- Does it mean that we should continue to waste taxpayer dollars through the incompetence or laziness of current government workers (e.g. SEC employees who did nothing on the job except search for porn, Interior Department employees who also spent work time surfing the Net for porn and who said they inspected oil rigs in the Gulf but did not, etc.)? How does this help the economy stay afloat?
- Does it mean that all government functions, even the unnecessary ones, should continue to be funded and continue to waste taxpayer dollars?
- Does it mean that Federal government employees, that enjoy higher than average salaries and benefit packages should not have there employment compensation reduced or at least frozen, given their private sector counterparts are suffering through very tough economic times?
- Wouldn't it be better to let the taxpayers keep some of this money and spend it on what they want? Overall economic activity would not go away if government was downsized, it would just move into other, more productive areas of the economy while increasing personal freedom in the process.
Today we will focus on human resources area to reduce government's size. If I can come up with some worthwhile ideas, I am sure some more involved people could do even better. Thus, I present human resource ideas to reduce the size of government:
- Why do we still have 27,000 U.S. troops in Korea? The North Koreans have over a million troops and the South Koreans have almost 800,000 troops. If war breaks out, our 27,000 troops are not going to make a very big difference. This type of government thinking is a leftover from the Cold War era, let's bring those troops home and save the cost of deployment. A side benefit might actually be a reduction in tensions on the Korean peninsula since the North Koreans could not use the excuse that U.S. was about to attack them since our troops would be gone. The Obama administration estimates that it costs a $1 million a year to deploy a soldier into combat zones. Let's assume it takes about half of that ($500,000) to deploy a single soldier into a non-combat zone. Thus, bringing home 27,000 U.S. troops from Korea would save about $13 billion a year. I fail to see how this type of downsizing would cause a double dip recession.
- Why do we still have about 35,000 troops in Japan? The second world war has been over for a while and if we think that having those troops in Japan will deter China from doing anything, half way around the world, we are kidding ourselves. China has over two million soldiers in their armed forces. For example, if China wants to go into Taiwan, there is virtually nothing that 35,000 troops in Japan can do to stop them. Again, a leftover remnant of the Cold War. Bring them home and save $18 billion a year. A potential side benefit of withdrawal would be improved relations with Japan since the U.S. military bases, especially on Okinawa, have always been a source of diplomatic friction.
- Why do we have over 50,000 troops still stationed in Germany? Again, a leftover of the Cold War. Do we really think that Iron Curtain forces are going to roll over western Europe? Oh yeah, there is no Iron Curtain any more. Bring home those troops and save about $25 billion a year. Is reducing government spending in these three countries likely to cause a double dip recession as the mimics state? I doubt it. Thus, just with these three military human resource-like actions we could conservatively save $46 billion a year.
- With over 100,000 troops coming back stateside, there would be no immediate need to recruit new soldiers, these 100,000 would serve us well for a long time, especially if we did not deploy them back to Korea, Japan, and Germany. Thus, much lower recruitment costs would result in additional savings. How in the world would that lead to a double dip recession? And these three troop deployments are not the extent of our foreign deployment.
- Why do we have almost 100,000 troops still in Iraq? Didn't candidate Obama promise to get us out of Iraq? President Obama has fallen flat with that promise. In fact, Obama's long range plan is to still leave 50,000 troops in Iraq. Sounds an awful like the same type of thinking that caused us to deploy troops unnecessarily in Japan, Korea, and Germany for decades. Bring home the 100,000 troops from Iraq and save about $50 billion a year if you assume that they are no longer in a combat region.
- According to a Money magazine article in their June, 2010 issue, about 20% of workers in private sector pension plans, 3.3 million Americans, have recently had their pension benefits frozen. This generally means that whatever pension you qualify for today is what you will retire with. There is no growth in the benefit by accruing more years with the company or moving to a higher salary, which would usually increase future pension payment levels. According to the article, this trend of freezing private sector pensions is likely to continue, given the hard economic times. An additional statistic from the article pointed out that only 15% of private sector employees now enjoy the benefit of a traditional pension.
In a related article that appeared in Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine in their June, 2010 issue, the article reported that even worse then freezing a pension plan's benefits was the trend of many private sector pensions just going belly up, usually resulting in a government agency stepping in to try and salvage at least part of the plan. The result, however, is usually a greatly reduced pension benefit.
Given this trend for private sector employees, the death of the traditional pension, it is not fair for Federal employees to continue to enjoy such a benefit in addition to Social Security and a 401k like savings plan. Given that private sector employees provide the retirement benefits to public sector employees through their tax dollars, we need to level the playing field and eliminate the idea and benefit of a traditional pension for future Federal employees. If private sector employees are not receiving such a benefit at their work and those that still do are seeing their pension benefit get greatly reduced, then they should not be burdened to pay for something they cannot get, namely a traditional pension benefit program for future Federal employees.
- Step 34 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would prohibit the use of Federal taxpayer dollars for any program or project that does not significantly impact the citizens of at least five states. If a program did not meet this criteria, it would be up to the state or states to get the job done. This is the Federal government, it should be worried about national problems and national issues, not local issues. Let the individual state government pay for the individual state benefit using the tax dollars of just those citizens in that state. Thus, the Robert Byrd method of funding intrastate projects would end.
- There is about $16 billion in earmarks in the current Federal budget, most of which are used to reward local entities or used to award earmarks in exchange for campaign re-election donations, neither of which provide value added service to most Americans' lives. As we have pointed out previously, recent earmarks have been used to renovate theaters, build a farmers market, and build a bike path. Given that the restoration effort of the Statue Of Liberty never got any Federal funding support, these other, trivial projects should also not receive any Federal support. Do we really think that if the Federal government stops building bike paths that will cause a double dip recession.? Save the $16 billion and return it to the taxpayer to expand other areas of the economy which they will do more efficiently than the government will do with farmers' markets and bike paths.
- A recent USA Today article reported on a payroll analysis that showed 80% of government jobs that have a private sector equivalent make more money than the private sector position. Thus, since government jobs are funded with private sector taxes, its only fair that wages for all government employees be frozen at current levels until further notice or until this imbalance is resolved. This includes the salaries of anyone sitting in Congress.
- On a more symbolic level, Step 42 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would force former Presidents to begin paying for their Secret Service protection after they leave office, if they can afford it. Since Bill and Hillary Clinton have earned over $100 million since he left office, it makes no sense for strapped taxpayers to continue to pay for Clinton's protection. Let him pay for at least a portion of it since with his $100 million in earnings, he can afford it. While this would result in relatively small savings, it would indicate that the political class is doing their job to help the economy. No way this step would lead to a double dip recession.
- Also on a symbolic level, Step 41 would not allow any sitting politician to draw a Federal salary if their net worth was over three million dollars. It makes no sense for the many millionaire sitting in Congress to draw their $174,000 a year in salary and benefits. If they are not rich, let them have their salary. If they are like John Kerry, who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, they starts working pro bono immediately. While not saving billions of dollars, it would be another example of politicians identifying with the struggles of their constituents by foregoing their salary. They would also not be allowed to draw a traditional pension, their constituents are not receiving one for the most part, they should not receive one either.
- It has been pointed out numerous times these past months, by Federal regulators or inspector generals, that many Federal employees were either too busy pulling porn down off of the Net during work hours (e.g. SEC and Interior Department) or were too lazy to do their jobs (e.g. lead and cadmium based toys flooding the toy market, Toyota safety problems going undiagnosed for many years, Energy Department employees approving every product submitted for EnergyStar certification even if they were bogus, etc.). Thus, from an outsider perspective, there are a lot of excess Federal employees that can be fired without affecting the basic government function or department they were involved in. Thus, Step 1 of "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" becomes another, non-harmful way to reduce the size of government. This step would institute a five year program that would reduce the size of every Federal department by 10% a year for five years. This approach would squeeze out those excess, porn seeking employees and cause the remaining ones to focus on just the most important government functions.
Thus, even as a non-expert on government human resources, here are about a dozen or so simple suggestions that would greatly reduce the size of government, helping to return hundreds of billions of tax dollars to taxpayers who would grow the economy more efficiently and could also help reduce the obscene Federal deficit, also growing the economy. The myth that we need government to continue to spend money to save the economy is just that, a sad, pathetic myth. It is propagated by the political class to ensure that their influence and dominance of the country continues to grow. The government spends money in extremely wasteful ways, allowing them to continue to do so will never heal the economy, it will just continue to waste wealth and hinder the economic recovery. Just ask yourself: increase government spending (and waste) over the past two years has not worked in moving the economy strongly forward, not when total unemployment is probably approaching 20%. Why continue to do so?
Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Also visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
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