Tag Archives : Bureaucrats
From East Coast to West Coast, Bureaucrats Are Ripping Off Taxpayers
Let’s start in Washington, where USA Today reports that there are “at least 17,828 federal employees whose annualized salaries totaled $180,000 or more in September 2010.” That’s rather distressing news for taxpayers, but these excerpts from the story provide additional reason for us to be upset. …their ranks soared from the 805 with annualized salaries […]
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Just How Many Jobs Can Firing One Bureaucrat Create?
I mentioned the other day a claim from CEI that regulatory burdens cost the economy nearly $2 trillion in 2008. The Phoenix Center also recently produced a policy bulletin examining the costs of the regulatory state (Hat-tip: Big Government). In quantifying the relationship between government spending and economic growth based upon 50 years of data, […]
read more...An Amusing Look at Whether Obama Is Backing Away from Gun Control
Maybe Obama’s not so bad on Second Amendment issues. His Administration has contracted with the folks at Ruger to produce a special pistol in honor of the government workforce. This new gun will be called “The Bureaucracy Special.” The only downside is that it doesn’t work and you can’t fire it.
read more...This Must Be Part of Obama’s Drive for Government Efficiency
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying hard to win the “Bureaucracy of the Year Award,” and they have a new motto. But I think the bureaucrats at HUD are cheating. I’m almost sure I saw one of these signs during my last visit to the DMV, though I confess I started hallucinating […]
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Reckless IRS Regulation Would Put Foreign Tax Law over American Tax Law and Drive Investment out of the United States
I’m not a big fan of the IRS, but usually I blame politicians for America’s corrupt, unfair, and punitive tax system. Sometimes, though, the tax bureaucrats run amok and earn their reputation as America’s most despised bureaucracy. Here’s an example. Earlier this year, the Internal Revenue Service proposed a regulation that would force American banks […]
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Government Employee Pensions Are a Budget Issue, but Also a Growth and Fairness Issue
Eli Lehrer of the Heartland Institute has an article in the Weekly Standard claiming that underfunded pension plans are not the problem with state budgets. This paragraph is a good summary of his article. In the end, many states facing very large current budget gaps—New York, Florida, Texas, and Wisconsin among them—have pension systems that […]
read more...Top ten ways to tell if you might be a member of a public-sector union
A buddy from Monaco was at a different conference in the same hotel in Switzerland, and he sent me this great humor from David Letterman. Here are the top 10 ways to tell if you are a bureaucrat. 10.) You take a week off to protest in Wisconsin and your office runs better. 9.) On […]
read more...Victory in Wisconsin?!?
Kudos to Governor Walker of Wisconsin. Republicans rarely have the intelligence or the fortitude to win battles that reduce the burden of government, but it appears that he is on the verge of prevailing in his effort to limit special privileges for government workers. Fugitive Democrats from the State Senate apparently are giving up on […]
read more...The TSA’s Keystone Cops Strike Again
My New Year’s Resolution was to stop making fun of the Transportation Security Administration. Not because I changed my mind about the bureaucracy and its level of (in)competence, but rather because I felt as if I was taking candy from a baby. Kicking the TSA is just too easy. But I can’t resist low-hanging fruit. […]
read more...One Chart that Tells You Everything You Need to Know about Whether State and Local Bureaucrats Are Over-Compensated
The showdown in Wisconsin has generated competing claims about whether state and local government bureaucrats are paid too much or paid too little compared to their private sector counterparts. The data on total compensation clearly show a big advantage for state and local bureaucrats, largely because of lavish benefits (which is the problem that Governor […]
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