More than 100 federal government workers hired each day

Although many in the private sector continue to struggle their way through economic uncertainty, the federal government appears to be thriving. Since Barack Obama’s inauguration, the federal government has hired an average of 101 workers each and every day, totaling 143,000 additional workers drawing taxpayer money as salaries.

This makes for the largest ever federal payroll in history.

According to a report published by the Cato Institute, not only are the number of federal workers increasing, but their compensation is, too, faster – much faster – than their average counterparts working for organizations in the private sector. ”The federal workforce has become an elite island of secure and high-paid workers, separated from the ocean of average American workers competing in the global economy. It is time for some restraint,” the Cato report said.

But that is not all. Let’s take into account health care packages that are provided to federal workers. The report also stated: “When benefits such as health care and pensions are included, the federal compensation advantage over private workers is even larger, according to the BEA data. In 2010, federal worker compensation averaged $126,141, or double the private-sector average of $62,757.”

Embarrassingly enough, earlier in the year it was revealed that more than 30 of Obama’s own highly paid executive aids had over $833,000 in back taxes, and it is estimated that thousands of federal workers are “behind” in their taxes.

In summary, we have a taxpayer-supported public sector that is growing beyond what the economy can demonstrably allow, compensation that blows the private sector out of the water, and top-level government employees who apparently have a hard time paying their taxes.

How about that “fair share” debate again, eh?

Forget the fiscal cliff, entitlements are the bigger American problem

Posted by Steve Adcock

Amid the fury over looming tax increases known as the “fiscal cliff” that promise to discourage investment and punish economic success, it is important to recognize the bigger problem with government debt and fiscal irresponsibility: entitlements.

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Daniel Mitchell said it well, who argues that the entitlement culture supported by the U.S.’s welfare state is a much larger issue that stands at the base of our economic worry.

“A lot of people get upset about the national debt, which is somewhere between $11 trillion and $16 trillion, depending on whether you include money the government owes itself. Those are big numbers — but if you add up the amount of money that the government is promising to spend for entitlement programs in the future and compare that figure to the amount of revenue that the government projects it will collect for those programs, the cumulative shortfall is more than $100 trillion,” wrote Mitchell.

Those are numbers that, unfortunately, make the fiscal cliff look like small potatoes. More than $100 trillion blown on feel-good entitlement programs that – not so amazingly – encourage dependence on the federal government for, well, everything. This, of course, includes flat screen televisions, high-speed Internet, cell phones and other expensive luxury items and electronic gadgets that are often owned by those on the public doll.

How will the government respond to this kind of astronomical spending? Raise taxes, of course. Increase revenue. Another fiscal cliff, and more gouging of the wealthy in this country that will surely force entrepreneurs to look for a home for their business elsewhere – or at least a home for their money in offshore savings accounts. Honestly, can you blame them?

“Unfortunately, the longer we wait to fix the problem, the harder it will be to solve. More and more Americans will become trapped into lives of government dependency over time, the private economy will be too suffocated by taxes to create jobs, and we could wind up like Greece – with the majority of the voting-age population determined to support the status quo.”

Sadly, Americans already support the status quo. Despite poll after poll indicating frustration and fundamental distrust of government, Americans robotically flocked to the voting booths and pulled the lever for the very same politicians in 2012, the same Washington power structure, the same nonsense. We are already there. The United States has already hit the point where dependence on government supersedes the power of reform.

Compared to that, Mitchell said, the fiscal cliff is a walk in the park.

Bob Costas exploits Belcher tragedy to espouse gun control

Posted by Steve Adcock

In another “palm to head” moment with a national celebrity who seems determined to make a fool out of himself, NBC anchor Bob Costas took advantage of the recent tragedy involving Kansas City Chief’s player Jovan Belcher’s murder-suicide to support more restrictive gun control among the American populace.

What’s more? Costas did not attempt to make his laughably mindless argument himself. Instead, he pointed to a well-known Kansas City writer Jason Whitlock to do that for him.

“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.”

My favorite part of the argument comes at the end, where Whitlock argued that had Belcher not possessed a gun, both Belcher and his girlfriend (who was shot several times by the football star) would still be alive.

Never mind the fact that the majority of domestic dispute deaths are caused by strangulation or severe beating. Apparently, Belcher didn’t have a knife or sharp object in the house, nor did Belcher possess the strength to end the life of his girlfriend with his bear hands. According to Whitlock, and supported by sports celebrity Bob Costas, the gun is what killed the two. The gun is a murderer.

Still waiting for the gun to be brought up on charges.

Perhaps Bob Costas should stick to broadcasting sports rather than mindlessly pointing out to millions of television viewers that his political and emotional leanings outweigh the power of his brain. If Costas supports a completely disarmed society, that’s fine – nobody cares. But when you use your pulpit on national television to espouse lazy postulations about a topic that clearly is outside the commentator’s sweet spot, you’re bringing bad publicity to your network and demonstrating once again how weak emotionally-driven arguments stand against reason.

The minute we begin to embrace “War on Drugs”-like regulations against guns is the minute we have lost the battle that we’re supposedly fighting. If guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns – unregistered, no background checks, no gun registration or tracking, no paper-trail, nothing. It’s like the wild west. How, under even the most creative explanation, could this possibly make any of us safer?

Gun control is not about making Americans safer, is it? Restrictive controls on guns helps no one. In fact, it turns our so-called “gun culture” far more dangerous, putting law-abiding citizens of our nation at risk, once again, for the purposes of political expediency.

On the bright side for Costas, it definitely looks like the sports commentator has a career waiting for him at MSNBC.