Free Republic

I don’t like government bureaucrats. Actually, let me re-phrase that statement. I know lots of people who work for different agencies in Washington and most of them seem like decent people. So maybe what I really want to say is that I’m not a big fan of government bureaucracies and the results they generate. Why? Because a bloated government means overpaid bureaucrats, both at the federal level and state level (and in other nations as well). Because inefficient bureaucracies enable loafing and bad work habits. Because being part of the government workforce even encourages laziness! And it may even be...

It's one thing to claim that nameless, faceless government bureaucrats are overpaid. It's quite another to argue, as Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation and I recently have, that public school teachers are overpaid by more than 50 percent. This is real money, costing state and local governments over $100 billion annually. Our study generated significant, sometimes hysterical, pushback. But our conclusions still stand, and deliver important lessons regarding education financing and reform. The claim that teachers are underpaid rests on a single isolated fact: that on average, public school teachers receive salaries about 19 percent less than private sector...

As Post Office faces insolvency, Congress misses the message As every American knows, Benjamin Franklin invented pretty much everything that matters. Except one thing — the Internet. Al Gore got there first. And now the cascading effects of that Internet technology, as exciting and beneficial as they are in many ways, are also threatening the fiscal existence of one of the historically most important institutions in United States life, the Post Office. In a revolutionary time when brothers might move 40 miles from home and never see each other again, the Post Office provided the quilled link to help hold...