"If one understands that socialism is not a share-the-wealth programme, but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super-rich men promoting socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead, it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism or, more accurately, socialism is not a movement of the downtrodden masses, but of the economic elite." - Gary Allen, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, Concord Press, 1971The government does not create a traditional sellable product and thus produces no revenue outside of what it collects from taxpayers. As of 2008, the average federal salary was $119,982, compared with $59,909 for the average private sector employee. In other words, the average federal bureaucrat makes twice as much as the average working taxpayer. Add the value of benefits like health care and pensions, and the gap grows even bigger. The average federal employee’s benefits add $40,785 to his annual total compensation, whereas the average working taxpayer’s benefits increase his total compensation by only $9,881. In other words, federal workers are paid on average salaries that are twice as generous as those in the private sector, and they receive benefits that are four times greater. - Brandon Greife, The Public Sector Weight Around Taxpayers’ Necks, RedStates.com, May 4, 2010Gallup's Job Creation Index for April reveals significantly more hiring within the federal government than in the private sector. Both show a substantially more positive picture than state and local governments, where firing far eclipses hiring ...
The federal government is a growth industry, while employment at state and local governments is shrinking. By almost a 2-to-1 margin, federal employees say their employer is hiring rather than firing ... Gallup's Job Creation Index clearly indicates that state and local governments are in the midst of significant downsizing, no doubt reflecting budgetary issues resulting from recessionary pressures on the tax (and other) revenue that funds these governments. Hiring at the federal level has apparently to date escaped these same fiscal pressures.
Indeed, the federal government appears to be significantly outpacing the private sector in terms of the relative number of jobs created. [Gallup Poll,
Federal Government Outpaces Private Sector in Job Creation, May 3, 2010]
Among the few sectors of the economy showing net employment growth over the past year is the federal government. The federal civil service is rapidly expanding as Obama increases the size of government, with 33,000 new positions being added in January alone. Only 9,000 of those new slots were for temporary census jobs. In other words, what we are seeing is good times for the public sector and the growing prospect of a continuing and perhaps even deepening recession for everybody else. [
Recession Chugs on, Except in Government, Washington Examiner Editorial, February 8, 2010]
With about 2.0 million civilian employees, the Federal Government, excluding the Postal Service, is the Nation's largest employer. About 85 percent of Federal employees work outside the Washington, DC metropolitan area...
Wage and salary employment in the Federal Government is projected to increase by 10 percent over the 2008-18 period. Federal employees working in the continental United States receive locality pay. The specific amount of locality pay is determined by survey comparisons of private sector wage rates and Federal wage rates in the relevant geographic area.
At its highest level, locality pay led to an increase of as much as 34 percent above the base salary in 2009. [
The Federal Government is the Nation's Largest Employer, Career Guide to Industries, Federal Government Section, 2010-11 Edition]
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national median wage was only $32,390 per year in 2008. Due to the recession, that number has probably fallen 5 to 7 percent since then. [For the 50 percent of families in the middle of the scale, household income ranges from $51,000 to $123,000 for a typical four-person, two-parent family. The median is about $81,000. Median income for a single-parent, two-child family is about $25,000.]
In March 2009, the average earnings for full-time Federal employees were $74,403. [
How to Gauge Your Middle-Class Status,
The Economic Elite vs. the People of the United States of America &
The Welfare States of America]
Last year, federal, state and local governments spent a massive $4.6 trillion, according to Michael Hodges’s Grandfather Economic Report. The gross domestic product of the U.S. is only $13.1 trillion.
That means 35 percent of the economy now depends on government spending. Government employment has also bloomed, vastly outstripping population growth. Federal, state and local governments now employ one out of every seven workers in the country, according to the Daily Reckoning. That is more than any other sector of the national economy. In 1946, there were 2.3 state and local government employees per 100 citizens; today there are 6.4. If government today had the same proportion of employees with respect to its population as it did in 1946, there would be 12.2 million fewer government salaries that current taxpayers would have to pay. [Robert Morley,
The United Welfare States of America, October 8, 2007]
Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion...
Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes... While wages and other job-related income fell by a record $206 billion last year to $7.84 trillion, transfer payments from the government such as unemployment checks and Social Security burgeoned by $231 billion to $2.1 trillion. Meanwhile, the amount of taxes that individual Americans paid plummeted by $325 billion to $2.1 trillion as a result of middle-class tax cuts and because nearly 6 million people were thrown out of work and are no longer paying payroll taxes... While most of the government benefits — including Social Security, welfare, Medicaid, food stamps and regular unemployment benefits — are sent automatically to those who qualify, Congress is debating an extension of some benefits enacted as part of the stimulus package last year. Those include jobless benefits and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed...
The massive shift into dependence on the government, while essential in promoting an economic revival last year, has postponed a reckoning for many consumers who went too far into debt to maintain their lifestyles during the boom years. [Patrice Hill,
American Reliance on Government at All-Time High, The Washington Times, March 1, 2010]
Government spending merely diverts money from private projects to government projects. Governments create no wealth. They only move it around while taking a cut for their trouble. So any jobs created over here come at the expense of jobs that would have been created over there... Creating jobs is not difficult for government officials. Pharaohs created thousands of jobs by building pyramids.
Our government could create jobs by paying people to dig holes and then fill them up. Would actual wealth be created? Of course not. It would be destroyed. [John Stossel,
Green Jobs, September 10, 2008]
Though the plan to create 17,000 jobs in the green energy sector alone is promising, the plausibility of such a plan is puzzling. At least to some. At odds is whether Barack Obama's green jobs plan will work, if at all, against the backdrop of the country's worst recession since the 1930s.
Skeptics challenged that the Obama administration is investing in green technologies unlikely to be profitable and, therefore, the investment would amount to unsustainable taxpayer-funded jobs at most. Obama late last week announced his plan to boost employment by providing 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in tax credits for the creation of green jobs. The president is also urging the Congress to approve investment of another $5 billion in over 180 green energy projects. The announcement caused a kerfuffle over figures, as arithmetic-minded critics divided the special fund into
a $100,000+ annual salary for each of these 17,000 would-be job holders, way above the median annual household income in the country. [Xinhua,
Will Obama's Green Jobs Plan Work?, January 18, 2010]
In 2010, the Obama administration says it intends to relieve the job shortage by creating "green jobs" in the sectors of wind and solar power and biofuels. It has announced a program that will cost $2.3 billion, costing approximately $135,000 per job. "Show me one other industry that requests and receives a nearly 30 percent taxpayer subsidy," says Thomas J. Pyle, president of the market-based Institute for Energy Research. "If the President really wants to create an environment that will foster economic growth and job creation, he need not look any further than the domestic oil, gas and coal industries." ... A large part of the administration’s $786 billion dollar stimulus bill was devoted to green or renewable energy projects, but the rate of unemployment continues to rise, the cost of gasoline and heating oil continues to rise in the face of the coldest winter on record in decades,
and real jobs in energy industries are thwarted by Obama administration restrictions on the exploration and development of our national energy reserves... America, the home to centuries-worth of massive amounts of coal, has a President who has openly declared war on the coal industry that currently provides half of all the electricity used by Americans. By contrast, solar and wind provide just over one percent!
When the President talks of "green jobs" he is lying to Americans who need real jobs. The stimulus bill was nothing more than a political "pork" bill and is providing no real surge in job creation. [Alan Caruba,
The Lies About Green Jobs, January 10, 2010]
The welfare state, however good its intentions of creating material equality, can't help but make us dependent. That changes the psychology of society. According to the Tax Foundation, 60 percent of the population now gets more in government benefits than it pays in taxes. What does it say about a society in which more than half the people live at the expense of the rest? Worse, the dependent class is growing. The 60 percent will soon be 70 percent...
If government relieves us of the responsibility of living by bailing us out, character will atrophy. [John Stossel,
Do We Want a Culture of Takers or Makers?, February 10, 2010]
In 2010, before any of Obama's major policy initiatives—such as health care reform, cap and trade, and tax rate increases-are enacted,
the bottom 60 percent of American families will as a group receive more in government spending than they pay in taxes. The lowest-income families will be targeted for $10.44 in spending for every dollar they pay in taxes. Remarkably, families in the middle-income group—who are the target of many Obama policies—already receive $1.15 for every dollar they pay in taxes.
By contrast, the top 40 percent of families pay more in taxes as a group than they receive in government spending benefits... Obama's tax and spending policies will, as advertised, further shift the tax burden toward upper-income families and spending policies to lower- and middle-income families.
Surprisingly, Obama's policies will increase the number of families who are net "receivers" of government spending (those who get more back than they pay in taxes). As a group, the bottom 70 percent of families will be net receivers of government spending under Obama policies, up from the 60 percent who are collectively net receivers under today's policies. Of course this means that the number of "givers" will collectively shrink from the top 40 percent of families to the top 30 percent. [Scott A. Hodge,
Accounting for What Families Pay in Taxes and What They Receive in Government Spending, Tax Foundation, September 21, 2009]
Forty-seven percent of those filing federal income tax returns have either a zero or negative tax liability; that is, they pay nothing but still get a tax “refund.” [Bruce Bartlett,
A Value-Added Tax and the Poor, Forbes, April 23, 2010]
Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.
About 47% will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability...
In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax. [
Nearly Half of U.S. Households Escape Federal Income Tax, Associated Press, April 7, 2010]
Federal workers owed the government more than $3 billion in back income taxes in 2008, just as federal tax revenues started to suffer from the recession. More than 276,000 federal employees and retirees owed back income taxes as of Sept. 30, 2008, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service. The $3.04 billion owed was up from $2.7 billion owed by federal employees and retirees in 2007... Most residents who owe back income taxes file returns but cannot pay the full amount at tax time, said IRS spokesman Anthony Burke. Others have their tax bills increased through audits and cannot pay the higher bill. The statistics on federal employees do not include those who are on payment plans. The IRS doesn't publicize the data, but makes it available upon request. [Federal Workers Owe More Than $3 Billion in Back Taxes, Associated Press, December 15, 2009]
For fifteen years, I owned a computer consulting and executive search firm for computer technology people. I've been published in the field and am considered rather knowledgeable. From time to time, we'd receive resumes from government employees who considered themselves to be "experts" in computer technology. Their salaries were quite high, being paid for by the private sector taxpayer. On the other hand, they virtually all considered themselves to be underpaid, having a very unrealistic view of what their equivalents made in the private sector... The question is, why should the private sector taxpayer pay big dollars and incredible pension/medical benefits to government employees who effectively can't be fired and who get raises based on longevity rather than performance. Are government employees simply parasites on the private sector taxpayer when most everything can be outsourced to private companies and government made smaller? [dublin9, Are Government Employees Overpaid Parasites?, SodaHead, March 11, 2010]
Jessica Urtubia knows that when she graduates from Rutgers University in May, she'll likely be entering the worst job market of the 21st century. That's why she was among about 1,000 people who attended Federal Jobs Career Day yesterday at Rutgers. "I always thought the government was a good place to go, considering if you have a job there, you're probably pretty secure," said Urtubia, a business administration and criminal justice major. Representatives from 48 federal agencies gathered at the Rutgers Student Center yesterday to speak to college students and graduates from throughout the state about federal employment opportunities. It was the fifth of six federal government-sponsored career days this year and the first such event to ever be held in New Jersey. [Erica Harbatkin, Students Look to Federal Government for Stable Jobs, MyCentralJersey.com, November 8, 2008]
| TSA Pay Band | Minimum | Maximum |
|---|
| A | $17,083 | $24,977 |
| B | $19,570 | $28,546 |
| C | $22,167 | $33,303 |
| D | $25,518 | $38,277 |
| E | $29,302 | $44,007 |
| F | $33,627 | $50,494 |
| G | $39,358 | $60,982 |
| H | $48,007 | $74,390 |
| I | $58,495 | $90,717 |
| J | $71,364 | $110,612 |
| K | $85,311 | $132,237 |
| L | $101,962 | $155,500 |
| M | $120,236 | $155,500 |
If you’re looking for job security, benefits, and a decent salary, consider working for the federal government. President Obama’s stimulus plan will create 200,000 new jobs over the next three years. Monster has a good overview of stimulus jobs, including who's hiring, where the jobs will be, and the types of jobs available. - Alison Doyle, Stimulus Jobs: Alison's Job Searching Blog, About.com Guide to Job Searching, March 25, 2009DailyWildcat.com
April 5, 2011
College graduates are increasingly looking for degree paths to prepare them for public sector work, but the end of federal stimulus funds is putting those positions in jeopardy.
The number of college graduates working for the federal government increased 16 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to an analysis of the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau. Employment in nonprofit organizations also increased by 11 percent during the same time period.
Brint Milward, director of the School of Government and Public Policy, said the number of students interested in majors that prepare them for positions in the public sector has risen since the school's split from the Eller College of Management in April 2009.
Milward said that the number of public administration undergraduates has increased by more than 200 in the last two years, from 305 to more than 500 today, and the number of political science majors has also increased from 900 to 1,200. The number of graduate students working toward a master's in public administration almost doubled over the same time period, from close to 50 two years ago to 96 today.
"There's no doubt that more people are asking for the major," Milward said. "Whether there are more opportunities, I don't know."
According to Bill Ruggirello, assistant director of UA Career Services, more private sector companies tend to try and reach out to students via career fairs.
"We have a couple of government types that come (to career fairs), but it in no way compares to the private groups," he said.
Ruggirello does not know yet if this trend continued this year. The annual career services survey to determine where students received employment will occur two weeks before graduation for students and about a month or two after graduation for employers.
He said that the job market has tightened in both the public and private sectors during the last couple of years, a factor Milward also addressed.
"The numbers sound right," he said in reference to the survey. "But it is important to note that, that is looking backward, not forward."
Out of the top five employers in Southern Arizona, four either are public sector companies or private companies that derive revenue from public funds. Raytheon is Southern Arizona's largest employer, followed by three public sector companies: the University of Arizona, the state of Arizona and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
The college class of 2011 is going into a job market with a starting salary higher than its recent predecessors, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that connects career service departments to employers,.
"The Southern Arizona economy is dominated by the public sector," Milward said. "Would I rather work for the parks departments or work at Dillard's? I don't know. I've worked in universities and government and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I think it depends on that individual."
Milward said federal stimulus funds, which allowed local governments to retain workers in the last two years, will soon end and that will affect whether or not those same public sector opportunities will still be available.
"It's really striking to see how the public sector employs Arizonans," he said, "but demand in the market going forward, that's a little hard to predict."
The ten planks of the communist manifesto and how to apply themBy Larry Warrick
September 26, 2008
The
Communist Manifesto was created by a man named Moses Mordecai Levi under the alias Karl Marx.
There are ten planks to the Communist party platform, each covering distinct areas of government and society and providing for a self-perpetuating, mindless system whereby no other possible alternatives are considered or tolerated.
In this essay, I intend to show that though the cold war is indeed over, and with the United States of America still expending trillions of dollars a year to maintain its military industrial complex,
Communism is still alive and well in the United States and is indeed thriving in the gradual implementation of the Ten Planks of Communism through Federal and State governments' social and industrial programs disguised as necessary or essential checks, balances and "fixes" on our "capitalist" society.
From the first steps toward the abolition of land ownership to the assumption of the parental responsibility of educating our children, this manifesto is being implemented before our very eyes,
and the State-educated populace, through no fault of their own, is blind to these changes and in many cases, unwittingly accepts their political leaders' assurances as being righteous and necessary.
Let's consider each plank of this manifesto and consider how the designs of Communism are being achieved in the United States today.
First plank: "Abolition of all property and land ownership and the application of all rents for public purposes."
Property tax. The property owner has an equity position in real property (land) but is required to pay "rent" to the State or be forcibly deprived of the property in question by invocation of the fourth plank described later. Under this system, a person never really owns the property as he is required to pay the State to allow him to keep possession of it every year, thus implying that the State owns the property and allows the real owner to retain its utility upon payment of a yearly fee. This fee is then added to the general treasury funds and redistributed by government fiat to pay for other social, government and welfare* programs that the hapless property owner never sees and has no need or want of, including (this is not a misprint) the collection and enforcement of property taxes.
*Note that the word welfare, as used in this document, does not just refer to recipients of government welfare checks, but includes government funding of corporate welfare projects and enforcement of monopoly privilege or industry-specific restrictions (usually designed to eliminate open competition) used to repay political supporters, including the multi-trillion dollar military industrial complex.
Second plank: "Heavy progressive income tax."
Internal Revenue Service. The federal government and many States require each adult to fill out a personal income tax form and remit a considerable portion of their earnings each year, based on their success in profiting from their efforts. Failure to do so will invoke sanctions under the fourth plank described later.
Approximately 40% of the Federal Treasury income is derived from direct income taxation. These funds are then added to the general treasury and redistributed by government fiat to pay for Federal government enforcement ranging from social and welfare programs to maintaining an overseas empire, that the hapless taxpayer never sees and has no need or want of, including the collection and enforcement of direct income taxes (am I being redundant?). Interestingly enough, if the entire direct income system of taxation were abolished, Federal government receipts would still equal 1995 levels.
In the first two planks, we see that each property owning, working individual is required to pay taxes in order to retain ownership of personal property, as in the case of property taxes and maintain his personal liberty, as in the case of income taxes. Under this system, it is obvious that the State or Federal governments assume ownership of persons and their property, albeit on a partial basis. The average taxpayer works for approximately six months of the year in order to pay all of the required taxes and tariffs imposed by all branches of government, local and Federal. In other words, government assumes ownership of all that a person produces or owns and allows him to retain a government-designated portion of his property by fiat. Under a generous definition, we may call this theft; it is more properly described as slavery.
Third plank: "Abolition of all rights of inheritance."
Under the probate court system, the State assumes ownership of the estate, not the rightful heirs. A person who dies intestate (leaving no will or trust) effectively leaves his worldly possessions to be disposed by the State, which happily liquidates the assets and absorbs this income. The rightful heirs are then required to sue the State for possession of their rightful property, paying all fees and charges that in many cases are more than the value of the estate in question. If a person does leave a will, the State taxes the heirs based on the value of the estate before allowing transfer of assets. Once again, the State assumes ownership and allows transfer of a portion of rightfully owned property by fiat. In many cases, the heir is forced to sell off portions of the estate to pay the taxes.
Fourth plank: "Confiscation of property of all immigrants and rebels."
Tax rebels are routinely and methodically stripped of all rightful assets and deprived of their constitutional rights and personal liberty through the prison system. Those who challenge this system of taxation and imprisonment are subjected to lengthy and invasive inquiries and costly legal proceedings whereby they are given the impossible task of proving a negative, i.e., that they are guilty until proven otherwise. The proceeds are then added to the general treasury and used to fund, amongst many other things, (you guessed it) IRS actions against tax rebels.
Fifth plank: "Centralization of credit by the creation of a national bank."
The Federal Reserve System. Since the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, debts of all descriptions are not paid in specie (gold or silver). The only legal tender is a fiat currency issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. Under this system, monetary policy is set by a cartel of central banking monopolists and implemented by government fiat. Money as we know it is simply created out of thin air by the use of the printing press or electronic transfer and the supply is then further inflated by a cartel of fractional reserve banks who create multiple simultaneous loans of the same funds and charge interest on money that they do not own and do not even have in their possession!
In this way, a single dollar created by the Federal Reserve is used to pyramid loans to the tune of ten thousand dollars in the marketplace (once again, not a misprint). Besides having a destabilizing effect on the market through mal-investments (entrepreneurs borrow based on artificially low interest rates) thus causing needless bankruptcies, monetary inflation causes a chronic rise in the general pricing structure (more money chasing the same amount of goods causes prices to rise over time).
Rising prices cause consumers to spend their earnings more quickly before the prices rise again, suppressing savings and artificially raising demand. In this way, through the central banking cartel, government controls and manipulates markets to its own ends and those of its political contributors, often to the detriment of the consumer, who is left with static wages and spiraling prices.
Sixth plank: "Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State."
US Department of Transportation and State equivalents. Haulage trucks are routinely forced to drive in and out of DOT scales to provide proof that they are not carrying more goods than the government allows and that they are carrying goods approved of by the government. Failure to stop at a designated weigh station and submit to search results in sanctions under the fourth plank above (rebellious behavior will not be tolerated). Sanctions are brought against any trucker or trucking company found to be in violation of any of the literally thousands of DOT laws and arbitrary standards. The added expense to ensure DOT compliance for industry is incalculable but runs into the billions or trillions of dollars every year. This added cost is passed to the consumer in the form of higher prices in the marketplace.
Private vehicles are tagged with unique identifiers bearing the yearly rental fee sticker (car tax). A vehicle owner who refuses to pay the fee is deprived of his property (vehicle is towed) and disallowed from using the transportation system by having his license suspended until the tax is paid and all accompanying fees are satisfied, such as the towing and storage fee and license reinstatement fee. These taxes and fees are purportedly used for road maintenance and improvements, in practice, they are applied to the general treasury to await government fiat. Once again, honest people are burdened with a system of taxation that is to their detriment.
Seventh plank: "Government control of factories and the instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan."
The Bureau of Land Management, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, their individual State equivalents and many other government bureaus, agencies and authorities are all part of the ideology that government is responsible for approving the placement of factories, operation of mines, quantity and quality of production from agriculture, declaration and operation of National Parks, etc, etc, etc.
The list of examples of government interference in private enterprise under this plank is practically endless. For instance, the Department of Agriculture routinely pays farmers NOT to plant certain crops or even to leave the fields fallow in order to manipulate the commodities markets. More recently is the refusal of the United States Congress to allow oil exploration in the ANWAR region of Alaska because such activity may disturb a few moose!
By interfering in the sovereign right of individuals to dispose of their possessions (including land) as they see fit, government distorts the marketplace and damages the interests of both producers and consumers.
Eighth plank: "Equal obligation of all to work, establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture."
By implementing the first two planks of the Communist Manifesto, government takes great strides to ensuring that this eighth plank is implemented.
The requirement that taxes be paid on income, automobiles and real property each year has the effect of forcing many to work (if even part-time) simply to keep what they already own.
Under the fifth plank, steady inflation of the money supply causes the (now familiar and almost un-remarked) chronic rise in prices, forcing yet more to work simply to maintain their present standard of living as the value of their fixed income is systematically eroded. Since this plank was written, agricultural technology has improved to the extent that a single operator is capable of achieving the work of many hundreds of manual workers of the nineteenth century. However, with the implementation of agricultural mechanization, we have seen the gradual decline of the family run farm so typical of the American way of life in favor of huge corporate farming interests with enormous presence in the Congressional lobby. Through farming subsidies in the amount of billions of dollars and protective tariffs, these industrial farming interests manipulate markets to their own advantage and to the detriment of consumers.
Ninth plank: "A combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of population over the country."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency assumes the risk associated with living in less desirable, or more dangerous, regions of the country. Those parts of the country prone to natural disasters (such as wind, flood, earthquake, landslide, or other natural or man-made disaster) would be prohibitive to live in economically except that the federal government, through FEMA, assumes the risk for these natural occurrences, a function traditionally carried out by private insurance.
The existence of FEMA gives previously untenable, disaster-prone land the illusion of viability, thus redistributing the population more evenly over the entire country. Under these conditions, natural phenomena such as hurricane Katrina, that a hundred years ago would have only impacted the lives of several thousand people and caused limited collateral damage, today has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands and cost billions of dollars in collateral damage.
It boggles the mind that after such an experience, the Federal government would not only provide financial and material support for those affected (a function much better left to private charity organizations), but encourages residents to rebuild on a hurricane-prone river delta that is slowly sinking further below sea level each year.
Tenth plank: "Free education for all children in public schools, abolition of children's factory labor in its present form and conform education to industrial productions."
On average, 75% of property taxes in any given State go to support the public school system. Parents are forced by law to tithe their children to the State education system or risk having them forcibly removed from the home by the State and placed in State-run foster homes, possibly never to be seen by their parents again!
Children who are home-schooled are required to take State designated tests at given intervals and those who fail to meet the State-specified standard are forced into the public school system, once again, against the parents' wishes. This system forces homeowners (who may or may not even have any school-aged children) to subsidize the State educational requirements of their neighbors, and even that of people they have never even met and likely don't know exist!
More and more, State education provides more emphasis on industry-driven content and less on the practical ability to solve issues of a moral or discerning nature. Ask any 5-year-old if it is wrong to steal and the majority will respond in the affirmative. Follow up and ask "why" and the waters get a little murkier. Some may say because Mommy or Daddy doesn't like it; some because the deprived party will get mad about it; some because the policeman will come and take you away; rarely will you hear that it is morally wrong to deprive someone of their rightful ownership and utility (natural law of property ownership).
Some may blame the parent for this lapse: Bear in mind that the school-aged child spends half of his waking life in the public school system, where the moral responsibilities of natural law are not on the curriculum.
Thus we see that the ten planks of the communist Manifesto are alive and doing well in the United States of America. The latest round of Congressional hand-wringing over whether the Federal government should provide in excess (and believe me, it will be well in excess) of one trillion dollars to bail out a financial system that, driven by pure greed, made trillions of dollars in bad loans (and a fat profit along the way) is a testament to the further growth and entrenchment of Communism in our political and economic system.
Under the supreme laws of our constitutional republic, each elected representative has sworn an oath to do nothing to help these greedy fools in any way. The founders who, in their benevolent wisdom, drafted, fought for and handed down our constitution are likely spinning in their graves to know that our elected representatives have even considered such a course.
NOTE: No Communists were killed or maimed in the production of this essay, though many in government are probably very pissed off now that their cover is blown
By Wat Tyler, Burning Our Money
November 25, 2009
Prompted by a comment on a recent BOM post, we've taken another look at how many are employed by the government.
We start with the
official count published by the Office for National Statistics. It says that as of Q2 2009,
public sector employment totalled 6.039 million, up from the 5.182 million Labour inherited in 1997 --
an increase of 17%* (and
see here for some interesting longer-term material).
However, big though it is, that total excludes a number of groups who are not counted as being employed in the public sector, but who depend on the public sector for the vast bulk of their earnings:
- Higher and further education -- for arcane historical reasons, H&FE colleges are defined as being in the private sector, even though most of their funding comes from the taxpayer. When last sighted, they were employing some 530,000 staff.
- GPs -- they are counted as part of the NHS by the Department of Health, but most are excluded from the ONS count because they're technically private contractors. There are currently some 40,000 of them in the UK.
- Network Rail -- as we've blogged before, Network Rail is nationalised in all but name, but under an extraordinarily convoluted definitional fudge it's counted as part of the private sector. It currently employs 33,000.
Adding these groups back in takes the public sector employment total up to 6.7 million.
And then of course, there are all the people whose jobs have been privatised over the years, but who still work pretty well exclusively for the public sector -- i.e. hospital cleaners, dustmen, IT staff, etc etc. How many?
We have no idea, but our guess is at least another quarter million, taking our public sector employment total up to around 7 million. So, of the 28.9 million people currently in employment (see here), around one-quarter of them are employed by the government (aka the taxpayer).
And of course, there's another huge group of people who, while not employed by the government, are still dependent on taxpayers for their incomes.To start with, there are now 5.8 million people of working age who are entirely dependent on welfare (
see here), including 1.4m on Job Seeker's Allowance, 2.6m on incapacity benefits, and 0.7m on lone parent benefits. Actually those figures relate to May, and with increased unemployment, the overall total is now probably 6 million.
Adding them in as well, gives us an overall total of 13 million people dependent on taxpayers for their incomes.And remember, these are people of working age. If we add in the 12.5 million older people now drawing state pensions, we get to a grand total of 25.5 million - 25.5 million people who are dependent on the taxpayer for most or all of their incomes.
Which is somewhat alarming.
Because, on our calculation, we've only got 22 million people who are generating income from sources other than the taxpayer (i.e. 28.9m in employment less the 7m employed by the public sector). So each one of them has to earn the income to support him/herself
plus 1.2 other adults... kind of idea.
Does that sound like it's sustainable?
Or is it time to dust off those dog-eared copies of Bacon and Eltis? (
Britain’s Economic Problem: Too Few Producers by Bacon and Eltis (1976) is not online, but for quick flavour,
see here, section 3.1).
*Footnote — although the ONS public sector employment numbers exclude college lecturers and GPs etc, they do now include the 235,000 staff employed by our nationalised banks — i.e. RBS, Lloyds, Northern Rock, and Bradford & Bingley.
Safety net programs: About 14 percent of the federal budget in 2010, or $496 billion, went to support programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship.
