Special Report
Just Say Snow
What America needs is more snowstorms in Washington.
For the first time in memory, the federal government has closed for three straight days. “Snowmaggedon” has shut down Washington, D.C. and its suburbs. With the third storm within a week hitting the region, causing white-out conditions, even Uncle Sam can’t function.
In theory the government closure is costing all of us. Some 230,000 D.C. area employees stayed home, costing an estimated $300 million “in lost productivity per day,” according to federal officials. But is the shutdown really hurting the public?
Using the term “productivity” in the same sentence as “federal government” is a dubious exercise. No doubt, in the sense of performing a task efficiently, the Feds can be productive. Just watch how quickly and completely the IRS attempts to clean out the average taxpayer. That explains the joke about Washington’s preferred tax form of just two lines: “How much do you earn? Send it in.”
But government efficiency doesn’t mean productivity in a larger sense. That is, does government activity yield a better life for Americans? On net, the answer is no. The only problem with Snowmaggedon is that it has not affected the 85 percent of federal employees who work outside of the D.C. area.
About two million people, excluding the postal service and armed forces, work for the federal government. Most are engaged in counterproductive activity.
Start with the 652,000 work for the Defense Department. Overall, their mission is vital, one of the few necessary tasks of government. But much of what they actually do has nothing to do with protecting America.
Many U.S. troops — and the civilian employees who back up the armed forces — are tasked with defending America’s prosperous and populous allies throughout Asia and Europe. Why? The European Union has ten times the GDP of Russia; South Korea has 40 times the GDP of the North. Military personnel also engage in nation-building and other forms of what Michael Mandelbaum called foreign policy as social work. Idling employees supporting these tasks would reduce subsidies for the international welfare queens now leeching off of U.S. taxpayers and military personnel.
The Department of Veterans Affairs employs 280,000 people. Give this department its due: it may not be the most efficient bureaucracy available, but Uncle Sam has an obligation to care for America’s veterans. The number of employees could be pared by integrating the treatment of veterans into the private health system, but the special needs of vets will always require special services.
Homeland Security comes next with 171,000 personnel. It’s an important function, but does anyone believe the department, a bizarre mix of everything from customs to immigration to disaster relief, actually is keeping us safe? Are we better off because of the geniuses who decided that terrorists would surrender by forbidding people from going to the bathroom and using blankets? Who benefits when personnel dole out “emergency” aid hither and yon even to the improvident and foolish? It’s hard to know how many of this department’s employees actually do useful work.
Another 108,000 people work for the Justice Department. The agency is theoretically essential. But the bureaucracy of justice — laws, police, prosecutors, courts — should rest primarily at the state and local level. One of most significant and most dangerous expansions of national power in recent years has been the increasing federalization of the criminal law. Now you can go to federal prison if you dump fill dirt on dry land that has been defined as a “wetland.”
The department also is filled with social engineers, dedicated to using the law to reorder American society along more collectivist and multi-cultural lines. An entire division promotes the federal government’s racial spoils system and its extension to the rest of society. Then there are all of the department attorneys who spend taxpayer money defending the worst depredations of government, often in contravention of the Constitution.
Some 88,000 people work at the Treasury Department. A few folks are necessary to mind the Treasury, but most of the agency’s employees are busy supporting the outrageously lavish $3.7 trillion budget approved by Congress this year. Cut back the spending and the $2.2 trillion in taxes to be collected, and the department would shrink substantially. Reduce the Treasury bureaucracy’s other threats to liberty — foreign economic sanctions, domestic financial spying — and the workforce would shrink still further.
The Agriculture Department comes in at 82,000 employees. There may be one or two people there who perform a useful and constitutional function, but it’s hard to believe there are many more. This agency’s job is to pay off special interests and manipulate food markets. This Department should be permanently snowed in.
Next is the Interior Department with 67,000 employees. There’s no reason for Uncle Sam to own hundreds of millions of acres of land. Sell off the grazing range and timberland (technically the latter resides with the Agriculture Department, but the same principle applies). Open up nonessential park areas to energy exploration and development. Keep at most a few sensitive parklands of enormous symbolic significance — such as Yellowstone and Yosemite — in federal hands or, better yet, turn them over to environmental groups. The number of people needed in their current roles at the department is very few.
Health and Human Services is a spending behemoth, but employs “only” 64,000 people. Social services, like justice, should primarily be dispensed at the state and local level. Anyway, whatever the legitimate role of the federal government, HHS should not survive in current form. The agency incorporates a multitude of ineffective, duplicative, and overlapping programs. In general, Congress never shuts down a bad program; legislators simply add new ones. Shift back functions and revenue sources to the states, as Ronald Reagan proposed, and there’d be no need for this department.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author and editor of several books, including The Politics of Plunder: Misgovernment in Washington (Transaction).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (35) | Leave a comment
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Bram| 2.11.10 @ 8:35AM
It makes my stomach turn to read the number of people we pay for worthless causes. Numbers far higher than the biggest big business I've ever worked for.
There were times in my life when I was tempted to apply for a federal job (other than my military stint) - despite being unemployed at the time, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I’m glad I didn’t.
JohnD| 2.11.10 @ 9:26AM
This article actually understates the problem. I work for the Federal Government (I am from the DC area and it was either work for the Govt or bag groceries or sell houses).
There are 2.5 million actual federal employees, i.e. people hired by the civil and foreign services.
What the article doesn't mention is that almost all of the actual work is done by contractors, many of whom have offices in the federal buildings of the agencies they serve. Civil servants at SSA don't process the checks, contractors like EDS actually do it. Civil servants don't design, develop and program the computers, contractors do it.
The reason for this is that if a civil servant is tasked with doing something, and doesn't do it, you can't do anything to him or her. But if a contractor doesn't do something they are supposed to do, they can be fired, or the contract can be terminated for default. When something actually needs to be done, contractors do it. When something goes wrong, contractors are blamed.
I would estimate that if there are 2.5 million civil and foreign service people, then there must be at least 10-20 million contractor personnel doing the actual work of these agencies. And this number does not include people at Boeing making jet fighters, or people at Amgen building Humvees, etc. So its actually worse than this article lets on.
Sandra_in_Severn| 2.11.10 @ 10:48AM
BUT... contractors are not paid when they cannot get to their worksites. When the "Gov" personnel are not around to "unlock and open the door" a contractor cannot go to work. Even if they are able to get to the worksite and are available to work.
And while Military Personnel and Emergency Essential Gov personnel can "work until the job is done" and "work weekends or overnight shifts" a contractor cannot. Even if they volunteer, unless it is in the contract - no can do.
We have many friends that work for a specific contractor that will not receive an entire week's pay because of the weather and roads here.
Some CAN use banked PTO, others are just out of luck.
Sandra_in_Severn| 2.11.10 @ 10:51AM
As to the Gov employees, the SES and upper GS grades; most were still working since the majority of their employees (and responsibilities) are outside the region.
My DH is a GS-13 for the USAF and has "clocked" more than 15 hours of work from home, between snowblowing out neighbors and digging us out. Mostly by "crackberry" while outside. He joked that he can get more done from home than from work. But he is NOT one of those that are allowed to telecommute.
Please remember, not all Gov employees were idle this week.
JohnD| 2.11.10 @ 11:41AM
Sandra, you are absolutely right. The Feds get paid while the contractors get stiffed (the people who do all the work). I was a contractor before getting hired in the civil service, and the inequities are almost Dickensian.
I also worked from home Monday and Tuesday, despite the Government being closed. I also get much more done from home than I can do at the office.
Paul D| 2.11.10 @ 4:27PM
Absolutely right. Me and my fellow contractors have been braving the snow to come into work while our Fed Gov't overseers are sitting at home.
Paul D| 2.11.10 @ 4:31PM
But not that I'm complaining because we are paid exorbitant amounts more money than they are to do their work for them.
More of your taxpayer dollars at work.
JohnD| 2.11.10 @ 9:28PM
Yeah, Paul, but at least the traffic isn't as bad getting in to work.
Jim O'Brien| 2.11.10 @ 8:45PM
A few months ago, a woman on the TV show Jeopardy said she worked for the State Department, and her area of specialization was "climate change". And we are paying for this idiocy.
Jeff Perren | 2.12.10 @ 12:23AM
Piling on to the "it's work than you think" meme: if you think the money paid to useless bureaucrats is bad, consider how much wealth is never created as a result of the regulations they enforce.
The EPA alone undoubtedly costs the country trillions by preventing safe, efficient use of land and energy production and hobbling improved trade.
In another area, just considering Sarbanes-Oxley alone is enough to give a sensible person a stomach ache.
Jeff Perren| 2.12.10 @ 12:25AM
That should read: "It's worse than you think" meme...
Richard Baker| 2.12.10 @ 2:45PM
Good that they are closed down. Meanwhile, life goes on without these people. Tell me again why we need these bureaucrats in DC? Remember, Mark Twain said that "no man's life, liberty, or property is safe while Congress is in session." He also said that "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." Snow on!
Tom Mahany| 2.12.10 @ 2:48PM
Time was, this wasn't much of the problem. The U.S. Federal Government diverted only about 3% of the national wealth to perform the duties outlined in our national charter, The Constitution, as ammended. Of course, during those times, the Congressmen and other swells abandoned the District of Columbia every summer because of the heat and humidity. I've lived and worked as a self-supporting grad student in the Potomac bottoms. During the summers, I can tell you that I could get a lot more work done when I was at the (air-conditioned )office than in a sweltering lab and / or apartment.
I say that we just proscribe air conditioners in places of government business. There's no way that the minions of our National Government's nanny state work-in-progress would be enlarging upon as many directives by a swelter - recessed Congress for a good 3 months a year if they were forced to submit to the prevailing weather in D.C. A forced annual retreat to the countryside would reduce the production of reams of laws, and the resultant gigabytes of regulations, mandates and other experiments against reality, by directly getting them away from their desks, and by forcing them to deal with the people who daily sweat to comply with the diktats.
Pingback| 2.13.10 @ 4:05AM
Doug Bandow » Blog Archive » Uncle Sam is Back at Work … Too Bad links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.13.10 @ 7:27PM
Shut Down! links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 2.14.10 @ 4:39PM
Complete Liberty 103 – Unproductive evils of statism, both federal and local, versus links to this page.
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BizzyBlog links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Nikki Mytels| 3.16.10 @ 12:37PM
Dear Doug,
Your suggestion that the best of our national parks be perhaps turned over to environmental groups was scary. You see, environmental groups want to protect and preserve the environment, not let the RV driving hoi polloi tromp around and enjoy themselves in the great outdoors. What would become of the great American (or snowbird Canadian) family vacation?
Also, I can't believe you didn't include Bryce Canyon in your short-list of parks to be spared from this mass mulcting of the American people. Your mother always went on about how much she loved that park! Seriously, if a great majority of our national parks are strip-mined (probably, ironically, by foreign investors), just think what a nightmare it would be to get reservations for the few remaining parks. The traffic! It would scarcely be worth the trip. In that case, yes, you might as well just auction these properties off to the Hilton or Burger King or Halliburton. Once the national parks are gone, future generations won't even have any idea what they are missing. No harm done. I'm sure those kids would rather enjoy Wii Grand Canyon River Rafting than actually travel there, anyway.
By the way, the heinous crime of crapping up a wetland with fill dirt would probably most likely be perpetrated by some evil greedy corporation that is angling for a permit to overbuild a stupid marina or golf course. Grrr! Next time you are out in California, I would be happy to tell you why wetlands are so important.
I'm sorry I didn't think to Google you since the dawn of the internet, but better late than never! I've been enjoying your blog since I saw you again last month after all of these years. Even though a few of your opinions are so annoying, you do have a great way with words!
--Nikki
Puma x Alexander McQueen | 8.12.11 @ 11:19PM
is good