What Should Be The Correct Size Of The Federal Government?

[Liberalman]

What should be the correct size of the federal government?

Does anybody know?

We are talking about 30 million people in Canada and 300 million people in America and that depend on the government help so what is the magic number of federal employees that should be working?

I thought government money helps level the playing field between the classes.

Everyone who works should have the same tax deductions as the corporations.

With more tax deductions people would spend more just like the corporations.

What is the majic number?

What do you think?

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Based on my observations while working in the federal public service for a few years, my considered opinion is that all the work that needs to be done could be done by about two thirds of the number of people that work there, if everybody was competent and able and sensible and did their jobs properly.

 

[Liberalman]

Based on my observations while working in the federal public service for a few years, my considered opinion is that all the work that needs to be done could be done by about two thirds of the number of people that work there, if everybody was competent and able and sensible and did their jobs properly.

So what's you number?

 

[laconic]

The federal government is the house of commons and the senate, my answer is count up the sitting members and divide by 2.

Or maybe your talking about federal government employees? In that case it is impossible to put any numbers to it unless one knows how many of those there are. Give us the current number of federal employees and we might have a starting point to give you an answer.

 

[TenPenny]

I thought government money helps level the playing field between the classes.

Interesting perspective.

I think government should provide certain essential services - security, education, health funding, etc.

But I would say as a rule of thumb that no more than 5% of the working population should be employed by government.

 

[Machjo]

to answer the OP, it totally depends. In a booming economy, you would probably want as few employees as possible. In a depression, perhaps more. And then it also depends on how many jobs are contracted out by the government. If many contracts with the private sector, again fewer employees. And what ought to be contracted out and not?

And then there is the issue of national emergencies. In the world wards, many Canadians were on the government payroll in Canada; likewise in the US in the Vietnam war.

Also, are there other burdens to consider? In the US there is more crime, so a need for more cops per head than in Canada. Canada has socialized health care; the US doesn't. There are way too many factors to consider for any one person to just put a simple number on it, not to mention the correct number shifts in different circumstances.

 

[JLM]

What should be the correct size of the federal government?

Does anybody know?

We are talking about 30 million people in Canada and 300 million people in America and that depend on the government help so what is the magic number of federal employees that should be working?

I thought government money helps level the playing field between the classes.

Everyone who works should have the same tax deductions as the corporations.

With more tax deductions people would spend more just like the corporations.

What is the majic number?

What do you think?

It depends first on who they are, for Liberal or N.D.P. probably about zero, for Conservatives (for now) maybe a couple of hundred. We are literally over run with bureaucrats at the trough- what we should be doing is combining the work load of three or four bureaucrats to create one job to be farmed out to the private sector!

 

[WLDB]

People have been arguing about this since 1867 and I imagine they'll be arguing about it til the country ends (whenever that may be). It seems to be a constant debate for most governments in most countries.

As has been pointed out above, it all depends on the times you're in as well as the needs or wants of the citizens.

 

[Cabbagesandking]

The number is entirely a function of the nature of the society. If the Defense department is left ou, the US probably needs proportionately less than any other western society. Canada would be in the lower end. I don't buy the constant refrain that the civil service is bloated. It is probably less so than business and less staffed with incompetents since the entry requirements for most of it are more stringent than in business.

There is far more politics in business than in any government bureaucracy. Far more time wasted on that politics and on rivalries.

 

[CDNBear]

It is probably less so than business and less staffed with incompetents since the entry requirements for most of it are more stringent than in business.

Can you back that up with some stats or something?

Because from where I sit, it sounds a lot like complete BS.

 

[L Gilbert]

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-621-m/11-621-m2007053-eng.htm

Could probably drop 10 to 20% without much of a ripple assuming that the remainder would work as if they were hired by private concerns.
Don't even want to hazard a guess at the States.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

So what's you number?

Two thirds of the current level. Les's link says that's about 380,000, so say around 250,000, again with the proviso that they're all competent and doing their jobs properly. But they aren't and will never be, that's just the nature of bureaucracy and the private sector's no better. I've been in both, they're different in that the need to keep an eye on the bottom line enforces a certain kind of discipline on the private sector that's largely absent in the public sector, just as politics enforces another kind of discipline on the public sector that's largely absent in the private sector. But if you're looking for deadwood, incompetence, chicanery, deception, manipulation, game-playing, power-mad petty tyrants, rule-bound morons, fools and mountebanks, thieves and liars, you'll find them in both in about equal numbers.

Most days I think a case could be made that we should be grateful that bureaucracy's as inefficient and ineffective as it is. Organizations that big, with that much power... nobody's liberty or property would be safe.

 

[taxslave]

Based on my observations while working in the federal public service for a few years, my considered opinion is that all the work that needs to be done could be done by about two thirds of the number of people that work there, if everybody was competent and able and sensible and did their jobs properly.

That was my take on it working for DND.
But that requires two things
1) Hiring and promotion are based solely on merit not as a percentage of the population.
2) Both bureaucraps and politicians loose this sense of entitlement that years of rampant socialism have created.
This is not counting all the jobs that could be done away with by reforming money pits like Indian Affairs and National Defense where the bureaucracy eats up most of the money in administration and next to nothing gets to those that need it.
I would say we could have very good government with half the current work force.

The number is entirely a function of the nature of the society. If the Defense department is left ou, the US probably needs proportionately less than any other western society. Canada would be in the lower end. I don't buy the constant refrain that the civil service is bloated. It is probably less so than business and less staffed with incompetents since the entry requirements for most of it are more stringent than in business.

There is far more politics in business than in any government bureaucracy. Far more time wasted on that politics and on rivalries.

Easy to tell you have never worked in the private sector. All industries hire on merit and staff is mostly cut into the bone while the feds hire based on ethnic background, language and anything else other than competent to do the job.

 

[JLM]

What should be the correct size of the federal government?

Does anybody know?

We are talking about 30 million people in Canada and 300 million people in America and that depend on the government help so what is the magic number of federal employees that should be working?

I thought government money helps level the playing field between the classes.

Everyone who works should have the same tax deductions as the corporations.

With more tax deductions people would spend more just like the corporations.

What is the majic number?

What do you think?

I see this thread needs a clarification. Are we talking politicians and deputies or are we talking all gov't employees including school teachers, police etc.? My previous answer just took in those with their snouts in the trough in Ottawa.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

That was my take on it working for DND.

Ah, DND, the pettifogging bureaucrat's bureaucracy. Even other bureaucrats speak of it with a mixture of horror and awe.

1) Hiring and promotion are based solely on merit...

A good idea in principle, and the federal public service generally does a pretty job of it, but realistically, no matter how carefully and thoroughly you design that process, there will be ways around it. As a seasoned bureaucrat of my acquaintance once said, if the rules won't let you do what you want, you just don't know enough rules.

2) Both bureaucraps and politicians loose this sense of entitlement that years of rampant socialism have created.

I have a hard time believing that it's rampant socialism that creates a sense of entitlement, or even that we've ever had rampant socialism in this country. Socialism fundamentally just means ownership of the means of wealth creation is in public hands, capitalism puts that in private hands; my observation is that the sense of entitlement grows in whoever's hands are on the levers of power.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I see this thread needs a clarification. Are we talking politicians and deputies or are we talking all gov't employees including school teachers, police etc.? My previous answer just took in those with their snouts in the trough in Ottawa.

Seemed clear in the OP to me, it asked for the number of federal employees. Might quibble over whether or not to include the RCMP and people serving in the armed forces, but if you're talking just politicians and deputies, including I'd assume political appointees like those warming chairs in the PMO and ministerial offices, that's a very small number of people in the scheme of things. 300 or so politicians, couple of dozen ministers and their political staffs, and the same number of deputy ministers, most MPs have a few staff in Ottawa and in their constituency office at home... maybe a few thousand people at most. Peanuts compared to the whole public service, I'd bet less than 1% of it.

 

[JLM]

Seemed clear in the OP to me, it asked for the number of federal employees. Might quibble over whether or not to include the RCMP and people serving in the armed forces, but if you're talking just politicians and deputies, including I'd assume political appointees like those warming chairs in the PMO and ministerial offices, that's a very small number of people in the scheme of things. 300 or so politicians, couple of dozen ministers and their political staffs, and the same number of deputy ministers, most MPs have a few staff in Ottawa and in their constituency office at home... maybe a few thousand people at most. Peanuts compared to the whole public service, I'd bet less than 1% of it.

Maybe clear to you but certainly not to me. Of course the number for politicians would include everyone in their offices, secretaries, messenger boys, cleaning staff and would possibly be 10% of the total. I erroneously mentioned teachers when I meant to say National Park employees and Federal Fishery employees.

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[lone wolf]

What should be the correct size of the federal government?

Is it a mass or a volume thing?

 

[CDNBear]

What should be the correct size of the federal government?

Is it a mass or a volume thing?

Either or, it has to be in metric.

 

[JLM]

Either or, it has to be in metric.

Yeah, there is something in the Bible about "the sins of the father visiting the third and fourth generation". :lol: