Government is not a private company, at which consumers have a choice to spend their money or not. Government has very little money that is not taken forcibly through taxation, and that money is always taken from an individual who would have spent it elsewhere. We are funding government at an alarming level, and politicians have literally behaved like college kids with their first credit card. We have agencies that shouldn’t even exist spending money they can’t account for on programs that make no sense.

Now, of course we should pay for law enforcement. But right now we are furloughing police officers. And teachers. Are we furloughing legislative staffers? Have we cut the consulting fees for PR firms? Have we laid off any government lobbyists? Are we cutting out the “economic development” incentives to private companies? How many communications directors were laid off?

You get the point. And the TERI program is a whole other layer of theft on the part of government workers. And Baker, trust me – I am much more aware than most what government workers do, and know that many do work very hard and care about their jobs. They know better than anyone else how much money gets wasted and how many lazy overpaid lawyers and PR people get automatic raises while others are doing the work of three people.

We have too many government employees and too many government agencies doing too many things that shouldn’t be done in the public sector at all. And those who really do provide core services and do it efficiently would be much better off — and so would the taxpayers — if we would cut out what we don’t need.

The post-TERI hangers-on claim that there is no one trained or experienced to take over their jobs and that they are thus still essential. This is after they themselves (the hangers-on) had FIVE YEARS of TERI time to train several underlings so that persons were available to take over. Unbelievably, these high paid bureaucrats are being further rewarded for their own failure and negligence. The whole TERI debacle, from legislation to clinging bureaucrats today, would make a great newspaper expose/documentary or university thesis in political science or public administration.

Take a look at TERI.

**This report IS coming from Will Folks, a former government employee (who may, by the way, have been paid higher than the gov-employee average….though I do not know). I assume that Will’s resume includes mention of his work on the taxpayers’ dime.

**It’s strange logic to assert that if general unemployment rises, we should cut government employment by proportionally. Then overall unemployment would only go up! Not only that, but do demands placed on government lessen when the economy is bad? Of course not. As Upstate Native pointed out, there are still real needs in areas such as law enforcement. Of course, we need more private sector jobs — that doesn’t really say much, however, about public sector employment.

**Just a point of curiosity: are all government employees “bureaucrats”? Obviously, Will and others like to use that term (or “edu”crat) because it they sense it has a negative connotation. But does it really apply to all government workers….including police, teachers, sanitation workers, etc.?

**Finally, these “whopping” salaries Will points to…..they don’t seem that “whopping” to me. Forty-grand a year? High thirties? Stuff like that? Folks on those salaries certainly aren’t getting rich in their government positions. And, as someone else noted, these salaries are probably based, in large part, on the fact that so many government jobs do at least require a college degree and maybe additional education. So, of course, they’re going to pay more than so many low-wage jobs in SC.