The Tea Party Republicans are aggressively working to reduce the size of the Public Sector. Their main reason for chopping the size of government is to reduce the financial burden of paying the bill. Exactly, who are they paying? In 2011 the number of federal employees is usually stated as 2.8 million. That is slightly less than 1% of the population. If the federal budget annually is $3.4 trillion than each federal employee spends 1.2 million. Roughly 10% of that expenditures is their personal salary and benefits. Another 15% goes to pay the interest on the national debt. Another 55% goes to pay for entitlements. Slightly more than $700 billion is spent on contractors outside of government. That equates to 20% of the budget and therefore leaves no money for federal employees to do their job!
Herein lies the problem? Hopefully, the accounting for federal expenditures released to the public is incorrect and not understated, but it is clear there is a need for greater efficiency or the elimination of some functions. Is there an opportunity to be more efficient? If the federal government was a private company getting efficient at delivering government services would be a priority. Maybe, the Post Office could be auctioned off to UPS, DHL or Fedex? Maybe the Labor Department and the Commerce Department could be eliminated or sold to a private demographic firm?
It seems like the time as come. When the amount government collects is only sufficient to pay their salaries and their bills is it time to stop the spending race? Even Nascar slows down when there is a crash on the track. In fact, if it is bad enough they stop the race.
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