I switched back and forth today between This Week and Fox News. That is my usual practice although, without George Will, I have little interest in the This Week discussion period. The Fox regulars would seem, from the complaints of the left, to be garden variety Republicans on economics. Therefore, it is disappointing to see them mouthing the same old Washington nostrums. They seem to agree that deficits are a problem but spending is never mentioned. Not once on Fox News Sunday was cutting spending mentioned. To hear a mention of reducing spending, it was necessary to watch Jake Tapper’s interview of governor Chris Christy on This Week.
Juan Williams, nearly always to the left of the rest of the panel, brought up the old canard (of course) of Clinton era tax rates. Letting the Bush tax cuts expire was simply going back to the Clinton rates and the economy was booming. Fair enough. If that is the case, why not go back to Clinton era spending ? Why not go back to Clinton era government employee numbers ?
Let’s see. The 1999 data is here, and shows that the 1999 budget included:
A more realistic headcount begins with the 1.9 million full-time permanent civilian federal workers who get their paychecks and identification cards from Uncle Sam. Add in the 1.5 million uniformed military personnel and 850,000 U.S. Postal Service workers who were counted in the federal workforce until their department became a quasi-government corporation in 1970, and the total full-time permanent federal workforce was just under 4.3 million in 1996, the last year for which good numbers are available on both the visible and shadow federal workforce.
That should give us a fairly good comparison. How many civilian federal employees are there ? The bureau of labor statistics says 2.0 million. There is a number that would give us some real information.
Table 1. Federal Government civilian employment, except U.S. Postal Service, November 2008
(Employment in thousands)
United States Total Executive departments Defense, total Army
1,909 1,664 652 244
Notice that this is November 2008 data, just before Obama was elected. Notice also that the military is much smaller than in 1998. Notice also that the number of federal employees had only increased by 9,000 in ten years.
What happened after Obama was elected ? Well, the number of federal employees has gone to 2.15 million !. That’s an increase of 250,000 in two years.
Juan, let’s make a deal. We can go back to Clinton tax rates if we lay off 250,000 federal employees.
The Washington line is always to raise taxes to deal with deficits. I wish a well documented, well written book about Harding and Coolidge would be written. Maybe Amity Schlaes could do it. The 1920 recession was more severe than the 1929 contraction. Why don’t we hear about it ?
Because Harding and Coolidge cut government spending in half and advocated a “return to normalcy.” The economy boomed and the recession was over.
In addition to what you’ve written, the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation has another good summary of the “return to Normalcy” and its impact on the economy.
That is an excellent piece and I put a link to it. Thanks.
I wish somebody like Amity Schlaes would write a book about Harding and Coolidge and the depression of 1920.
Aren’t they going to put a freeze on spending anyway? I thought that was part and parcel of the “stimulus package”?
Maybe you should do some research and tell us where that part is.