Must we pay tribute to D.C.?

There was a time when government “of the people, by the people and for the people” was a saying that seemed true about our United States, but that is simply no longer the case regarding Imperial Washington and its relationship with the private sector in the distant provinces.

A recent report from MSN Money identified the 15 richest counties out of the country’s 3,033 counties, and lo and behold, 10 of them are in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. All 15 of the counties identified have median household incomes that are more than double the national average household income of $49,445.

This can largely be attributed to the thousands of handsomely compensated bureaucrats living in the Beltway Bubble, but not entirely. It can also be attributed to the contractors, consultants and lawyers who have secured a fixed place at the federal trough.

How has it come to this? Through a relentless ratchet effect that has remorselessly grown government, no matter which party is in power, to a point where the federal government now spends about $4 billion a day more than it takes in.

This simply cannot continue. It should be plain as day that Wasington doesn’t need more revenue, it needs to spend less. Yet, the only serious proposals for doing so, from the president’s Simpson-Bowles commission and from Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, have been ignored by a political class that is amazingly out-of-touch and insulated from the rest of the nation. Why should the denizens of the Beltway do anything to change course when their livelihoods are derived from compulsory taxation?

The conservative Cato Institute did an analysis finding that in 2008, average compensation in pay and benefits for federal civilian workers was $119,900 annually, compared to the private industry annual average of $59,900.

According to a report from the Heritage Foundation about a year ago, the private work force had shed 7.5 million jobs, shrinking by just over 6.6 percent, since the beginning of the recession at the end of 2007. During the same period, the federal work force grew by 11.7 percent, adding 230,000 jobs.

Parts of the federal work force have indeed shrunk over the years. The Flathead National Forest, for instance, has far fewer employees than it did just 20 years ago. But the collective federal work force has defied prominent trends that have driven the private sector for decades.

Consider how technology, automation and vastly improved communications have downsized just about every industry in the private sector, yet the federal government is bigger and costlier than it has ever been.

We have to ask, who works for whom? If these trends continue, the answer will be obvious to anyone forced to pay tribute to Imperial Washington.