This narrator probably won’t get rich, like the guy who did the “Girls Gone Wild” videos, but this is the second-best video I’ve ever seen on the bloated and overpaid government workforce.
I especially like how he understands that the problem is the size of government, and I also admire his recognition that Republicans often are just as bad as Democrats.
He also highlights the danger of creating a society where a majority of people are moochers instead of producers.
By the way, here’s the…ahem…best video I’ve ever seen on the topic of costly and excessive bureaucracy.
Actually, I don’t care which video you prefer, so long as you are outraged by the fact that federal bureaucrats get twice as much compensation as people in the productive sector of the economy.
[…] A look at bureaucrats run amok. […]
[…] A look at bureaucrats run amok. […]
[…] It’s bad enough that government workers get excessive salaries and gold-plated benefits. But this takes it to a new […]
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Covered by the Peter Principle, where “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence”. If a peson has been in the same position for more than a few years, which covers most of the members of Congress, they are by definition not competent and stay at that level.
[…] month, I shared a video about bloated bureaucracy from a group called Government Gone […]
Hi Dan, thought you’d like this to use in one of your posts….a new word:
————————————–Ineptocracy:
a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods & services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
…about captures the western world, doesn’t it. I reckon we’re close to the lowest point of the cycle for the relatively modern phenomenon called Democracy. (it might have Winston Churchill who said something like “democracy is the worst form of government ever invented by man….except for all the rest.)
Regards
Keith
Perth, Western Australia
[…] month, I shared a video about bloated bureaucracy from a group called Government Gone […]
I”m sure that as a federal retirees widow, I don’t understand all the ins and outs of comparing feds and non feds, however, even though I know how valuable parts of the fed govt employees were, with regard to high technical advances and spin offs into the private sector, I still am apalled at the groups of people we give money to: re Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Pakistan, Chili, etc etc. I am also appalled at the redundancy in government. Both the presenter and the blogger are right in some ways according to my thinking. But the fact is we need to get together and CUT THE BUDGET, or PRODUCE MORE JOBS TO BOOST THE ECONOMY. Face it, the previous 25 years were boosted by a technical boom beyond belief, which spurred the economy. Can we duplicate this? Can our education systems keep up, technology wise, with other countries, ever again? Something to chew on.
Carole
Look at this VA website which lists all of the top bureaucrats at the Veterans Affairs Health Systems main headquarters. This is just one of many examples. There are chairman of boards, senior advisors Secretaries, under secretaries, assistant secretaries, principal deputies, executive directors, and the list goes on. Then you go to regional sites and the list continues all the way down the chain. http://www.va.gov/opa/bios/
Right on S-Mike. Now how? We have all of this government because of BOTH parties. But the Repubs control the House from whence is distributed out all the tax dollars. All of this government continues because the REPUBS have not shut off the spigot. Forget passing a budget. All that Herr Reid has to do is ignore that and then have no alternative except emergency measures to “keep the government running” I recall when Clinton went to the wall with that and the government “shut down”. Didn’t effect most Americans at all. AT ALL! Because they stopped all of the “non-essential” operations. All of those non-essential non-enumerated activites need to be stopped anyway. Those are responsibilities that belonged to the states , if the people of the state choose to tolerate it.
Instead of trying to get a compromise on a budget (which will never happen), instead of tacitly going along with the lib/progs wihile protesting mightily as though there were no alternative, the Repubs could piecemeal a budget and pass bills to fund individual agancies AT THEIR CURRENT LEVEL OF SPENDING. And even NOT fund some of the ones that are unconstitutional. Even if the profligate federal agencies were funded with zero increase, it would be an improvement over the current built-in “zero-based budgeting”, which is a fancy name for automatic increases without Congress having to own up to causing it. And then attrition Could be added in so that the agencies automatically became smaller until they were gone and the people reassigned.
Wonder how how many czars would show up to work if they suddenly had their paycheck cut off. Even if Soros stepped in and started having to fund them himself, I don’t think that would last very long. Even a multi-billioinaire isn’t going to be able to self-fund all his own henchman in our government very long on his own.
We have the current continuation of the spending because of the REPUBS. Every bit of our money that is being wasted originates per their control. Forget the crocidile tears. They are our current major problem. They are the pusher for the lib/prog addicts.
Buffalo, lots of good points. Eliminating useless and restrictive departments is a HUGE start. A lot of privatization is also extremely important, and the “balanced budget” state of Indiana has proven that. Just because you award a contract does not mean the private entity fulfilling the need must be there permanently. That is “government think”. Any contract must have performance and it is up to the state or federal agency to monitor the performance and value, and if that performance or value diminishes…time for a new contractor.
I attacked Heritage because it’s the source of much of the mis-information. I have a reply from Heritage admitting that the data is mis-represented. Second, no one wants to admit that you can’t compare federal salaries to the “average” US because the federal make up is totally dissimilar in tasks and education. A masters in 6th century antiquities does not get the pay a masters in electronics engineering as it applies to weapons system (nor, in my opinion) should it. There ARE agencies that should be elimiated, just drop the salary/benefits argument – it’s bogus.
Repeatedly, it has been exposed that federal government employees, in general, make far more money than their peers in the private sector….repeatedly. In addition, while the private sector has lost jobs and employers and has had to eliminate or reduce raises at all level due to decreased production and income, the federal government has grown by 16%, with its employees continuing to get raises.
One poster wasted a multitude of space and words to try to say this simply isn’t so, but the sheer numbers indicate his sentiments come more from bias.
Further, the poster attacks Heritage, when the information comes from the government itself via a non-partisan entity, Government Gone Wild, whose research has been impeccable.
Anyone can see federal government entities have expanded, drastically, accounting for the only significant job growth in the US. You’d have to be blindly biased not to recognize this.
Well said, Sir! God Bless you and yours! Your service has blessed us! I hope your remarks reach the highest levels!
Once again, our military is on the chopping block, while congresspeople have gone up in net worth since ’04… 3,4xx% on average. They are trators and care only about their power & lifestyles!
God help us!
God be with you!
Joe Leber, former USN, cheap labor!
Comparing average federal salaries to the average US salary is comparing apples to oranges – and Heritage knows it. The Navy organization I worked for has virtually no government public works personnel (gardeners, janitors, building maintenance, etc.) except for contract administrators. Most government technicians are gone. Government supply department personnel (warehouse workers, truck drivers, etc.) are mostly gone. There are no government fast food or cafeteria workers. They have eliminated virtually all government secretarial and administrative support positions – like the aforementioned jobs, almost all have been contracted out. I also believe that studies have proved contracting out to be a false savings as after the initial low-bid contact that beat out civil service costs the new contracts rise faster than civil service costs would have (and then there was the unfortunate time the contractor ran out of money for supplies and we had to bring in our own toilet paper!). We also have no salesmen or sales clerks or grocery workers like the rest of the US. We’ve necked down to almost all highly specialized, technically degreed personnel and a high percentage of those personnel have advanced degrees. How many “rest of the U.S.” people have experience with computer simulation and full scenario signal stimulation of wartime scenarios in an aircraft weapons system test? This greatly exceeds the “average US” education, experience, and ease of replacement. I have a feeling those agencies whose salaries fall outside the “standard” civil service pay schedule (such as Fannie May, Freddy Mac, the SEC, and the Federal Reserve) are a major contributor to the perceived pay imbalance. Their similar jobs in the “average US” pay as much or more only as they’re a much smaller percentage of the “average US” they don’t impact the “average US” as much. Your Heritage numbers are extremely biased, they’re presenting the data so as to draw a false conclusion in a manner similar to the way Al Gore treats “global warming” data (and I have an email response a Heritage employee admitting as much).
Again, I am a retired federal employee whose career was in test and evaluation of Navy aircraft and weapons systems. A large number of my co-workers left over the years for industry at a 20-30% pay raise (for less responsibility) or more. One left for a 25% raise, I got his job (lead engineer for an aircraft T&E program), and he became a contractor on the program with a fraction of the responsibilities (data analyst). In 2009 I (as a program manager) had to pay $10,000/week/person (their approved rates which I couldn’t change) for support from a prime contractor to fix the mistakes they made in their product (which incensed me). The contract was written before I got the job (and their contracts people always seem to outsmart ours). How much is that per year (when our people developed as many fixes as they did)? You do the math! The company got/gets paid that $520K per manyear fixing something that never should have been delivered in the first place! And by the way, we found (find) lots of major mistakes in the aircraft and weapons systems the contractors sell us which supposedly are ready for the fleet. We save millions of taxpayer $$ and make sure the taxpayer gets what we pay for and you recommending screwing us for political brownie points. When I was heard of test range operations we were credited with saving a F-18 by seeing and reporting a fuel leak in time (barely) for the pilot to safely land. There was $100M saved right there. Does this get mentioned to the Congressmen who want to butcher federal salaries and benefits?
Federal Civil Service employees and retirees pay 25% of their health insurance costs and most plans carry considerable copays for visits, hospital care, and medicine. Due to Obamacare, I’m paying 10% more per month for my HMO insurance and 20%+ for copays in 2011 and it’s going up even more in 2012. I also paid 7% of my salary towards my pension (old plan). I am not eligible for Social Security (I only had 8 quarters) nor do I get spousal Social Security (which I could get had I not worked for the US but laid around the house). I paid for my life insurance (although it was a group policy which helped costs) while major companies gave it to their employees for free. I’m not complaining about Federal benefits and copays (which I believe are reasonable for an employee of a major organization), but most non-federal union employees contribute much less for the same or better benefits – except for leave. And my retirement plan – CSRS – is in excellent fiscal shape as opposed to those other plans.
I will admit some of the reasons I stayed included job security (which no longer exists), the pension (I worked till over age 62 with just short of 42 years in although I could have retired at 55) (and which has been changed for new employees), but most of all the job(s) that I had over the years (the test pilots and the future astronauts I worked with, the technology (unbelievable!), etc.). So I stayed and willingly and knowingly accepted LESS pay than the contractors got. I felt that what I was doing was vital to the security of the US, was constitutionally valid, and was personally rewarding on many levels (not including pay). There are many, many things wrong with federal service, but the pay for technically degreed DoD personnel is not one of them.
So why do so many people want to cut or freeze DoD salaries (among others)? Conservatives that are fixated on federal salaries need to stop the class warfare and demagoguery – we complain when the Democrats do it. Please think – don’t just blindly accept numbers from people who know the results they want (on both sides) without researching the facts and methodology.
You want to save federal costs? Eliminate the EPA and DoE (really the Department of Non-Energy). That’d give both a major savings in federal costs and a major boost to the economy. Eliminate the Education, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development Departments. Go to a flat tax or, preferably, the Fairtax and eliminate 90% of the IRS. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan has good ideas (although the FairTax is the best). The problem is socialism, not federal employees doing jobs required by Congress (RE-ELECT NO-ONE)!
Any proposed across the board federal pay cut or freeze is poorly conceived and wrong. Increased pension contributions are not necessary if the government would calculate a fair return on the contributions already being made. You want a new system for new hires – fine, but leave the current employees alone – there is no mathematical justification except to get more taxpayer $$ to spend for things the $$ aren’t collected for.
Outraged all day.
Doesn’t fix the problem.
Randy Barnett (constitutional law professor) wrote an article in Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/20/bill-of-federalism-constitution-states-supreme-court-opinions-contributors-randy-barnett.html
that actually laid out a plan to take power BACK from the national government gone berserk.
Could really work.
Starts at the state level.
America’s current government is out of control and totally indifferent to the needs and wants of Americans today.
The current government has become a ditrament to what American’s have always rallied towards.
I believe both sides of the aisles have a mutual agenda to keep their jobs at all costs, regardless of the costs that the average American is going through.
I would like to see a continental congress convene and put a stop to the the total insanity that continues to get worse by the minute.