Here’s another remarkable story illustrating the incompetence of government. A bureaucrat in Norfolk, VA, got paid for 12 years (including benefits) without ever showing up for work. Depending on the agency, this may actually have been a good thing (I wish IRS bureaucrats did this), but it certainly shows how taxpayer money gets wasted when […]

If misery loves company, we can be very happy with these two stories about over-compensated bureaucrats from outside our borders. The first comes from Europe, where the Daily Telegraph reports that pension costs are skyrocketing for bureaucrats with the European Commission and other European Union entities. With the average pension being more than $88,000 per […]

Using road management as an example, John Stossel explains that government does a worse job than the private sector, even at things that theoretically are a government responsibility. Part of this is because of the profit motive, to be sure, but a big reason is probably because government bureaucracies inevitably are filled with overpaid bureaucrats […]

A very depressing story in USA Today reveals that federal bureaucrats are making more than twice as much as people in the productive sector of the economy. Even worse, the advantage for bureaucrats has jumped from $30K to $62K during the spendaholic Bush-Obama years. At a time when workers’ pay and benefits have stagnated, federal […]

You know that bureaucrats are getting wildly overcompensated if even the New York Times is publishing articles about the problem. The article notes that there is a nationwide problem, and then cites developments in Colorado, where lawmakers actually took a tiny step in the right direction by limiting cost-of-living adjustments for existing retirees. Not surprisingly, […]

Julie Murphy is obviously a dangerous criminal. What else would you call a 7-year-old girl who does something as dangerous and illegal as operating a lemonade stand without getting a $120 temporary restaurant license? Fortunately, the health and safety of the people of Multnomah County were protected when an alert bureaucrat shut down her lemonade […]

If you have municipal bonds issued by the city of Los Angeles, you may want to dump them while there’s still time. The LA Times reports that one-third of the city’s budget in 2015 will get consumed by pensions and benefits for retired bureaucrats. The cost of retirement benefits for Los Angeles city employees will […]

Senator Coburn’s office circulates a “Pork Report” every day, which I probably shouldn’t read since my blood pressure spikes. Today’s collection of stories included this outrageous example of federal bureaucrats living the good life with our tax dollars. Federal investigators said Benjamin Clayton, a former U.S. Department of Energy employee is a crook who racked […]

Even I am shocked about how politicians and bureaucrats are bilking the poor people of Bell, California. I wish I had this example reported by Bloomberg for my video on overpaid bureaucrats, but mostly I hope that taxpayers rise up in revolt against the way the insiders are scamming the system and ripping off society’s productive […]

The fact that government is growing is not big news. The fact that bureaucrats are overpaid is hardly a big revelation. But it is interesting that a DC-based newspaper like Politico has a story about how Washington is prospering while the rest of the country is suffering. Too bad they didn’t connect the dots and […]