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The shrinking Federal Govenment

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iguanaman

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President Trump on Monday signed an executive order instituting a hiring freeze on all nonmilitary federal employees. At a press briefing, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that the move “counters the dramatic expansion of the federal workforce in recent years.”

In both raw-number and percentage terms, this is an inaccurate statement. According to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.8 million employees on the federal payroll as of December. The number has risen slightly since May 2014, when there were roughly 2.7 million federal employees (part of the reason may be an accelerated pace of hiring in anticipation of a new presidential administration). That represents an increase of about 3 percent.

By contrast, the total civilian workforce, excluding federal employees, grew by about 4.9 percent over the same period.

In raw-number terms, the number of federal employees is nearly the same today (2.8 million) as it was when Barack Obama took office (2.79 million). It is also similar to the number of federal employees at the end of the Clinton administration (2.75 million) and lower than at any time during the Reagan administration (when it peaked at 3.15 million).
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imrs.php


Why are we constantly being lied to about the "bloated" Federal Govt. by Trump and the Republicans? Ryan is proposing a trillion$ cut in the 2017 budget further reducing the Federal workforce. How low can we go before their anti-fed prophecy is self-fulfilled?
 
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Federal work force isn't all there is to shrinking the federal government. Just saying...
 
iguanaman said:
imrs.php


Why are we constantly being lied to about the "bloated" Federal Govt. by Trump and the Republicans? Ryan is proposing a trillion$ cut in the 2017 budget further reducing the Federal workforce. How low can we go before their anti-fed prophecy is self-fulfilled?
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You'd think that with all the IT and all....
 
Mycroft said:
Federal work force isn't all there is to shrinking the federal government. Just saying...
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Contractor for the DoD here, they never count us contractors. In fact the CBO can't give any reliable numbers on us or grantees. Or volunteers, like our Red Cross Volunteers, who still cost money despite not receiving a wage.
 
iguanaman said:
imrs.php


Why are we constantly being lied to about the "bloated" Federal Govt. by Trump and the Republicans? Ryan is proposing a trillion$ cut in the 2017 budget further reducing the Federal workforce. How low can we go before their anti-fed prophecy is self-fulfilled?
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I think too many on the left miss few things here. That number is only includes Civilian personal. That doesn't include the Military or even Federal Contractors. If you add up Civilian with Military you are talking about 4.1m employees. Federal Contractors could easily push that over 5m.

Also Federal Government has a lot of legacy costs. Be it older programs and older workers who are very hard to get rid of. US spent $36b in 2011 to maintain legacy IT programs before spending a single dime of it's $77.5b on upgrading it. Then the additional cost of replacing older equipment. Right now US is going through a life cycle program for military equipment. But in our haste to do this we are over paying for lack luster equipment, think the F-35 program. A program that should have died a long time ago but 20 years (yep it started in 1996) on here we are.
 
I appears the recurrent theme is that the Federal Govt. is still bloated and inefficient because of the military. Why didn't you all say we need to cut back on military personnel in the 1st place. We agree completely that the military could have a trillion cut from its budget and still be too big. That would reduce the Federal Contractors too. :lol:
 
iguanaman said:
the Federal Govt. is still bloated and inefficient because of the military
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Savings can be realised in many areas of federal spending. Healthcare is certainly a major source of waste, and I'd say yer correct in highlighting contracts for products and services related to national defence as another prominent contributor.

Spartacus FPV said:
CBO can't give any reliable numbers on us [contractors] or grantees
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Separating those expenses out would be very complicated, and many private-sector entities would likely reject calls for such an accounting. There really isn't much of any point to doing so from a budgetary perspective. The relevant questions are things like what is being purchased, what benefits are present that offset the cost, and is the use of a contract or grant the best method of acquisition.

It's not surprising that yer contract is funded through the defence budget. Here's an excerpt from the CBO analysis referred to in this thread:

DoD accounted for about 62 percent of the spending on contracts in 2000 and 70 percent in 2012, partly because of the rise of spending for the two wars fought during that period.​

How Many Contractors Does the Government Have?

>>Or volunteers, like our Red Cross Volunteers, who still cost money despite not receiving a wage.

Cost money? If they're not being paid, and since they're called "volunteers," why would we consider classifying them as employees? Fwiw, I figure we get our money's worth out of Red Cross volunteers.

austrianecon said:
That number is only includes Civilian personal.
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Is it yer contention that we should reduce the number of military personnel? Which service's payroll do you want to start cutting?

>>I think too many on the left miss few things here.

I think the Left wasn't involved in pushing for an invasion of Iraq, the overseas misadventure that led to a great deal of recent spending on contractors. We will continue to pay and pay and pay for contractors employed to help the many thousands of Americans brutalised, traumatised, torn apart, chopped up, whittled away, and otherwise effed over in that misguided conflict. Which end of the political spectrum are Halliburton and Blackwater associated with?

Back to Iraq: US Military Contractors Return In Droves

We Got Scammed by Government Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan
 
iguanaman said:
imrs.php


Why are we constantly being lied to about the "bloated" Federal Govt. by Trump and the Republicans? Ryan is proposing a trillion$ cut in the 2017 budget further reducing the Federal workforce. How low can we go before their anti-fed prophecy is self-fulfilled?
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I would consider cutting it by another 50% over the next ten years as a solid starting point.
 
Baralis said:
I would consider cutting it by another 50% over the next ten years as a solid starting point.
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Great idea! I'm sure that the private sector has tons of extra jobs available.
 
JohnfrmClevelan said:
Great idea! I'm sure that the private sector has tons of extra jobs available.
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You may create more jobs by doing so and not less.

If we cut the Federal government down to only the powers enumerated in the constitution and the states took control where they were meant to then you could have more jobs as each state would manage their own and not a centralized department. Not only would employment go up but also any individuals voice in how things are run. I think its a win/win.
 
Baralis said:
I would consider cutting it by another 50% over the next ten years as a solid starting point.
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You mean the military budget, right? That is the only place that Govt. has not shrunk in the last 50 years.
 
iguanaman said:
imrs.php


Why are we constantly being lied to about the "bloated" Federal Govt. by Trump and the Republicans? Ryan is proposing a trillion$ cut in the 2017 budget further reducing the Federal workforce. How low can we go before their anti-fed prophecy is self-fulfilled?
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It is bloated.

With improvements in technology, it takes less people to do the work.

Baralis said:
I would consider cutting it by another 50% over the next ten years as a solid starting point.
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I agree.

No need for more than 1% of the population be on the federal payroll. Maybe we should even shoot for under 0.5%.
 
JohnfrmClevelan said:
Great idea! I'm sure that the private sector has tons of extra jobs available.
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Should I infer from your statement that the hard working taxpayer is obligated to provide middle class jobs with a pension?
 
mmi said:
Is it yer contention that we should reduce the number of military personnel? Which service's payroll do you want to start cutting?
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Yes, I have no problem cutting the military. I'd reduce the Army to 400,000, Marines to 150,000, Navy and Air Force to 300,000 each. So the total size of our active duty would be 1.15m down from 314,000. If those 314,000 want to go to Reserves or National Guard, I have no problem with that.

mmi said:
I think the Left wasn't involved in pushing for an invasion of Iraq, the overseas misadventure that led to a great deal of recent spending on contractors. We will continue to pay and pay and pay for contractors employed to help the many thousands of Americans brutalised, traumatised, torn apart, chopped up, whittled away, and otherwise effed over in that misguided conflict. Which end of the political spectrum are Halliburton and Blackwater associated with?
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Oh mmi.. you still are misinformed. Both sides voted for Iraq. Biden, Kerry and Clinton voted for actions in Iraq. Blackwater got it's first military contract under Bill Clinton's admin in training 100,000 sailor after the USS Cole bombing.
 
iguanaman said:
You mean the military budget, right? That is the only place that Govt. has not shrunk in the last 50 years.
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LOL...

Are you serious?

As a percentage of spending, it has been getting smaller as social programs have been getting larger.
 
Lord of Planar said:
Should I infer from your statement that the hard working taxpayer is obligated to provide middle class jobs with a pension?
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Taxpayers work no harder than government employees, who do valuable work that services every citizen. Why not just eliminate some useless jobs from the private sector in the name of cutting waste?
 
Lord of Planar said:
No need for more than 1% of the population be on the federal payroll. Maybe we should even shoot for under 0.5%.
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If you use the civilian noninstitutional population (16 years and older, not residing in penal or mental facilities or homes for the aged, and not on active duty in the military — about 255 million), it is less than one percent.

federal_emps_as_perc_civ_nonisnt_pop_1957-2016.jpg

Using the entire population, the figure is 0.67%.

austrianecon said:
So the total size of our active duty would be 1.15m down from 314,000.
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Ya wanna try that again?

>>Both sides voted for Iraq.

In the Senate, Dems were 29-22, while the GOP were 48-1. Republican support was much stronger.

>>Biden, Kerry and Clinton voted for actions in Iraq.

Actions? The Resolution did indeed authorize Dickhead Chaingang & Associates (the group in charge) to use force, but only with congressional consent that "diplomatic or other peaceful means" had been found to be inadequate in efforts "to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." The administration IGNORED that restriction and invaded WITHOUT any such approval.

>>Oh mmi.. you still are misinformed.

I can only shake my head at comments like that coming from you.

Lord of Planar said:
As a percentage of spending, it [defence spending] has been getting smaller as social programs have been getting larger.
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Defence spending as a percentage of the budget dropped substantially after the end of the Cold War. After that, it remained more of less flat … until the commie Muslim Negro who founded ISIL came along and let some of the air out of the military industrial complex we were warned about by Eisenhower, another anti-American leftist.

The bite taken by welfare spending hasn't changed much in forty years.

welfare_vs_defence_spending_as_perc_of_total_federal_spending_1976_2015.jpg
 
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JohnfrmClevelan said:
Taxpayers work no harder than government employees, who do valuable work that services every citizen. Why not just eliminate some useless jobs from the private sector in the name of cutting waste?
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I see you don't understand economics at all.
 
Lord of Planar said:
What is that? From discretionary spending?
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You said "as a percentage of spending." As the graph indicates, that's what I used.

>>I know that isn't accurate from the budget.

Call the Fed and let them know.
 
This is from a few years ago:

Table4pt2budgetoutlays_zpse823724f.png


The OMB site seems to have been moved with the administration crossover. I was going to get current numbers, but look at the trends.

Iguanaman... Military spending staying the same for the last 50 years... Really...

Do you know better than the OMB?

Military spending is far less than 50 years ago while the department of human and health services has well over quadrupled.
 
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People...

Please stop showing us your ignorance.

Go to the source material instead of repeating blogger and other pundit lies.
 
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