According to reports out this week, the national unemployment rate has reached 8.5% – a level not seen in decades. And some are saying that this number is extremely conservative. If we factor in all the people who have given up the job search, or who have settled for a part time job when a full time job is what they need, the number is substantially higher, high enough to rival the Great Depression, in fact.
On the other hand, one sector is on a hiring spree – government. Many laid-off people are looking for government jobs, and a good number of new college graduates are looking for government work, because the government is the the only one hiring right now.
The government does things like manage, regulate, examine, and control. But they don’t do anything like build, produce, and create. In short, government jobs, while necessary to a certain extent, don’t add to the national wealth, or gross domestic product. And since the government isn’t creating wealth, how to they pay their salaries and other bills? If you’ve been paying attention, you know there aren’t too many options for coming up with this money. They can borrow it, or they can tax it.
If the government borrows the money, it will have to repay the money. The money will be repaid in the future by citizens who still pay taxes, but get less services for their tax dollars. I can’t imagine these hypothetical future citizens being too keen on paying their ancestors’ bills. I also can’t imagine future politicians selling the populace a lower level of service. Which means future repayment is unlikely, and future inflation and government bankruptcy is all but certain. Game over.
Instead of borrowing, what if the government taxes its citizens and businesses to get its operational money? In that case you and I, and the companies we work for, would have less money. We would invest less in our 401(k)s, we would make our cars last longer, we would eat out less often, we would put off home improvements. Businesses would hire fewer people, they would have smaller research and development budgets, they would maintain smaller inventories, and sell fewer products. In short, people and businesses would be creating less wealth, and less wealth for the people means less wealth to tax. Game over.
Our government is missing the point. The solution isn’t more control, it’s less control. The solution isn’t more taxes, it’s less taxes. The solution isn’t handing out bailout and stimulus money, no matter how much an individual person or business might benefit from it, it’s taking less of it from the people in the first place. The government’s job is to make the country a safe place to live and work and pursue happiness, not to micro-manage every facet of our lives. If they get that figured out, there may yet be hope for our country.
