FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED DEC. 24, 1997
In its third quarter "Economic Scorecard" for 1997, the Texas-based outfit TaxAction Analysis - tax policy arm of the non-profit Institute for Policy Innovation - reports the fourth-to-last year of the millennium has been "A Banner Year for Big Government."
To be sure, the overall economic report is a positive one, as "The economy continued to hum in the third quarter, growing at an annual rate of 3.5 percent after inflation," with most growth in the third quarter attributable to consumer spending, which grew "a higher-than-expected 5.7 percent over that of the second quarter," write the TaxAction editors.
A Cassandra might ask how much of that spending was actually done with cash, and how much by running up credit card bills which may actually cool this spending spree when they fall due. But the most interesting finding of this econometric analysis appears in the report's sub-headline: "Growth in government jobs, wages continues to outpace private sector."
"An analysis of trends over the last 50 years shows that government has grown faster than the private sector - with government employment increasing 164 percent since 1950 versus 112 percent for the private sector," the authors found.
Also long gone are the days when "public servants" accepted lower pay in return for the security and attractive fringe benefits of government service. Instead, according to the new report, "Trends in compensation growth by sector follow those of employment. Since the 1960s, real, average hourly compensation (wages plus fringe benefits plus employer contributions to social insurance) of government workers has grown faster than that of the private sector."
Since 1991 alone, government worker compensation has increased by 1.4 percent per year after inflation, almost three times the 0.5 percent growth of the average private sector worker.
Devotedly non-partisan, the TaxAction report ends with the somewhat mild conclusion: "If government can actually downsize, labor resources that would have gone into the public sector will be available to meet increasing private sector demand."
Let's re-state that a little more strongly. Skeptics have long observed that government actually produces nothing - that the percentage of the Gross Domestic Product siphoned off by government is a near-total loss, like the blood sucked from a healthy organism by a tick, tapeworm, or other parasite.
Those who take a more favorable view of the activities of government taxmen and regulators might argue (casting those activities in the best possible light) that these overseers provide "guidance" to the private economy, like a jockey on a racehorse.
But what is really most likely to happen when a racehorse throws his jockey early in a race? Suddenly freed of the 100-odd pounds carried by his stablemates, the riderless horse often sprints to an easy victory. This happens frequently enough that the rules specifically call for a riderless horse to be disqualified.
How well might the "racehorse" of the American economy run with a substantially lighter jockey? And if the jockey's weight continues to grow more quickly than that of the horse, won't the burden inevitably reach a point where it far outweighs any benefit the horse can possibly gain from the morbidly obese rider's "guidance"?
Government is not merely growing "enough to compensate" for inflation and population growth. Like a jockey who keeps gaining weight in relation to his mounts, the sector of the economy which devours taxes (instead of producing them) is starting to metastasize (Republican Congress notwithstanding.)
This is precisely why both spouses must now work outside the home - the second wage-earner generally only covering the tax bills - to maintain a standard of living similar to what our fathers could provide their families on a single salary 40 years ago.
What social ills - particularly involving children without adequate guidance and supervision - can already be attributed to the average American family having to carry the outrageous burden of this now-overweight jockey? Can anyone still contend the "benefits" of expansive government possibly outweigh the inability of parents to spend time with - to guide and teach - the next generation?
Our government school teachers increasingly blame their own failings on "lack of parental involvement." But does it ever occur to them to bundle up their paychecks, hand them to the mom of some troubled kid, and say: "Here, take back this tax money you paid and stay home with your child, instead. He needs you more than he needs me"?
That'll be the day.
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The column is syndicated in the United States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127.
-- Samuel Adams