First Class Bureaucrats, Coach Class Taxpayers

Here's a story I got from the Advice Goddess twitter feed. It seems airlines are upset that federal air marshals almost always grab first class seats. This isn't good for airlines, since it uses up seats that they need for paying customers. It's not good for security since the main threat in on-board explosives carried by terrorists who want to sit over the wings. And it's not good for Dan Mitchell since it means he's less likely to get upgraded when the good seats are occupied by bureaucrats. Since I'm waiting for a flight to Australia, you can guess which upsets me the most. Here's a blurb from the Wall Street Journal story.

To protect the nation's air travelers, federal air marshals deployed after the 2001 terrorist attacks try to travel incognito, often in pairs, and choose flights identified with the potential to fall under threat. And they almost always fly first class—something some airlines would like to change. With cockpit doors fortified and a history of attackers choosing coach seats, some airline executives and security experts question whether the first-class practice is really necessary—or even a good idea. It could weaken security by isolating marshals or making them easier for terrorists to identify, airline executives say. With more threats in the coach cabin now, first-class clustering may not make as much security sense. Security experts say bombers are a bigger threat today than knife-wielding attackers trying to get through secure cockpit doors, and Transportation Security Administration checkpoints are heavily focused on explosives, whether hidden in shoes, liquids or under clothes. Some believe bombers try to target areas over the wing—a structurally critical location and also the site of fuel storage—to cause the most damage to the aircraft. ...By law, airlines must provide seats to marshals at no cost in any cabin requested. With first-class and business-class seats in particular, the revenue loss to airlines can be substantial because they can't sell last-minute tickets or upgrades, and travelers sometimes get bumped to the back or lose out on upgrade opportunities. When travelers do get bumped, airlines are barred from divulging why the first-class seat was unexpectedly taken away.

Taxpayers vs Bureaucrats, Part XLI

I've avoided this topic in recent weeks because it's too depressing, but this story is too outrageous to ignore. The County of Los Angeles has 199 bureaucrats who "earned" more than $250,000 last year. According to Census Bureau data for 2008, the median household income in the county was 55,000, Here's a blurb from the L.A.Times about incomes of the bureaucratic gilded class.

Nearly 200 Los Angeles County employees earned more than a quarter of a million dollars in 2009, according to a list of the county's top earners released late Monday in response to a Public Records Act request from The Times. The highest earners list was dominated by physicians and other medical personnel, but also included county firefighters and a handful of top sheriff's employees. Some of the best-known names on the list belong to elected officials — although none of the five county supervisors, who make $178,789 a year, qualified. ...The Times requested the base salary, overtime and "other earnings" for county employees whose total annual pay exceeded $250,000. "Other earnings" can include bonuses for special skills or responsibilities or unused benefits cashed out as taxable income, among other things. ...Overtime played a big role, with only 65 people making the list on base salary alone. Thirty workers made more than $80,000 in overtime. Twenty-two of them work for the county Fire Department, four work for public hospitals, two were psychiatrists for the Mental Health Department, and two were physician specialists for the Sheriff's Department.

Russian Government Announces 20 Percent Reduction in Number of Bureaucrats

I've already commented on Cuba's surprising announcement to slash the number of government workers. And I've complained about the federal workforce expanding in the United States. Russia wisely is following the Cuban approach on this issue (I never thought I would type those words!) and plans to get rid of 100,000 bureaucrats over the next three years.

Russia will cut its army of bureaucrats by more than 100,000 within the next three years, saving 43 billion rubles ($1.5 billion), Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Monday. "We assume more than 100,000 federal state civil jobs will be cut within three years. The government has already included a schedule for cutting the number of federal civil servants in the draft budget for the next three years and coordinated it with ministries and agencies," Kudrin told President Dmitry Medvedev, who in June ordered a 20 percent cut in the number of bureaucrats. Under the government plan, ministries and agencies will have to sack five percent of their staff in 2011 and 2012, and 10 percent in 2013. ...In the last three years, the number of bureaucrats in the federal government had increased by nearly 20,000, in regional governments by 60,000 and at municipalities by 50,000, he said.

Cuba Announces Plan to Eliminate 500,000 Bureaucrats

Since we're talking about a totalitarian nation, I suppose I should make clear that Raul Castro is getting rid of 500,000 government jobs, not executing a half-million bureaucrats. This is a remarkable development, particularly since the entire workforce is only 5 million people. What's ironic, though, is that Cuba is trying to reverse its mistakes while politicians in the United States keep adding more bureaucrats. In other words, Obama wants more people in the wagon and fewer people pulling the wagon. That's not a good trend line. Here's a CNN story about the Cuban reforms.

Cuba announced on Monday it would lay off "at least" half a million state workers over the next six months and simultaneously allow more jobs to be created in the private sector as the socialist economy struggles to get back on its feet. The plan announced in state media confirms that President Raul Castro is following through on his pledge to shed some one million state jobs, a full fifth of the official workforce -- but in a shorter timeframe than initially anticipated. "Our state cannot and should not continue maintaining companies, productive entities and services with inflated payrolls and losses that damage our economy and result counterproductive, create bad habits and distort workers' conduct," the CTC, Cuba's official labor union, said in newspapers. ...The state currently controls more than 90 percent of the economy, running everything from ice cream parlors and gas stations to factories and scientific laboratories. Traditionally independent professions, such as carpenters, plumbers and shoe repairmen, are also employed by the state. ...The announcement avoided the word "private," but said alternative forms of employment to be allowed included renting or borrowing state-owned facilities, cooperatives and self employment and that "hundreds of thousands of workers" would find jobs outside of the state sector over the next few years. Castro has launched a few, small free-market reforms since taking over from his brother Fidel Castro in 2006. In April, for example, barbershops were handed over to employees, who pay rent and tax but charge what they want. Licenses have also been granted to private taxis. For a couple of years, fallow land in the countryside has been turned over to private farmers. The more they produce, the more they earn.

Obama's Stimulus Means Redistribution from Poor to Rich

This New York Post chart shows that the already-bloated federal workforce expanded since the downturn began. And since compensation for federal bureaucrats is twice the average for other workers, it certainly seems like Obama is playing a perverse game of class warfare - particularly since ordinary Americans pay the price when so-called stimulus spending drains money from private capital markets and misallocates resources.

Great Moments in Local Government

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 nobody is accountable and there is no bottom-line incentive to use money effectively.

A Community Services Board employee collected a salary with benefits for 12 years and never showed up for work, several City Council members said Wednesday. The head of the agency refused to identify the employee but acknowledged in response to inquiries from The Virginian-Pilot that an employee was "on the board's payroll who had not reported to work in years." Maureen Womack, the agency's executive director, said she fired the employee, informed the board that governs her agency and asked City Attorney Bernard A. Pishko to investigate the matter earlier this summer. Pishko's investigation is nearly complete and will soon be turned over to the Norfolk police, she said. Womack also refused to divulge the employee's salary. The council also was told in a recent closed meeting that at least one other staffer, a Community Services Board supervisor, is being investigated for alleged complicity. ...Councilman Tommy Smigiel said recent revelations about the Community Services Board employee and other matters, including the profligate use of a city credit card by the Commissioner of Revenue and the purchase of a cell phone with city funds for a gang member by an assistant to the city manager, are doing "serious damage" to Norfolk's image.

Taxpayers vs Bureaucrats, the Foreign Edition

If misery loves company, we can be very happy about these two stories about over-compensated bureaucrats from outside our borders. The first story 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 year, that's hardly a surprise. This adds injury to injury since EU bureaucrats already get paid much more than workers in the productive sector of the economy.

Internal estimates, seen by The Daily Telegraph, show huge cost increases as growing numbers of officials in an expanded EU qualify for retirement, often at a younger age than the taxpayers who fund their generous pensions. Over the next three years alone, the cost of EU civil service pensions is expected to rise by 16 per cent to an annual bill for taxpayers of £1.3 billion. ... EU officials are allowed to retire at the age of 63, younger than Britons who have just had their retirement age increased from 65 to 66 by 2016. ...According to unpublished Commission figures, the pension bill will by 2040 risen 97 per cent to over £2 billion, with a British contribution of over £350 million. ...The average annual pension pocketed by the 17,471 retired eurocrats benefiting from the scheme is £57,194, while the highest ranking officials can pocket pensions of over £102,000.

Our second story comes from the Cayman Islands, where bureaucrats (as well as some politicians) have figured out the double-dipping scam, getting a lucrative pension while still receiving a salary. But the Cayman Islands at least deserve credit for limiting the damage. All bureaucrats hired after 1999 participate in a mandatory savings system, thus limiting the long-run risk for taxpayers.

A significant number of employees in the Cayman Islands Civil Service receive a monthly pension as well as a salary, according to records obtained by the Caymanian Compass. There are 65 people who have retired from the civil service under the defined benefit pension programme - which means they are receiving a monthly pension while continuing to work in government, according to information from a Freedom of Information request made by the Compass. Those workers are typically employed on a fixed-term contract and, therefore, also receive a salary. ...There were 171 employees working in the civil service who were age 60 or over at the date the Compass made its open records request. The ability of civil servants and Cayman Islands legislators to ‘double dip’ is not to the liking of at least one lawmaker, who raised the issue in the Legislative Assembly in June. North Side MLA Ezzard Miller told the assembly that a change in the parliamentary pensions law in recent years has allowed elected officials to receive the same benefit as civil servants - to retire while continuing to serve in the assembly. In essence, Mr. Miller said, those lawmakers can “get a double dip” – continue to receive their salaries while earning a pension at the same time. ...Cayman Islands civil servants who joined the service after mid-April 1999 no longer receive defined benefit pension payments. In other words, the newer civil service employees will receive a lump sum payment from their pension funds rather than a monthly pension.

Does TSA Stand for Totally Stupid A-holes?

I saw this jaw-dropping story linked on Instapundit. Some TSA bureaucrats, along with some Philadelphia cops, randomly decided to abuse an innocent woman. In a just world, all of these jerks would be fired and there were be strict new rules unambiguously stating that the sole job of TSA bureaucrats is to look for things that threaten air travel. Period. Nothing else.

At what point does an airport search step over the line? How about when they start going through your checks, and the police call your husband, suspicious you were clearing out the bank account? That's the complaint leveled by Kathy Parker, a 43-year-old Elkton, Md., woman, who was flying out of Philadelphia International Airport on Aug. 8. ...A female Transportation Security Administration officer wanded her and patted her down, she says. Then she was walked over to where other TSA officers were searching her bags. "Everything in my purse was out, including my wallet and my checkbook. I had two prescriptions in there. One was diet pills. This was embarrassing. ...What happened next, she says, was more than embarrassing. It was infuriating. That same screener started emptying her wallet. "He was taking out the receipts and looking at them," she said. "I understand that TSA is tasked with strengthening national security but [it] surely does not need to know what I purchased at Kohl's or Wal-Mart," she wrote in her complaint, which she sent me last week. ...In a side pocket she had tucked a deposit slip and seven checks made out to her and her husband, worth about $8,000. Her thought: "Oh, my God, this is none of his business." Two Philadelphia police officers joined at least four TSA officers who had gathered around her. After conferring with the TSA screeners, one of the Philadelphia officers told her he was there because her checks were numbered sequentially, which she says they were not. "It's an indication you've embezzled these checks," she says the police officer told her. He also told her she appeared nervous. She hadn't before that moment, she says. She protested when the officer started to walk away with the checks. "That's my money," she remembers saying. The officer's reply? "It's not your money." ...Thirty minutes after the police became involved, they decided to let her collect her belongings and board her plane. "I was shaking," she says. "I was almost in tears." When she got home, her husband of 20 years, John Parker, a self-employed plastics broker, said the police had called and told him that they'd suspected "a divorce situation" and that Kathy Parker was trying to empty their bank account. He set them straight. "I was so humiliated," she said. What happened sounds to me like a violation of a TSA policy that went into effect Sept. 1, after the American Civil Liberties Union sued the agency on behalf of the former campaign treasurer of presidential candidate Ron Paul. In that case, Steven Bierfeldt was detained after screeners at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport discovered he was carrying about $4,700 in cash. He challenged their request that he explain where his money came from. The new TSA directive reads: "Screening may not be conducted to detect evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security." If evidence of a crime is discovered, then TSA agents are instructed to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency. ...Vic Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, called what happened to Parker "preposterous" and a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches. "I think they clearly crossed the line," he said, adding that no one had probable cause to examine her checks. "None of this makes any sense except as a fishing expedition, which under the U.S. Constitution is not allowed. They can't rummage through her personal life. I'm not surprised this woman is outraged. She should be."

The Private Sector Always Does a Better Job than Government

Using road management as an example, John Stossel explains that government does a bad 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 who understand that job security is best assured by maintaining problems rather than solving them. Stossel makes an excellent point by noting that "contracting out" is not the same thing as genuine free enterprise. But at least it means whatever government is doing (either good things or bad things) will be done for less cost and with more competence.

Free enterprise does everything better. Why? Because if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax. Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn't, it will be "fired" -- its contract won't be renewed. Government is never fired. Contracting out to private enterprise isn't the same thing as letting fully competitive free markets operate, but it still works better than government. Roads are one example. Politicians call road management a "public good" that "government must control." Nonsense. In 1995, a private road company added two lanes in the middle of California Highway 91, right where the median strip used to be. It then used "congestion pricing" to let some drivers pay to speed past rush-hour traffic. Using the principles of supply and demand, road operators charge higher tolls at times of day when demand is high. That encourages those who are most in a hurry to pay for what they need. ...for years there was a gap in the ring road surrounding Paris that created huge traffic problems. Then private developers made an unsolicited proposal to build a $2 billion toll tunnel in exchange for a 70-year lease to run it. They built a double-decker tunnel that fits six lanes of traffic in the space usually required for just two. The tunnel's profit-seeking owners have an incentive to keep traffic moving. They collect tolls based on congestion pricing, and tolls are collected electronically, so cars don't have to stop. The tunnel operators clear accidents quickly. Most are detected within 10 seconds -- thanks to 350 cameras inside the tunnel. The private road has cut a 45-minute trip to 10 minutes.

Taxpayers vs Bureaucrats, Part XXXIX

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 employees' average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY analysis finds. Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade. Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available. The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year.

Just to remind everybody why this stinks, here's the video I narrated on how we have too many bureaucrats and they are paid too much.

Taxpayer-Funded Penile Implants?!?

I never thought "penile implant" was a term I would use on this blog, but that's because I never thought I would read a story about taxpayer funding of the procedure. The only good news is that this is a story about fringe benefits for the politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels, so European taxpayers are being raped (no pun intended) rather than American taxpayers. But phallic implants are just the tip (no pun intended) of the iceberg. European taxpayers also provide unlimited viagra, heroin replacement drugs such as methadone, and mud baths to the euro-crat elite. Even American politicians haven't figured out how to bilk taxpayes like this (or, if they have, they are clever enough to keep the information hidden).

EURO MEPs can claim for viagra on their health insurance - and the taxpayer picks up the bill. All Brussels officials and politicians can get the sex aid drug for free if needed. They can even claim for heroin replacement methadone under the European Commission scheme. Other free options include willy implants, the UK Independence Party discovered. Marta Andreasen, an MEP for the party, said: "It is utterly bonkers what British taxpayers are funding for Eurocrats. "Surely if they want these things, they should be able to pay themselves. It is a total waste of taxpayers' cash." ...Last year it was revealed MEPs receive public funding for massages and feng shui. Other perks which qualify include mud baths, hydromassage and mild electric shock treatment. The TaxPayers' Alliance last night blasted the wasteful perks in Brussels. Spokesman Matthew Sinclair said: "Taxpayers expect to see their money spent on providing essential services, not Viagra. The Government should insist on a better deal from Brussels."

P.S. I'm very proud of myself for resisting the impulse to make jokes about "stimulus."

Taxpayers vs Bureaucrats, Part XXXVIII

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, the bureaucrats are suing to overturn this reform.

There's a class war coming to the world of government pensions. The haves are retirees who were once state or municipal workers. Their seemingly guaranteed and ever-escalating monthly pension benefits are breaking budgets nationwide. The have-nots are taxpayers who don't have generous pensions. Their 401(k)s or individual retirement accounts have taken a real beating in recent years and are not guaranteed. And soon, many of those people will be paying higher taxes or getting fewer state services as their states put more money aside to cover those pension checks. ...Consider what's going on in Colorado - and what is likely to unfold in other states and municipalities around the country. Earlier this year, in an act of rare political courage, a bipartisan coalition of state legislators passed a pension overhaul bill. Among other things, the bill reduced the raise that people who are already retired get in their pension checks each year. ...this was apparently the first time that state legislators had forced current retirees to share the pain. Sharing the burden seems to be the obvious solution so we don't continue to kick the problem into the future. "We have to take this on, if there is any way of bringing fiscal sanity to our children," said former Gov. Richard Lamm of Colorado, a Democrat. "The New Deal is demographically obsolete. You can't fund the dream of the 1960s on the economy of 2010." But in Colorado, some retirees and those eligible to retire still want to live that dream. So they sued the state to keep all of the annual cost-of-living increases they thought they would be getting in perpetuity. ..."All I can say is that I am sorry," said Brandon Shaffer, a Democrat, the president of the Colorado State Senate, who helped lead the bipartisan coalition that pushed through the changes. (He also had to break the news to his mom, a retired teacher.) "I am tremendously sympathetic. But as a steward of the public trust, this is what we had to do to preserve the retirement fund." Taxpayers, whose payments are also helping to restock Colorado's pension fund, may not be as sympathetic, though. The average retiree in the fund stopped working at the sprightly age of 58 and deposits a check for $2,883 each month. Many of them also got a 3.5 percent annual raise, no matter what inflation was, until the rules changed this year.

Great Moments in Local Government

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 trafficking operation.

It's hardly unusual to hear small-business owners gripe about licensing requirements or complain that heavy-handed regulations are driving them into the red. So when Multnomah County shut down an enterprise last week for operating without a license, you might just sigh and say, there they go again. Except this entrepreneur was a 7-year-old named Julie Murphy. Her business was a lemonade stand at the Last Thursday monthly art fair in Northeast Portland. The government regulation she violated? Failing to get a $120 temporary restaurant license. Turns out that kids' lemonade stands -- those constants of summertime -- are supposed to get a permit in Oregon... "I understand the reason behind what they're doing and it's a neighborhood event, and they're trying to generate revenue," said Jon Kawaguchi, environmental health supervisor for the Multnomah County Health Department. "But we still need to put the public's health first." ...After 20 minutes, a "lady with a clipboard" came over and asked for their license. When Fife explained they didn't have one, the woman told them they would need to leave or possibly face a $500 fine. Surprised, Fife started to pack up. The people staffing the booths next to them encouraged the two to stay, telling them the inspectors had no right to kick them out of the neighborhood gathering. They also suggested that they give away the lemonade and accept donations instead and one of them made an announcement to the crowd to support the lemonade stand. That's when business really picked up -- and two inspectors came back, Fife said. Julie started crying, while her mother packed up and others confronted the inspectors. "It was a very big scene," Fife said.

Taxpayers vs Bureaucrats, Part XXXVII

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 grow by $800 million over the next five years, dramatically eroding the amount of money available for public services to taxpayers, according to a report issued Tuesday. In a bleak assessment delivered to members of the City Council, City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana said pensions and health benefits for current and future retirees would jump from $1.4 billion next year to at least $2.2 billion in 2015. ...By 2015, nearly 20% of the city's general fund budget is expected to go toward the retirement costs of police officers and firefighters, who now have an average retirement age of 51. The figure was 8% last year. Once civilian employees are factored in, nearly a third of the city's general fund could be consumed by retirement costs by 2015, Santana said.

Time to Shut Down the TSA?

In his Chicago Tribune column, Steve Champman suggests that the TSA's bureaucratic inefficiency does more harm than good, especially if we place any value of liberty.

Get rid of the no-fly list entirely. For that matter, get rid of the requirement that passengers provide government-approved identification just to go from one place to another. Americans have a constitutionally protected right, recognized by the Supreme Court, to travel freely. They also have the right not to be subject to unreasonable searches and other government intrusions. But in the blind pursuit of safety, we have swallowed restrictions on travel and infringements on privacy we would never tolerate elsewhere. The no-fly list is a punishment in search of a crime. As Richard Sobel, a director of the Cyber Privacy Project and a scholar at Northwestern University, points out, it inflicts a penalty without a trial or any other form of due process. The TSA doesn't say what it takes to get on the list, and it doesn't make it crystal clear how to get off. If it acts in an arbitrary or malicious way, the victim has little recourse except appealing to the agency's better angels. But the whole idea behind the list doesn't make much sense. Supposedly, we have hundreds or even thousands of U.S. residents who are too dangerous to be allowed on a plane -- but safe enough to be trusted in all sorts of other places (subway trains, sports venues, shopping malls, skyscrapers) where someone carrying a bomb or a gun could wreak havoc. If those on the list are truly dangerous, the government should arrest and prosecute them, with their guilt decided by courts. If they are not dangerous enough to arrest, they should have the same freedom to travel as everyone else. We don't prohibit all ex-convicts from flying. How can we justify barring people convicted of nothing? ...Not so many years ago, Sobel notes, you could show up without a reservation or a ticket at Washington's National Airport (now Reagan National Airport), walk onto the hourly shuttle to LaGuardia, take a seat and pay your fare in cash. No one knew who you were, and no one cared.

Taxpayers vs. Bureaucrats, Part XXXVI

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 outsiders.

Hundreds of residents of one of the poorest municipalities in Los Angeles County shouted in protest last night as tensions rose over a report that the city’s manager earns an annual salary of almost $800,000. An overflow crowd packed a City Council meeting in Bell, a mostly Hispanic city of 38,000 about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles, to call for the resignation of Mayor Oscar Hernandez and other city officials. Residents left standing outside the chamber banged on the doors and shouted “fuera,” or “get out” in Spanish. It was the first council meeting since the Los Angeles Times reported July 15 that Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo earns $787,637 -- with annual 12 percent raises -- and that Bell pays its police chief $457,000, more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck makes in a city of 3.8 million people. Bell council members earn almost $100,000 for part-time work.

Federally-Funded Job-Training Programs Don't Work

Kudos to the New York Times for actually looking at the evidence and publishing a story exposing the costly failure of job-training programs financed by the federal government. I also couldn't help but note that the Obama Administration is claiming that the programs are a success. Not because lots of people are getting jobs, but because many more people are signed up for the program. That kind of upside-down thinking is typical of Washington, where success is defined by the number of people lured into government dependency.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have enrolled in federally financed training programs in recent years, only to remain out of work. That has intensified skepticism about training as a cure for unemployment. Even before the recession created the bleakest job market in more than a quarter-century, job training was already producing disappointing results. A study conducted for the Labor Department tracking the experience of 160,000 laid-off workers in 12 states from mid-2003 to mid-2005 — a time of economic expansion — found that those who went through training wound up earning little more than those who did not, even three and four years later. “Over all, it appears possible that ultimate gains from participation are small or nonexistent,” the study concluded. ...Labor economists and work force development experts say the frustration that frequently results from job training reflects the dubious quality of many programs. Most last only a few months, providing general skills without conferring useful credentials in specialized fields. Programs rarely involve potential employers and are typically too modest to enable cast-off workers to begin new careers. Most job training is financed through the federal Workforce Investment Act, which was written in 1998 — a time when hiring was extraordinarily robust. ...The Obama administration argues that expanded job training has already delivered success. ...Last year, the number of laid-off workers in job training reached 241,000, up from about 124,000 the year before, according to the Labor Department. ...Experts harbor doubts about the reliability of Labor Department numbers, which are derived from reports by state agencies that collect data from community colleges and employment offices whose training funds are dependent upon reaching benchmarks. Twice the Labor Department had to correct the data it supplied for this article.

Washington vs. America

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 explain that the rest of the country is hurting BECAUSE Washington is thriving.

America is struggling with a sputtering economy and high unemployment — but times are booming for Washington’s governing class. The massive expansion of government under President Barack Obama has basically guaranteed a robust job market for policy professionals, regulators and contractors for years to come. The housing market, boosted by the large number of high-income earners in the area, many working in politics and government, is easily outpacing the markets in most of the country. And there are few signs of economic distress in hotels, restaurants or stores in the D.C. metro area. As a result, there is a yawning gap between the American people and D.C.’s powerful when it comes to their economic reality — and their economic perceptions. A new POLITICO poll, conducted by market research and consulting firm Penn Schoen Berland, underscores the big divide: Roughly 45 percent of "Washington elites" said the country and the economy are headed in the right direction, while roughly 25 percent of the general population said they felt that way.

Taxpayers vs. Bureaucrats, Part XXXV

Oakland politicans have created a fiscal crisis by spending too much money. This has caused strife with the police union according to a San Francisco paper. The details of the fight are not very remarkable, but I was stunned to read that the average compensation for a cop is $188,000 per year. I have plenty of sympathy for cops (at least the ones who protect life, liberty and property rather than the uniformed bureaucrats who monitor speed traps and harass pot smokers and hookers), but I am 99 percent confident that taxpayers could attract just as many competent officers at a much lower cost.

The council voted last month to lay off more than 10 percent of the police force to cope with what officials describe as an unprecedented financial crisis. The $407 million general fund budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 represents a decline of $69 million since 2005, and public safety now accounts for three-fourths of discretionary spending. With the average officer's salary and benefits totaling $188,000 a year, City Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, a union leader himself, has described the situation as "unsustainable."

Political Humor and Government Bureaucracy

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert.

Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?"

So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions, and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So They created the following positions, a time keeper, and a payroll officer, then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in operation for one Year and we are $18,000 over budget, we must cutback overall cost." So they laid off the night watchman.