What is the most worthless "Government Job"?

The person who does sewage treatment is just as important as the commissioner who overseas the budget. The commissioner who oversees the budget is just as important as the guy who cleans the roads in the snow. The guy who cleans the roads in the snow is just as important as the clerical worker who enters invoices to be paid. Of course every supervisor feels they are necessary, as someone has to oversee the workers. Who determines who’s important and who’s not?

Sounds good. But who would rate the jobs? Just considering your question, I came up with some astounding facts. Approximately 2.15 million federal employees. Some 3,809,697 state employees. Another 10,965,982 local government employees. That’s about 16 million government jobs to select from. The US population, according to the 2010 census was 310 million people.

http://www.usa.gov/directory/federal/index.shtml

http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/10stus.txt

http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/10locus.txt

The thing about government jobs (government worker here) is that during times of prosperity (say the 1990’s) nobody wanted a government job. Everyone wanted a Wall Street job or job in the private sector, where people were getting huge bonuses and raises. People who wanted government jobs were people who just wanted some security, and pension and benefits. Now that times are tough economically, people are looking at government workers like we’re greedy. For the most part, government workers make less than people in the private sector. A legal secretary in the county I work in makes about $45,000 plus benefits. In the private sector, a legal secretary might make (in the rich county I work in, maybe not all over the country, mind you) $75,000. Quite a difference.

What is the most worthless polemic against government workers? Try live in a country with defunct governments and defunct public administration. Then move back to the US. It will change your perspective. Your rating of government jobs will be different.

How about the most worthless investment banking jobs? How does receiving a $5 million bonus serve the common good? Increase the welfare of communities? Help thousands live a better life?

We need to expose the anti-government propaganda, if we are committed to creating better societies.

IRS.

Matt, I don’t think it is anti-government propaganda to question government jobs and waste or benefit of my tax dollars.

I think @mattbrowne ‘s point is a good one. We may need to look at government waste and eliminate it but demonizing lowly government workers and teachers when it is fat cat bankers who have impoverished this country is ridiculous. Follow the money – whose needs are being served by an attack on government workers?

I didn’t take the question as attacking government workers, @janbb.

@bkcunningham – I know you didn’t. But some people do. And they need to understand the benefits of having good government jobs and well-organized administration. And try to see this thread through the eyes of a Jelly who works for a government. They deserve our appreciation. This whole cut government spending debate is getting out of hand in my opinion. It distracts us from the real problems. And a major one is the world’s financial system. It doesn’t serve the real economy and the majority of the people anymore.

The real problem is not that some jobs are less important than others but more a duplication problem. If you have multiple agencies doing the same things, there is waste a duplication of efforts. We have 50 different agencies that provide scolarships. All have their own rules and all have their own sytem. We have education controlled at the Federal, State and Local levels. All creating thier own rules and administration. Some times conflicting and most duplicating the efforts.

It’s not so much that some government employees are worthless as it is the process needs to be steamlined and efficient. Obama has brought this up and noted that 12 different agencies deal with international trade. He has said he wants to streamline government processes and reduce this duplication. I applaud the effort if and when anything actually gets done.

@Jaxk, ...“the federal government has paid nearly $1 billion to at least 250,000 dead people since 2000.”... Wow.

Member of the House of Representatives.

@bkcunningham

I suppose it would be in our best interest to let go the people that wrote those checks. It’s better than firing the sewage disposal worker just because it’s a shit job.

I bet it would be interesting to follow the entire process of how the checks were cut, @Jaxk. It may give a better understanding of how the process got so out of hand or inefficient in the first place.

@bkcunningham

The problem is in the process. In government their is little incentive to ‘rock the boat’. If you do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut, you’ve got a job for life. If you try and change the system, you will create a shitstorm. Better to just keep writing the checks, you won’t get into any trouble that way.

Here in Britainniasberg, any opposing party to the sitting government has “shadow” positions within their ranks. I think by definition, all of these posts could be considered worthless.

Right now, I would say Senator :/

Here’s one from the report, @Jaxk,—Medicare paid as much as $92 million in claims for medical supplies prescribed by dead doctors…

Did officials followup with this report and seek prosecution of those who filed the bogus claims and take Medicare officials recommendations to do monthly cross check with claims and US death records?

@bkcunningham

My guess is that they just hired another clerk to handle the increase in medical claims.

*cough ATF *cough

An alleged $92 million spread over a decade is peanuts compared to the organized crime of Medicare fraud committed by the families of Republican Senator Bill Frist and :Republican Gov. Rick Scott of Florida.

Combined. they stole over $2 billion from taxpayers.

Conservatives punished them by…voting for them.

Best to persecute the evil, evil janitors. How dare they clean toilets and empty trash cans on the public dime! Fiends!

I think fraud in any form should be punished when it harms people’s lives, @jaytkay. I’ve seen Medicaid fraud in person. Have you ever seen a Medicaid Taxi? How about a Lincoln Continental Medicaid Taxi? I can drive you to the doctor’s office, pharmacy, dentist, anywhere you need to go, and bill everyone else. People made millions. Not big bankers or Wall Street brokers, normal everyday people who played the system.

@bkcunningham Prominent Republicans have stolen billions.

And a billion is exactly one thousand million. No kidding. You can look it up. Take your time.

What you allege is orders of magnitude less than the organized fraud I linked to. You are comparing mosquitoes to elephants.

Uh, okay, @jaytkay. Some Republicans are thieves. Now, what does that solve?

I’m with Jax

@bkcunningham I am pointing out that persecuting janitors for emptying wastebaskets and cleaning toilets on the Federal dime is a distraction.

If Republicans are concerned about the budget, refraining from looting the Treasury would be their best contribution.

@Jaxk I have to agree; that is how they roll. The irony is that high unemployment has created jobs for exactly that reason. (Not enough to replace all the jobs that were lost, of course, but every bit helps.)

@bkcunningham It doesn’t solve anything on it’s own, but look at it like this; until people on both sides are willing to admit that they are not 250% correct and the only source of all good ideas, we will never solve anything.
Now, you complain about $92M in what you call theft thanks to a policy by a Democrat but overlook $2B of explicit fraud committed directly/blatantly by only two Republicans. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t see where the problem is there.
Also note that prosecuting each of those little cases may cost more than the actual amount of alleged fraud. Is that efficient use of taxpayer money? How many of my dollars are you going to waste?

How many dollars are we wasting now, @jerv? How silly an agrument. I think any amount of savings is crucial. I am not willing to overlook fraud and stealing because it isn’t a big enough crime. Are you serious?

There are many government positions that have zero duties and are created to reward people who help out on campaigns or have some sort of in with the officials. They include regular salaries and benefits, but no actual work.

That is sad, but true @YARNLADY.

…Addition: Unless you are the recepiant of the job in time of need.

There are many government positions that have zero duties and are created to reward people who help out on campaigns

How many jobs and how many dollars? Is this a significant problem?

What is your definition of a significant problem?

Keep dodging, @bkcunningham,. keep dodging.

Pretending that some giant problem is not worth scrutiny because some tiny problem exists is dishonest. At best.

@jaytkay I would estimate there are under 1,000 jobs that fall into this category at any given time, at an estimated salary rate of $100,000 a year. This is strictly an off the top of my head estimate based on several different news stories I have read over the years.

@bkcunningham So… you are the type of person who would spend $10 to save $5?

Tell you what; figure out a way to reduce court costs and prison costs (mere fines won’t be enough to stop the problem; they need a few years of being sodomized by a cellmate to serve as a deterrent.) and I think we might find a middle ground. Otherwise, you are merely being idealistic at best.