Guess Who's Hiring!

I agree with the argument that in order to do something about our deficit we will have to touch entitlements. But there will also have to be something done on the discretionary part of the budget where most of our hiring is done. It is odd that in these times of supposed belt-tightening there are so many examples of what would seem to be superfluous jobs on offer.

One point that the article makes in the favor of federal workers is that they are not over-paid when one considers the amount of responsibility that have. But that point is not so decisive as it seems. It is true they oversee huge departments and are responsible for larger budgets and more people than equivalently paid people in the private sector, but I am not sure that being responsible for budgets and people in the government is really the same thing as it is in the private sector. In the private sector being responsible for people means deciding who to fire, being responsible for budgets means being able to lose money or possibly go out of business. These things are not true in the government where having more money or people may simply mean writing a longer report.