smallest government in 45 years? (be ready for a talking point)

The Atlantic ^ | 8/3/2012 | Jordan Weissmann

[HenryArmitage]

Since the official end of the Great Recession, America's public sector has shrunk. And shrunk. And shrunk some more. We've said goodbye to about 600,000 government jobs, handing the economy a nasty self-inflicted wound in the process.

But how small has our public sector really become? Here's one way to think about it: Compared to our population, it hasn't been this size since 1968. Your dreams are coming true Baby Boomers. We're almost all the way back to the Summer of Love!

First, credit where it's due. The Hamilton Project has produced a beautiful graph illustrating the government employment to population ratio. As it shows, there are now fewer public sector employees per American than at any time dating back to the Carter administration (To be clear, we're talking state, federal, and local here). ...

[USNA74]

When all costs are considered, the cost of Govt vs contractor are negligibly different.

But — you can fire or get rid of a contractor on a moment’s notice. You can end a contract tomorrow (termination for ocnvenience) and lose a lot of contractors all at once. Try firing a Government employee - impossible.

[Daralundy]

Quite right. State and local governments have had to cut back because of declining taxes. The federal government doesn’t have to.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

Money spent is a far more accurate way to judge the scope and power of Gov.

...as well as rules and regualtions.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

A little indirection going on here.

The size of government is more properly judged by HOW MUCH IT IS SPENDING.

By that measure, we have the largest government in the history of the world.

[Tanniker Smith]

Out of curiosity, how many of those jobs lost were military?

And how much are we paying the people still around? Is the average salary higher? Are we dumping the low-income workers out into the streets to fend for themselves and keeping the bloated bureaucracy that should be able to find work elsewhere?

[TheBattman]

So many things wrong with this incredibly slanted story.

First - what about the TOTAL number of people employed in ANY capacity by the Federal Government (including contracted labor)?

Second - From the “peak” of 2000-2001 to today, we have over half a million MORE Federal workers today! And this doesn’t include the jobs that have moved over to contractors. If you add in those former federal jobs that are not contracted out, the number of Federal employees would skyrocket.

But intellectual fraud is a hallmark of the media - and of these Leftist groups.

How about we also include as “employees of the Federal Government” the millions who live off of social programs!

And lets take it a step farther - in the last decade, what is the INCREASE in the number of those dependent in part, or totally, on government handouts?

I’m not talking about those who paid in to Social Security for a lifetime and are now receiving benefits - they earned those.

[andyk]

Ah, thanks. Seems pretty meaningless, since you know those numbers will only be used in the context of the size of the federal government. I bet that if you factor out state and local government, as well as DoD workers, the size of the fedguv is bigger than ever.

[shoff]

I would agree. That is why they lumped it all together. How many have noticed reduced services in your town. Less grass cut, less litter pickup and so forth. The locals can’t just print money to hire more workers. Check out the following video
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=xOAgT8L_BqQ&feature=player_embedded