Thursday, October 29, 2009

TAXPAYERS VS. TAXTAKERS: A VISUAL

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UPDATE 8/23/10:  USA Today: Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
I recently attended the Evergreen Leadership Conference in very liberal (at least the "Left" part of the State) Washington State. One of the speakers succinctly and accurately summarized the real war happening on America's political landscape. It struck me that those of us on the Right have not clearly understood, or been able to articulate the real conflict between the Right and the Left. However, the Left, clearly understands the war and their mission that they're fighting, which is:
TAXPAYERS VS. TAXTAKERS!
I ran across the above graphic, which is based on a study conducted by the CATO Institute, that visually represents this war. I had no idea that the real "income gap" is between federal government employees (Taxtakers) vs. non-government, private workers (the taxpayers). As you can see, government employees' (graphic includes average benefits from both groups) income dwarfs the private sector by a ratio of 2 to 1! Put another way, "taxtakers" income is 100% more than "taxpayers".
Notice from the graph that the gap was "only" 66% in the year 2000, so the disparity widened greatly between 2000 and 2008. What's outrageous, other than the numbers themselves, is that this occurred under so-called "conservative," George W. Bush! When he ran on "compassionate conservatism" I didn't realize that he was describing how generous he'd be to government employees...with our money!
A recent letter-to-the-editor in the Washington Post provides further perspective:
If you drive through Northern Virginia, you will find nearly entire neighborhoods of $500,000 to $900,000 homes owned by government workers or contractors. Then you can drive five streets over and find $200,000 to $400,000 homes owned by those who pay the salaries for those government employees. It’s a fascinating distribution of wealth. Most government employees and contractors could not earn more than $60,000 on the free market. Their only chance to make that kind of money comes from having an employer that not only never has to make a profit but can forcibly take money through taxation.
The Left portrays "distribution (or redistribution) of wealth" as going from the rich to the poor. What's really going on here is the distribution of wealth from the taxpayers to the government employees, a fact which hasn't been properly emphasized.
Please feel free to share the above information. Get the word out. I believe that this has been flying far below the radar screen, and for good reason. People would be outraged. To get the link to this page, just click on the article's title.
Posted by Matthew Burke

5 Comments:

  1. You left out how it has quadrupled under Obama. How convenient of you.
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  2. What quadrupled? I don't have the data for 2009, possibly because 2009 isn't over yet. I would suspect that it would be even worse under Obama.
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  3. As a career taxtaker, I am offended. :-)

    Actually, I understand the concern. I have been stationed in Washington for the past 8 years and have seen the growing wealth in both the city and the suburbs. However, I have also seen enough of the detailed budget picture to recognize that the real problem is not in the civil service, but in the shadow government taxtakers represented by private contractors whose pay and benefit packages are not open and visible.

    It is pretty sad to see the luxurious office spaces and conference rooms at the companies whose only customer is the government. I have seen how some of the government employees are impressed by the "generosity" of the companies in "allowing" us to use their facilities for meetings. Most of those government employees have never seen invoices that show how much the contractors charge for those meetings. Part of that is because successive administrations have hollowed out the contracting oversight organizations and "leaned" out all of the people who really understand how to ensure that the taxpayers's interests are served by the people they pay.

    I have watched as many of my fellow officers have retired to immediately put on a suit and return to their former organizations to engage in "business development". I have listened to political appointees teach us that the "total force" of the DoD includes three components worthy of equal respect - military, government civilians and contractors. I have then listened in disbelief as they endlessly repeated that the most expensive component of that "total force" was the active duty military members and the second most expensive component was the government civilians. (I run numbers for a living and know exactly how much military members get paid.) The message has continuously been - for about 16 years - that the way to make government more efficient was to contract out as much as possible of the work done by the Sailors and Soldiers.

    I have been fighting that notion for a number of years - often without much success against leaders who are looking toward their next career.

    Please forgive me for my diatribe, but the message in your post is an important one that is a bit more complicated than you imagine. There really is a shift from taxpayers to taxtakers going on, but the beneficiaries of that shift are NOT the direct federal employees. Their average total compensation may look high in comparison to the average for all taxpayers, but a large portion of federal employees live in an area where the cost of living is being driven up by the packages offered to the contractors - who are also paid by the taxpayers.

    The really sad thing is listening to cubicle conversations by contractors who love to read the Drudge Report, hate paying taxes and consider government spending to be full of waste. I have made a few lifelong enemies by gently reminding them that their salaries are also paid by the taxpayers and that their compensation systems are far less merit based than ours.

    Rod Adams
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  4. Rod, Thank you for your thoughtful comments and for sharing your experience from the front lines. Your assessment is even more worrisome and depressing. I have no doubt that what you say has merit and applaud you for attempting to make a positive difference. I appreciate the stand you're taking.

    I wish there were easy answers to solve all of this.
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  5. Matthew - I did not mean it to be worrisome and depressing, but to offer some thoughts that might point the way to a better situation.

    My view is that there are some people who talk a good game about believing in free enterprise capitalism - like those Drudge report fans that I mentioned - who have come to the conclusion that they actually have some kind of "right" to the hard earned wages of working class people. They think that "capitalism" means an unfettered ability to accumulate without giving any credit at all to the people who enabled their rise to the top.

    My view is different - there is NOTHING wrong with government service or with people who decide that they will seek secure employment with an agreement to provide excellent, reliable service to their employers - the tax payers. They might not be the most competitive students around, but they do their homework, turn in their assignments, and take responsibility for their actions. As a free society, we need good government; we have many expectations for parks, freeways, education systems, and public health services that none of us can pay for by ourselves.

    Those responsibilities that we, the people, have decided need to be the function of our self organized government should not be turned over to the contracting company that provides the best powerpoint presentation once every 5 years when the contract is rebid. If the function is an enduring shared responsibility, we should employ a professional with no mixed loyalties (taxpayers vs. private contracting employer) who is dedicated to serving. That person should be fairly compensated and provided the opportunity for a reliable retirement - that makes it a good deal for both the employee and the taxpayers without paying a fee to a non producer in the transaction - the contracting company owners and managers.

    No easy answers - I agree. But the time has come to get rid of the notion that the "government" is the problem and that contracting out the jobs is the way to solve that problem. I am cynical - I think that the people who sold that idea really just wanted the opportunity to capture more of the taxpayer dollars and call it private enterprise rewards.

    Rod Adams
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Thank you for your comments. I appreciate your input!

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