Jeff Jacoby has a great column in today’s Boston Globe that points out one of the glaring problems with government today.
He notes that, at a time when unemployment has hit the ten percent mark, the federal government has been adding more than 10,000 jobs a month, and the number of federal employees making more than $100,000 has jumped 14 percent. He also says that public employee pension costs are starting to skyrocket and to take a real bite out of state budgets.
Massachusetts is no exception to this trend. A recent study by the Pioneer Institute showed that our state government added 7,500 positions to its payroll from 2004 to 2009. According to their analysis, about 6,400 of these positions are unsustainable because they don’t provide direct assistance to vulnerable populations in our state.
Meanwhile, there have been several recent stories pointing to growth of public employee salaries here. Take, for example, this story that “consolidation” of state transportation agencies actually led to the creation of 11 new public relations positions for a total of more than $800,000 a year. And our public pension system costs us millions of dollars a year to run.
Jacoby points out in his column that this trend is testing taxpayer patience nationwide. I think he’s right, and it’s time for something to change. We simply can’t afford the sort of government that spends money like this on itself.
What do you think?
