Archive for September 23rd, 2009

A new Gallup poll shows that Americans, when asked to estimate government waste, give a mean answer of 50 cents for every dollar. This is up 25 percent from 1970, when Americans thought the federal government wasted a “mere” 40 cents of every dollar. If you think about it, this answer suggests a profound cynicism about Washington DC. It’s also an expensive cynicism (Stephen Moore, in the Wall Street Journal, calculates that this means we believe the US government is wasting a solid $2 trillion annually).

Obviously, the main way the federal government raises this money is through taxes. So, given that the average American believes Uncle Sam is wasting half the money we send in, why has lower taxes not been a winning issue for Republicans of late?

The first reason, it seems to me, is that Republicans aren’t pushing this message particularly hard. Plenty of Republican politicians get plenty of benefit from this waste (see the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere phenomenon), and plenty others prefer to beat the drums of God, military, apple pie, morals, senior citizen death panels, etc. These aren’t really fiscal issues, per se.

Second, an increasingly high proportion of Americans do not pay much in taxes, personally. Indeed, the increased use of refundable tax credits has made the tax burden for many middle income families fairly small. These families include the Joe Six Pack types that Republicans are now trying to court. While we fully know that government wastes money, as long as it’s someone else’s money, that’s not so big a problem, especially if you believe the “someone else” is some moneyed fat cat spending $1.2 million to upgrade his Wall Street office as his bank is failing. The fact that it’s just as likely to be a small business owner who has personally created six jobs (and is trying to maintain that payroll in a tough economy) doesn’t really get the headlines.

But it should. I have been thinking, of late, that there really needs to be a political party billing itself as the party of job creators. What this recession is revealing is that for all the complaints about overwork, Americans are happiest when they are gainfully employed. Most jobs are created by small businesses. These small businesses and their employees (and the growing population of free agents) could be a political force.

And so, I’ve been fascinated to see a new group calling itself the Free Enterprise Nation taking out ads in major media outlets this week pointing out that various governments are taxing the private sector to provide benefits and salaries for public employees that the private sector can’t afford. Between wages and benefits, the organization claims, the average public sector worker got $119,982 in 2008, compared with the average private sector worker’s salary and benefits take of $59,909.

I’m not entirely sure who is behind these ads — if it’s an “Astroturf” movement or what — but it got my attention. We shall see if anything comes of it.