Your 1.27 billion dollar memorial for Jimmy Carter

Today, 9 January 2025, is the National Day of Mourning for former President Jimmy Carter.

So of course, “citing tradition,” all “non-essential” Federal employees are given the day off. There are (per Google search) over 3 million of them: roughly 1 for every 108 Americans (not sure if that includes border jumpers and green-card/visa tourists).

The average FedGov employee salary is a staggering $106,000+ which works out to about $423 per 8-hour day. Sweet, eh?

And that means that for $1,270,000,000 taken out of taxpayers’ wallets (or stolen from the future as the Federal debt continues to balloon), the taxpayer gets … nothing. No work done. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Assuming that the 3 million + federal workers actually do productive work. And we admit that some do: FAA, for example. (Well, at least the air traffic controllers.) National Forest and National Park Rangers: at least those who help people and pick up litter. and USFS and NPS maintenance workers. The guys and gals that run the big powerhouses at the various dams (like the Missouri mainsteam dams: Oahe, Fort Peck, etc.). At least some of the folks at the nice, big national museums in DC and elsewhere. And many of the US Postal Service mail sorters and deliverers. (Even though their deliveries consist of more and more junk mail and take more and more time.) And a few more.

But we here at TPOL suspect that (1) most of the productive work (if not all) done by fedgov employees can be done better, at fewer costs, by private businesses and workers, and (2) probably a good half of that 3 million + are not really doing productive work: they are shuffling needless paperwork (electronically, these days, admittedly) and creating problems, not solutions, for the nation and the world. And lording it over Americans, to boot.

So today, just think about this. As the people in all those offices we HAVE to deal with to stay out of trouble or get things done didn’t answer their phones or emails today. (And we would bet that a lot of them take a personal day of leave tomorrow (Friday) for yet another 4-day weekend. They had time to think about and appreciate a 100-year-old man who spent 4 years in the White House. A “peanut farmer” who was really a Navy officer and a nuclear power engineer who gave up a working, productive career to be a public parasite (political activist and politician in elected office) and then tried to make amends by a 40-year retirement (admittedly still on your tab) of good deeds. (James Earl Carter was not totally bad, and maybe even better than some Massas in DC, but his list of misdeeds is long.)

The government employees didn’t have to work today so they could ponder the life of Jimmy Carter. While you continued to slave today to, among many other things, pay their salaries. What an honor

Aren’t you blessed?

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