One of my first blog posts, way back in 2009, was about bureaucrats from the Social Security Administration squandering more than $700,000 on a boondoggle conference at a fancy Arizona resort. To pick a more recent example, taxpayers have plenty of reasons to be upset about IRS bureaucrats partying at their fancy conferences (including line […]

It’s no secret that I think we have too many government bureaucrats and I’ve shared very strong evidence that most of them are grossly overpaid. I also have shown some data suggesting that they don’t work very hard, though I confess to mixed feelings about that factoid since I’d rather have some bureaucrats goofing off […]

The only sustainable way of achieving more prosperity and higher living standards is to increase the quality and quantity of labor and capital in the economy. This may sound like boring econo-speak, but labor and capital are the two “factors of production” and our ability to consume is limited by what we can produce. That’s […]

I’ve shared some remarkable data showing that bureaucrats get paid more than people in the private sector. I’ve also dug into the Department of Labor’s JOLTS data to debunk those who argue bureaucrats aren’t overpaid. I’ve even showed that they work fewer hours (though that’s probably a good thing since presumably the nation will be […]

In an interview last week about Detroit’s bankruptcy, I explained that the city got in trouble because of growing dependency and an ever-rising burden of government spending. I also warned that the federal government faces the same challenge. Washington is in trouble mostly because of poorly designed entitlement programs rather than excessive compensation for a […]

The IRS is worthy of scorn. It is a bloated bureaucracy that routinely violates the rights of taxpayers. But even I didn’t think it was possible for a collection of bureaucrats to display the blithering incompetence necessary to send $46 million of handouts to nearly 24,000 fake returns filed from a single address. Yes, a […]

What do you do if you’re part of a government bureaucracy that has been caught red-handed engaged in sleazy, corrupt, and (almost surely) illegal targeting of Americans for their political beliefs? But before you answer, keep in mind that your bureaucracy also has been exposed for wasting huge amounts of money at lavish conferences. What’s […]

I’ve repeatedly explained that Keynesian economics doesn’t work because any money the government spends must first be diverted from the productive sector of the economy, which means either higher taxes or more red ink. So unless one actually thinks that politicians spend money with high levels of effectiveness and efficiency, this certainly suggests that growth […]

I can say with great confidence that government bureaucrats are overpaid compared to people in the productive sector of the economy. Why am I sure that this is true, particularly when the so-called Federal Salary Council claims bureaucrats are underpaid? For the simple reason that the “job opening and labor turnover” data from the Department […]

Check out some of the ridiculous details about the woman who has earned the title of California’s Golden Bureaucrat. Alameda County supervisors have really taken to heart the adage that government should run like a business — rewarding County Administrator Susan Muranishi with the Wall Street-like wage of $423,664 a year. For the rest of […]