The Big Cost of Big Government

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office about the nation’s fiscal future doesn’t paint a pretty picture. According to the CBO, Obama’s budget would add nearly $10 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. The CBO estimates that by 2020, the national debt would equal 90% of our entire economy. During that time, interest payments on the debt would quadruple to nearly $1 trillion a year by 2020.

Government itself is a big part of the problem. USA Today reported last month that government employees are paid on average more than $71,000 a year. The average annual salary in the private sector is just over $40,000. And while millions of Americans have been laid off and are cutting family budgets to the bone, government workers have never had it so good. Consider this excerpt from the USA Today report:

“The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession… Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. . . . These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker. . . ."

So, when you consider salary ($71,000) plus benefits ($41,000), it takes more than two private sector workers to pay for every government worker.  I don’t make this point just to bash bureaucrats. I know many good, hard-working men and women who are truly serving the public in government service today. But the government has become a budget-busting behemoth. Almost every state in the union is struggling to meet its obligations to public employee pension programs.

For example, costs associated with Rhode Island’s public pensions have tripled in the past ten years. According to a new report, each resident of Chicago is “on the hook for a whopping $5,821 in unfunded liability for pension promises to city and Cook County public employees.” California has about $60 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. Add it all up and taxpayers are facing a $1 trillion shortfall just at the state-level for public employee pensions.

So, what is Barack Obama doing to address the nation’s growing fiscal crisis? He’s out campaigning for a Big Government healthcare plan. How much sense does it make for Washington to create another trillion-dollar entitlement program when we can’t afford the government we already have? None whatsoever. And it makes as much sense to trust our healthcare to the same folks who bankrupted Social Security, Medicare and the Post Office.

Now, here’s some good news. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 66% of voters want a smaller government with fewer services and less taxes. Just 23% of voters – the base of the Democrat Party – want bigger government and higher taxes. American people don’t want Big Government for good reason. The more government does, the bigger it gets. The bigger it gets, the more resources (your hard-earned tax dollars) it demands.

In the next 239 days, Campaign for Working Families will do everything we can to elect conservative candidates who understand that Big Government is not the solution, but rather a big part of the problem.
Gary Bauer is is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families. He submitted this article in an email to the ARRA News Service Editor. Bauer was a former Republican presidential candidate and served as President Ronald Reagan’s domestic policy adviser.

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