law at Yale. It’s a fascinating and deeply researched book explores what must be among the least examined aspects of American history — the way compensation for public officials has changed over time.
That might seem to be a subject of scant interest, but Parrillo demonstrates that the shift away from our early system of paying those who did the work of the state (wherein the official’s compensation depended largely on his industriousness) and into paying them flat salaries instead reflected dramatic changes in the relationship between the citizen and the government. Today’s mega-state would never have been possible without the changes in compensation he documents.
In early America, some public officials were paid a salary, such as the president and members of Congress, but most were compensated through what Parrillo terms “facilitative payments.” That is, the individuals in society whom the officials served would directly pay them fees for the work they could do, such as getting government applications processed and permits issued. Those payments weren’t usually set by law, but even when they were, added gratuities for the official to induce more expeditious service were common.
Was that a bad system? It left the door open to price-gouging by avaricious officials, but on the whole, people seemed content with it.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
This article is a good historical explanation of public compensation but does not say much about the impact of inapporiate collective bargaining influences, locality and private sector comparisons etc. Federal pay for example is a mishmash of pay panels, locality estimates, grades, steps and longivity raises. It should be completely abolished (along with unionism) and re-established to pay federal employees what they are really worth in terms of their individual jobs, which, in most cases is far less that what they presently earn.
It all went insane when JFK, by executive order, allowed for public sector unions...
I think the founders had the right idea when they created the District of Columbia. By doing so they helped limit the conflict that occurs when government employees also have the vote.
Of course the government is so big now that there's no way for such a small district to hold it all!
If there is no REAL, HONEST “MONEY”, NO ONE IS BEING PAID.
I watched Ted Cruz during his valiant effort to halt the disaster called Obamacare. I hope you watched it as well. If he used it once, he used the phrase “...we no longer listen to the people, our constituents...” over a hundred times. And he was right...they don’t. And the fact is, THEY NO LONGER NEED TO.
I’ve posted my little rant on this topic before but Ted’s honest comment compels me to do so again.
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WHY THE POLITICAL RULING CLASS NO LONGER LISTENS TO US!
“When the servants of the people are paid with something other than that which the people themselves have produced (i.e. the real, tangible products of their labors or some fixed and real medium of that exchange), the roles of master and servant will be reversed.”
That was Thomas Jefferson warning that the financial disaster we now face would be but one of many problems paper money would visit upon us if we allowed our “leaders” to remove the backing from the currency.
It was believed by Roger Sherman and a majority of those at the Constitutional Convention that unbacked fiat currency would so damage the fabric of the nation that they ATTEMPTED to prohibit it with these few words at Article 1, Section 10, requiring the states to enforce the prohibition: “No State shall…make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;”
If the people and their states grew inattentive to this matter (and they have!), Jefferson also saw another problem ahead.
In a letter to John Taylor in 1816, he wrote, “And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
We have been “…swindling futurity…” for a long time and this is now where we find ourselves. If the government, through its banker masters at the Federal Reserve, can create “money” from thin air, they certainly don’t need ours every April 15th. That annual sheep shearing is simply an attempt to vacuum enough of the excess paper from the system to keep the rest of us from catching on to the biggest theft ring in the history of man. They have now created so much that their attempt is failing and failing badly to a point where all but the dullest among us (Obama voters and his growing cadres of personal and corporate welfare beneficiaries) are starting to “get it.”
If you understood that last paragraph, you can now make the small leap to an understanding as to why the “progressive” utopian welfare state hacks in Washington don’t give a damn WHAT you think. Their power to create all the “money” they need to fuel their infernal machine and fill the gaping maws of enough of those growing hoards of welfare constituents to assure their perpetual re-election means that — ready — THEY NO LONGER NEED YOU! They have become, as Mr. Jefferson predicted, our MASTERS.
And this is for you who believe that we’re ALL equally screwed under this dishonest, fraudulent fiat money system: Inflation DOES NOT impact everyone at the same time and level. THOSE WHO GET THEIR HANDS ON THAT “MONEY” FIRST – BEFORE THE INFLATION ERODES ITS VALUE – SUFFER FAR LESS THAN THOSE OF US FURTHER DOWN THE FOOD CHAIN. THINK ABOUT IT (unless you’re an obama voter, in which case, let us know how you FEEL about that).
We won’t have even a CHANCE at an honest government until we again have HONEST MONEY.
That they are taking down a nation and a system that has provided more wealth, safety and abundance to more people than any other in history matters not to them. Failing to grasp the lesson of the French Revolution, they believe themselves to be above the impending disaster.
We’re running out of time to get this increasingly rapacious beast back into the cage from which we have carelessly allowed it to escape.
Dick Bachert
PS: I was a 3 year member of the national board of CATS (Citizens for an Alternative Tax System), the precursor to the current Fair Tax organization. I fully support the concept of a CONSUMPTION TAX over the current Marxist INCOME TAX. That said, UNTIL WE GET BACK TO HONEST “MONEY”, WERE REARRANGING DECK CHAIRS ON A SINKING SHIP.
PPS: A word about the brilliance of this scheme hatched in 1913 by the elites: Economics is called “the dismal science” for a reason. Freepers are a pretty sharp group, and most who get this far will grasp the importance of getting back to a Constitutionally sound money system. But hand this to the “guy on the street” and his eyes will glaze over, he’d start drooling before he hit the third paragraph, throw it down, declare you crazy and stomp off in search of a much needed drink. We can’t solve a problem until more of us recognize that there IS ONE!
has the government employees union ever been tested in court as to its Constitutionality??
It appears to me to be a taxpayers versus union situation with bureaucrats from both sides being the contract negotiators. Is it right to strike against the tax payers??
taxpayers should go on strike
There are very few government “workers”.
government unions are a conflict of interest
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