We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

Say it with me now, U-N-S-U-S-T-A-I-N-A-B-L-E.


OPINION APRIL 1, 2011

We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers

More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined..


By STEPHEN MOORE

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida's ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York's.



Stephen Moore: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers - WSJ.com

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

NAFTA was a terrible piece of legislation, and our failure to do as European countries do to protect the jobs of manufacturing workers is just another example of how corporate America has so effectively co-opted both parties, and now with the Tea Party fools doing their bidding things are likely to get worse before they get better. The Tea Party has absolutely nothing in their idea to bring a return of manufacturing, except by lowering wages, taking away rights of workers, revoking child labor laws (such as some Republicans in Maine are trying to do), and not caring about worker safety.

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

In 1960 there were 130000000 less people than there are today. We weren't just emerging from the worst recession since the depression and we'd yet to experience rhe last fifty years worth of productivity gains.

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

In the 90's I noticed that we were morphing into a service economy, and the trend was moving away from Manufacturing and towards taking care of rich folks needs... not much has changed, except it has gotten more obvious.

Would like to see how many of the government jobs are connected to the DOD and all of the war profiteers... that might be significant.

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

Government is overhead, necessary but should be kept as small as possible. The bloated government/overhead is strangling the ability of the economy to create wealth through private enterprise.

All the money the government is borrowing is cutting off capital for productive private enterprise.

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

Particularly the DOD and Department of Homeland Security... they have both become much bigger, much more expensive than they need to be.. fraud is an accepted value on any contract. Imagine???

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

Even if you assume that every Federal worker is somehow involved with Homeland Security or the DOD they are still outnumbered by all of the state and local government workers by about six to one.

Federal government workers in 2009: 2,527,149 (full-time)
http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/09fedfun.pdf

State government workers in 2009: 3,836,544 (full-time)

http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/09stus.txt

Local government workers in 2009: 11,114,889 (full-time)
http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/09locus.txt

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

True...especially the bolded part.:rocker:

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

So, does it surprise you that lately we've witnessed people "Taking sh1t back from all the gov't takers"? Other than politicians and "essential gov't workers", why, how and when did we suddenly decide so many jobs need to be in the public sector?

In other words, why weren't all these gov't jobs created in the private sector?

Because when you get right down to it (and here comes THE KEY to all this), what our gov't did was create a self-sustaining machine where those that work for the gov't will support those who support them. And if the numbers you posted

"More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities COMBINED..."

are true, then the rest of us are pharked!:rolleyes:

Re: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
 

That's true for other departments as well.