The Problem With Government Employees

(Disclaimer: My fiancee' is a state employee and I whole heartedly believe that the public sector serves an important role in our society.)

The problem with government employees is, very simply, the amount of taxes from the private sector that it takes to pay their salary and benefits.

Here's an idea that I'd wager very few people - and even fewer Democrats, specifically - have had occur to them. Government employees Don't pay taxes.

Yep. Let that one sink in a little.

How can you pay taxes when you're already being payed with taxpayer money? There's a line on your pay stub every pay cycle that shows Federal, State (unless you live in FL, TN, TX, et al), FICA, etc.. But, the truth of the matter is, whichever government entity it is that you're working for simply withholds a portion of taxpayer money from your check and disperses it to the appropriate Fed/State agency.

Through this prism, the notion that the President floated last week about the problem with the economy being the lack of public sector employees should seem even more ridiculous.

I posed this question four years ago, after the stimulus bill was passed: What happens when the money runs out? Granted, this question assumed that there were actually shovel ready jobs to be had, and that the stimulus wasn't just a slush fund used to keep the UAW and other union dues-paying employees employed. Eventually the government runs out of other people's money, be it U.S. taxpayer's, or China's. Then what?

Government employees will always be faced with the consequences (teachers being forced to take furloughs) of a faltering economy. Before we can worry about how to keep government employees working, we must first focus on the private sector. Simply, expanding the private sector is the only way to keep the public sector.