TheAgitator.com
They Should Call the Town “Public Choice, West Virginia”
Friday, November 13th, 2009If you’ve ever asked a lefty friend why, if he’s so fond of higher taxes and bigger government, he doesn’t pay the government above and beyond what he owes in taxes, Reuters tracks down the place where you can tell your friend to send a check. Parkersburg, West Virginia is home to the Bureau of Public Debt, where a “couple thousand” workers’ jobs exist thanks to the federal government continuing to spend more than it collects.
Surprisingly, the office collected more than $3 million in voluntary contributions last year. Not so surprising is how it came to be located in West Virginia:
Parkersburg Mayor Bob Newell said having the public debt office there meant a couple thousand good-paying jobs, helping to insulate the city from the heavy manufacturing job losses suffered in nearby Ohio and surrounding areas.
He credits Senator Robert Byrd, who was elected to an unprecedented ninth term in 2006, with bringing the debt office to Parkersburg more than 30 years ago.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Parkersburg will be facing a rash of unemployment anytime soon.
I was with you up until that last sentence.
First of all, although paying taxes in the US is clearly not voluntary, paying more than your share is.
Second, the unemployment rate in WVA is–well, you probably know that better than I do. Suffice to say it’s high.
Granted, it’s a Federal jobs program. But if some business other than a coal company wants to come in and hire these folks, I’ll be the first to applaud.
Negative karma commences in 5…4…3…2…1….
At least, not until the US Government defaults.
Hey, if this place collected more than $3 Billion in unowed money last year, I think they have paid for themselves for at least a few years. I mean, their costs can’t be THAT high, even for a government agency.
I’m not sure the mayor has the right numbers.
How on earth does something like that employ a couple of thousand people?
I did a quick google maps search for the office and it does not appear that office building could hold a couple of thousand people.
What is this, some kind of sick joke? This is like making the minimum monthly payment on a maxed-out credit card and then going out and charging 20 million times what you just paid on it.
Nando, even if it was $3 billion a year, it would still be just a drop in the ocean. It’s only $3 million, and that was the best year since 1996. With a couple thousand workers, $3 million isn’t going to go far at all.
The estimated population of the United States is 307,280,101
so each citizen’s share of this debt is $39,044.83.
Actually, if you are low income, or retired, or disabled, then you’re share of the debt is essentially zero. I calculate my share of the debt as approximately $200,000. Ouch.
Switched to bing/maps and it does appear to be a pretty large building that could probably hold a couple of thousand. Is the entire building for that one office?
My lefty friends like to laugh at libertarians and then ask whether they’d like the Army and courts to be funded off donations.
And then they realize that libertarians are generally unserious anyway – when faced with real practical coordinated action problems, they would rather pretend like those problems don’t exist, and substitute snark for reason – so the conversation just isn’t worth having in the first place.
To clarify some of the other comments, collecting people’s contributions is just PART of the job of the bureau of public debt, there are a lot of other chores to do too. Thus, 1000’s of jobs.
“paying taxes in the US is clearly not voluntary”
Go ask Harry Reid. He said the opposite.
A lot of the things that we libertarians talk about are problems that don’t exist. Marijuana, for example, is a problem that doesn’t exist. It’s made up by the government. (That’s not saying pot can’t be harmful, just isn’t to the vast majority of people, and throwing them in jail isn’t the answer).
You have to look at the fact that we have added vastly more criminal offenses since the start of the country, and there is need for *some* of that. For instance, we now have electronics, phones, all these other things which people may use for nefarious purposes.
But people have been smoking weed since before the country was founded. They will still smoke it long after this country is forgotten. There’s no reason to make it illegal.
I’m using a single simple example. There are countless others. When you realize “there are no solutions, only tradeoffs”, you start to understand that, from a governmental standpoint at least, “doing nothing” is the best option.
So does $3Million/year even cover the cost of employing the thousands of government workers necessary to run the program or could the federal government actually save money by NOT accepting donations? Even the US federal government cannot be so inefficient that it takes thousands to handle $3Million/year but I can easily see them needing 100, which at $30,000/ employee (about 10% of the real cost of a federal employee) would break even. It looks on it’s face like this is a big waste of taxpayer dollars and the government could save money by not having the program but I’ll reserve final judgment until someone actually breaks out the numbers on how much the program actually costs.
Lee
“How on earth does something like that employ a couple of thousand people?”
Actually, there is a fair bit of work to administering debt. Large, billion-dollar corporations often employ dozens, if not hundreds, or people to do so.
Administering a $10T debt, divided into hundreds of T-Bill tranches, bond issues, loan guarantees, etc and held by tens of millions of note holders takes a hell of a lot of paperwork. (Yes, the Chinese and Japanese hold huge sums, but there are still innumberable small holders.)
Although this is a Robert Byrd pork project, it is still necessary. (In the sense that, if you are in debt, you have to administer the debt.) And I suspect the office space costs less in Parkersburg than it would in DC.
I’m sorry, are you actively cheering higher unemployment in a place decimated by the market? Most of the time, you’d expect libertarians, while cheering the market’s function, to at least be sympathetic to its victims, who aren’t personally at fault for the collapse of particular economies. Are you actually hoping that more people become unemployed?
If you’ve ever asked a lefty friend why, if he’s so fond of higher taxes and bigger government, he doesn’t pay the government above and beyond what he owes in taxes
Good grief. Is there some quota of liberal-baiting you have to maintain to keep your job at Reason?
The debt created these jobs, but these people pay taxes, which will eventually pay off the debt. Problem solved.
In fact, the greater the debt, the more people will be hired, thereby paying off the debt even faster.
Dave K
With logic like that, you can get yourself a job as a Congressional aide any day.
Sam # 14
I do not wish anyone unemployment. I wish people meaningful jobs doing productive work that provides an addition to the economy.
Unfortunately, the jobs in Parkersburg are a by-product of a process that is helping to destroy the economy and productive, meaningful jobs everywhere.
Hell Obama’s folks don’t erven pay what they owe. But then they’d rather use OPM (opium).
Dominus providebit!
I don’t know about Radley, but I am. There’s nothing I love more than seeing people suffer. I yearn for the day the saintly capitalists start offering the families of the people they laid off (to produce air jordans 2.4% cheaper in China) 2 torn blankets to broadcast their suffering pay-per-view.
“At least, not until the US Government defaults.”
They won’t.
@Aresen
“I do not wish anyone unemployment. I wish people meaningful jobs doing productive work that provides an addition to the economy.”
Even in a libertarian lala land of pure capitalism, there will be unemployment. And in the wonderful boom/bust cycle that capitalism creates, there will be even higher unemployment. So if you endorse capitalism, you endorse people being involuntarily unemployed.
It takes money to lose money. When you don’t have anymore money to lose, you just print more of it. Then hire 2,000 more people to administer the ongoing losing of money.
Honestly, if the gov’t is going to be as big as it is anyways, it would be a good idea to spread more of the offices out into areas with cheaper land and labor. I imagine the cost of creating and running the Bureau of Public Debt around DC would be much higher.
Aresen,
I’m glad that you wish for meaningful jobs…but what if jobs you deem meaningful simply aren’t available, as they aren’t in places like Parkersburg. What then?
“I’m glad that you wish for meaningful jobs…but what if jobs you deem meaningful simply aren’t available, as they aren’t in places like Parkersburg. What then?”
Them and their families rot in the streets, because unemployment insurance is a redistribution of wealth.
I am absolutely hoping that many, many, many federal government workers become unemployed.
Yes. Without question. And lots of state workers, for that matter.
I’d be okay if the entire staff of the Depts. of Commerce, Labor, Energy, and Education were to become unemployed tomorrow.
Given the quality of your contributions to this site, Steve C, I’d be fine if you adopted their approach.
And by endorsing life, one endorses death, right?
No, it’s because we like to see people suffer. Preferably on pay-per-view.
We don’t actually believe in any of this freedom crap. We simply delight in the suffering of others, and talking up the merits of freedom is the best way to do that without appearing to be the psychopathic monsters that we actually are.
If they aren’t meaningful, I don’t even like referring to them as jobs. They should be called what they are: welfare.
And lets not forget that meaningless jobs are paid for with money taken out of the economy, thereby throwing people out of a meaningful jobs.
Those thousands of jobs, they are counted the same way as stimulus jobs……………….right?
Cleaving,
Government creates boom and bust cycles. Quit applying government failure to capitalism. Get over yourself. You aren’t changing any minds here. You’re just reinforcing every negative stereotype about the left side of the political spectrum. You just keep regurgitating the same misconceptions about libertarianism and the free market in every post. You aren’t doing yourself any favors.
There’s nothing wrong with insurance. And there’s nothing wrong with the concept of unemployment insurance. It’s only redistribution of wealth when the participants are forced to buy into it. If it were a good thing, you wouldn’t need to force people into the program. You don’t have to force people to do something that is plainly beneficial to them. The force is required because they want the biggest contributors to be those who need it the least(ie: those wealthy enough not to need unemployment insurance). That’s redistribution of wealth, not insurance.
It’s not nearly so galling that people want redistribution of wealth, but that they insist on deceptively calling it something else. If they’re greedy for someone else’s money, I’d have a lot more respect for them if they were at least honest about it (like, for example, most petty crooks).
While nobody wishes unemployment on these folks in Parkersburg, the bottom line is that to fund those positions, the same number of jobs – *at least* the same number of jobs – have been taxed out of existence around the country to finance those jobs.
The government does not create wealth, and as such cannot create jobs. It can only shuffle them around, and the worst part is that the jobs that don’t exist because of these people most likely would create wealth and lead to ever more economic prosperity.
Michael,
Very clearly, there are people wishing unemployment on these folks in Parkersburg.
Reality sucks, doesn’t it? Not everyone can be saved, have full employment, health “insurance”, a house, 2 SUVs, a 50″ TV, 3 dogs, etc. Reality dictates that not everyone can, wants to, and should be able to afford what their neighbor has. A horrible alternative is a planned and controlled economy, such as what a fully socialist government and people brings, unlike the mixed capitalism/socialism that exists in USA.
And you, Sam, are equivalently wishing unemployment on even more people elsewhere. (”Even more”, because, as these are not jobs that add value – indeed, they actually subtract value – the total wealth of the country must actually decrease, leading to a net overall decrease in the number of actual jobs.)
I suggest you read Bastiat. His essay on the “Negative Railway” is a classic reductio ad absurdum on the notion of government created jobs.
@Matto:
“Government creates boom and bust cycles. Quit applying government failure to capitalism.”
Ahhh, the classic libertarian fallback – blame the government for everything. It really makes arguing easier! Capitalism is not at fault for one thing, nadda. It’s crazy, if capitalism creates fairys, unicorns, and a utopia of milk and honey for everyone, you’d wonder why it’s not applied everywhere, all over the world. But no worries, just put your fingers in your ears and cry socialism every time Obama speaks.
US Treasury FAQ about the “public debt” — because your existence means you’re fiscally responsible for the shit that these crooked banksters and politicians are fleecing the public with:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/resources/faq/faq_publicdebt.htm
And at the bottom: How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt?
Who in their RIGHT FUCKING MIND would buy this propaganda nonsense about the debt belonging to the public (meaning everyone)?
Just because we blame the government for (almost) everything, doesn’t make it not true.
| cleavingSpace | November 13th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
If you are going to erect a straw man, allow me to burn it for you:
Capitalism does not guarantee employment and people do suffer bad consequences of corporate decisions or economic changes. Horse breeders suffered loss of employment when the automobile took over. The whaling industry collapsed with the growth of the petroleum industry. And mining industry towns have a life span that is limited to the the productive life of the mines. (This last was true even in ancient times.) I will not pretend that there are no bad things under capitalism. However, you (and Sam) pretend that the government can prevent these bad things without causing worse things elsewhere, which is utter bullshit.
What capitalism has done is fantastically expand the range of opportunities open to individuals while raising the modal standard of living for the entire population. This cannot be said of any government program.
How about everyone donate a Zimbabwe Trillion Dollar Note to offset the public debt?
http://cgi.ebay.com/100-TRILLION-ZIMBABWE-DOLLAR-CURRENCY-MONEY-BANK-NOTE_W0QQitemZ290354273458QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPaper_Money?hash=item439a769cb2
The dollar has to fall to parity with Zimbabwean currency first.
.
.
.
Shouldn’t take too long.
It’s like the current Republican platform.
1. We hate deficits.
2. We vow to protect your medicare from Obama’s health care reform.
3. We want to cut your taxes.
All these things are contradictory.
The lefty’s statement mocked: “let’s raise taxes to pay for services” makes sense. You can argue with the merits, but at least its rational.
So no matter how bad the Democratic party might get, they are the only ones advocating rationality.
Aresen,
You’re working from economic theories you’re personally sympathetic to, not established facts. You don’t, and can’t, know for certain that more jobs would be available in places like Parkersburg just because some author (like Bastiat) said so.
Seems to me that the “couple thousand” may not all be working for that department.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of them worked at stores, some at restaurants, perhaps a few in healthcare, a couple of police officers, maybe a fireman or two, etc.
Sam
I do not know which economic theories you rely on, but even Marx and Engels admitted the productivity of capitalism. The preferred economist of the left, Lord Keynes, advocated government control of the money supply with an inflationary bias to stimulate the economy.
But no economist on the planet seriously suggests that governments create employment in the long run.
If you want an experiment on the relative efficacy of government-run economies, I would suggest you compare the experiences between 1948 and 1998 of India – with a vast initial insfrastructure, resource and capital base coupled with an interventionist, fabian socialist government and high taxes – and Hong Kong – with almost no resources, infrastructure or capital but low taxes and a laissez-faire government. India finally threw out the Congress party and started reforms in the 1990s, since which time their economy has begun to grow at a rapid pace, but they are still far behind Hong Kong.
Sure it’s a payback make-work program. I have no problem with this. At least it’s putting Americans to work. Plus, it’s fucking West Virgina. What the hell else are those folks supposed to do there?
Yeah, it’s a net drain but compared to all the other shit the govt’ wastes money on no one could seriously bitch about this and others like it.
Aresen,
“In the long run” arguments are cheap. Everybody can preface whatever their prediction is by saying, “In the long run” and have an out. What about the short term? Is it your contention that were these jobs not in Parkersburg, something else would be? You can’t KNOW that. You can claim it, and you can point to other people who can claim it, but you can’t accurately predict the future. Nobody can.
Radley, some of the department of commerce is quite necessary (and VERY constitutional). Two of the biggest divisions of commerce are the Patent and Trademark office and the Census Bureau, both of which are specifically enumerated in the constitution. Even a very libertarian government would probably not abolish these offices. And NOAA would probably be folded into the US military instead of being fired, as they’d still need good weather info.
” If it were a good thing, you wouldn’t need to force people into the program. You don’t have to force people to do something that is plainly beneficial to them.”
And that’s why the US savings rate is so high, right?