This story from Drudge the other day caught my attention:
More than 3 percent of the 2.8 million federal civilian employees owed the Treasury unpaid federal income taxes in 2008, according to the IRS. If you include retirees and military service members, the numbers go from nearly 100,000 up to 276,000 current or former workers who owe $3 billion in taxes.
The problem here is that federal employees pay no income tax. As Murray Rothbard observed:
If a bureaucrat receives a salary of $5,000 a year and pays $1,000 in "taxes" to the government, it is quite obvious that he is simply receiving a salary of $4,000 and pays no taxes at all. The heads of the government have simply chosen a complex and misleading accounting device to make it appear that he pays taxes in the same way as any other men making the same income. The UN’s arrangement, whereby all its employees are exempt from any income taxation, is far more candid. - Man, Economy and State with Power and Market, pp. 1151-2
There are other problems with federal employees, such as that they make more money than productive private sector employees, and that, when not completely worthless, they actually inhibit production by insisting that the private sector participate in an Olympics of bureaucratic games in order to provide goods and services to consumers.
Anything which draws attention to the bloated government sector can't be all bad, but the focus on unpaid taxes rather misses the point.
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3 comments:
...such as that they [federal employees] make more money than productive private sector employees.
As one who has worked in the private sector nearly my entire career, I have to laugh at your naive assumption that private outfits are efficient and productive. Of course, if you think that government serves no useful purpose, then you might have a point, but then, a lot of things you take for granted wouldn't exist.
As one who has worked in the private sector nearly my entire career, I have to laugh at your naive assumption that private outfits are efficient and productive.
I should have said comparatively productive. I'm working in the private sector as well, and I wouldn't say we're setting records in productivity. But we're writing working software, so that's something.
Of course, if you think that government serves no useful purpose, then you might have a point, but then, a lot of things you take for granted wouldn't exist.
Roads, parks, wars in the Middle East, bailouts for bankers. 'Tis a very mixed bag.
'Tis a very mixed bag.
Okay, at leat you grant it's mixed.
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