Saturday, September 28, 2013

Correcting the Crackpot Next Door


ChuckKlosterman's little essay in the New York Times Magazine “The Ethicist” section naturally got me thinking about conservative crackpots be they Tea Party, Evangelical or just plain greedy, intolerant and angry old men who have a visceral belief that government spending is out of control and therefore it is right to hold Obama-care as hostage to the debt ceiling. Today's “Off theCharts” report of State Government spending by Floyd Norris puts that belief in question, but good luck getting that message out to those who choose to be willfully ignorant.
I have been much more optimistic about the so called anemic job creation of this current recovery because government, state government especially, has been reducing the head count considerably. The growth in employment is against this headwind which I consider very healthy as it means a reduction in the percent of government in the economy. I have been blogging about this less government good news for about a year now. “The proportion of civilian employees in each state in comparison to government jobs was 16 percent, the lowest figure since 2001” according to Norris's article so that the profligate “W” era has be erased. I don't agree with Obama-care, but it was enacted fair and square and so was the President. On the other hand this current Tea Party tantrum about the debt ceilng appears to be sour grapes.
Another interesting point in the report comes up about my fair State of Connecticut where we will be re-electing a Democrat Governor soon because the irrelevant Republican party will lead the charge against out of control State Government spending. Irrelevant because Norris's article shows that Connecticut has a 14.3 percent government to civilian employee rate, 8th lowest in the nation! The irony is that eight out of the top ten bigger state governments are GOP wacko dominated.

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