North Star Writers Group

I suppose that after Election Day, I'm probably foolish to think there is any real interest in shrinking government and, if there still is, to believe that there is any momentum behind the cause. Nevertheless, the pending crises in Social Security and Medicare are still with us. By 2009, Congress will have to stop looting and embezzling the surplus funds to spend on other programs and actually use the monies to pay benefits to retiring Baby Boomers. And if you think the beneficiaries of those illegally funded programs, which never should've existed to begin with, are going to given them up quietly now that they're fully addicted to your tax dollars, think again.

From Social Security to Medicare, from public employee pensions to health benefits, the enormous cost of employing this gargantuan leviathan called government is slowly crushing us like a hungry boa constrictor. And I fear that it will be as difficult to disengage government bureaucrats from the cushy arrangements they've extorted from taxpayers as it would be to extricate that starving snake from around one's neck. In fact, it may be more so.

I know that this must sound harsh, and that many of you are probably thinking of someone you know who works in government and doesn't have a lifestyle any different from yours. But the dirty little secret is that a great many of them have benefit and pension packages about which the rest of us who work in the private sector can only dream. It stands to reason when government-as-employer never has to worry about turning a profit or going out of business.

These packages are sucking up tax dollars like an out-of-control vacuum cleaner. For example, if you ever wondered why you can't go a single election cycle without having a local public school district put a referendum for more tax money on the ballot, and yet see teenagers holding endless car washes and candy sales to raise funds, now you know. Much of the money goes to retired teacher pensions, current teacher benefits and - via mandatory union dues - to Democratic campaign coffers. None of that will help a student much, if at all.

Not that there's much that can be done about it without getting a union strike in response. For the first time in history, public-sector union membership is now larger than private-sector membership. (And in my home of Minnesota, the government is the state's biggest employer.) In other words, the majority of unionized labor is living off the sweat of their neighbors' brow, taken from them in taxes. And they have power in both their sheer numbers and their ability to inflict inconvenience if they don't get what they want. So they largely get it.

And maybe this would be a worthwhile, if steep, price to pay if we got performance for the dollar and they knew when to say when. But neither is the case. Since government neither has to turn a profit (just give them more taxes!) nor worry about staying in business (show me any program that ever ended), inefficiency and incompetence are par for the course. And now, predictably, their reach has exceeded their grasp. There just isn't enough space in the lifeboat to accept everyone aboard without sinking it. We are actually reaching the point where we can afford to have huge government or raise families, but not both. And it would seem, given current birthrates, families are losing.

This is a recipe for some uncomfortable times ahead, having to disengage at least some of our neighbors from our wallets if the whole thing isn't to go belly-up. And it's a lesson in why big government is an idea we should never have entertained, much less caved in to as we have. Since it never heard the word "no," the beast's appetite is now simply insatiable, and soon we're going to run out of food with which to feed it. Trying to get the beast to go on a diet is going to be difficult. In fact, we may be lucky simply to escape being eaten by it ourselves.

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This is Column # DKK35. Request permission to publish here.