We Have Become a Welfare Nation, We Dont Make Things Anymore

It is really sad that there are more Americans settling to work for the comforts within the government than to work for the private sector in producing goods and services. This is why many states are going into bankruptcy. The government takes the tax payers money to pay these civil servants. The more the government grows the higher our taxes are needed to be levied to pay the government employee.

(WSJ) If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Don't expect a reversal of this trend anytime soon. Surveys of college graduates are finding that more and more of our top minds want to work for the government. Why? Because in recent years only government agencies have been hiring, and because the offer of near lifetime security is highly valued in these times of economic turbulence. When 23-year-olds aren't willing to take career risks, we have a real problem on our hands. Sadly, we could end up with a generation of Americans who want to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Omnibus Spending Bill is 1924 pages with 6488 Earmarks Total 1.1 Trillion Dollars

Washington, D.C. ­– U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) delivered the following statement today on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

“Mr. President, at 12:15 p.m. this afternoon, my office received a copy of the omnibus appropriations bill. It is 1,924 pages long and contains the funding for all 12 of the annual appropriations bills for a grand total of over $1.1 Trillion. It is important to note that the 1,924 pages is only the legislative language and does not include the thousands of pages of report language which contain the details of the billions of dollars in earmarks and, I’m sure, countless policy riders.

“While we continue to uncover which earmarks the appropriators decided to fund – thanks to a new online database – we at least know what earmarks were requested by Members and how much those projects would cost the American people if they were all funded. Taxpayers against Earmarks, www.washingtonwatch.com and Taxpayers for Common Sense joined forces to create this database. According to the data they compiled – for fiscal year 2011 Members requested over 39,000 earmarks totaling over $130 billion. Absolutely disgraceful. I encourage every American to go to the website www.endingspending.com study it, and make yourselves aware of how your elected officials seek to spend your money.

“In the short time I’ve had to review this massive piece of legislation – I’ve identified approximately 6,488 earmarks totaling nearly $8.3 billion. Here is a small sample:

$277,000 for potato pest management in Wisconsin
$246,000 for bovine tuberculosis in Michigan and Minnesota
$522,000 for cranberry and blueberry disease and breeding in New Jersey
$500,000 for oyster safety in Florida
$349,000 for swine waste management in North Carolina
$413,000 for peanut research in Alabama
$247,000 for virus free wine grapes in Washington
$208,000 beaver management in North Carolina
$94,000 for blackbird management in Louisiana
$165,000 for maple syrup research in Vermont
$235,000 for noxious weed management in Nevada
$100,000 for the Edgar Allen Poe Cottage Visitor’s Center in New York
$300,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii
$400,000 for solar parking canopies and plug-in electric stations in Kansas

“Additionally, the bill earmarks $727,000 to compensate ranchers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan whenever endangered wolves eat their cattle. As my colleagues know, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Gray Wolf program is under intense scrutiny for wasting millions of taxpayer dollars every year to ‘recover’ endangered wolves that are now overpopulating the West and Midwest. My State of Arizona has a similar wolf program but ranchers in my state aren’t getting $727,000 in this bill.

“Mr. President, I will have much more to say about this bill later this week. I assure my colleagues – we will spend a great deal of time talking about this bill and the outrageous number of earmarks it contains. But for now let me just say this: it is December 14th – we are 22 days away from the beginning of a new Congress and nearly three full months into fiscal year 2011 – and yet we have not debated a single spending bill or considered any amendments to cut costs or get our debt under control. Furthermore, the majority decided that they just didn’t feel like doing a budget this year. How is that responsible leadership?

“This is the ninth omnibus appropriations bill we have considered in this body since 2000. That is shameful and we should be embarrassed by the fact that we care so little about doing the people’s business that we continuously put off fulfilling our constitutional responsibilities until the very last minute.

“One thing is abundantly clear to me – that the majority has not learned the lessons of last month’s election. The American people could not have been more clear. They are tired of wasteful spending. They are tired of big government. They are tired of sweetheart deals for special interests. They are tired of business as usual in Washington. And they are tired of massive bills – just like this one - put together behind closed doors, and rammed through the Congress at the last moment so that no one has the opportunity to read them and no one really knows what kind of waste is in them.

“Let me be clear about one thing – if the Majority Leader insists on proceeding to this monstrosity - the American people will know what’s in it. I will be joined by many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle to ensure that every single word of this bill is read aloud here on the Senate floor.

“I encourage my friends on the other side of the aisle to rethink their strategy and move forward with a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government into next year when a new Congress takes over – a Congress that was elected by the American people on November 2nd. “The majority may be able to strong arm enough members into voting for this omnibus – but they will not win in the end. The American people will remember – and I predict that we will see a repeat of November 2nd in the very near future.”