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Between 1964 and 1972 (eight years), the US spent $111 billion on the Vietnam War. Adjusted for inflation that's just under a half trillion dollars. On Sunday, Bush asked for an additional $87 billion, with the administration to ask for about $55 billion on top of that (more) — for the first time in US history that pushes the deficit to just over a half trillion dollars. At this point Bush's approval rating has dropped to below pre-9/11 levels, and is in fact the lowest it has been in his entire Presidency (more). So what's a government that doesn't have public support to do?
Ask yourself this — what person or institution that you not only don't like, but quite likely hate, do you support relatively unquestioningly? The answer of course is your boss; your employer. How many times have you heard “I hate my job” or “My boss is a moron”? And how many people quit their job because of it? Not many… most just do a bad job instead.
George “Big Government” Bush has figured this one out (more). Clinton reduced the size of government after Reagan and Bush Sr.'s inflated “Cold War” governments were deemed to no longer be necessary, but Bush Jr. has been pumping that number back up to the roof — up to 12.1 million employees as of October 2002. To put it another way, the US government directly employs between four and five percent of the population — add their families and you can bump that up to between six and ten percent. Add the surrounding businesses to that (ie. restaurants around a military base, whatever) and you're up to between ten and twenty five percent of the population.
It's a trend worth watching probably.
Oh, and by comparison, Walmart has about a million employees in the US.
As a final note, if you're living in the US, you are discouraged from repeating anything you read in this entry. According to Rumsfeld, any criticism of Bush aids terrorism (more, more). What, you thought that malarkey was over and done with? Think again! “If you don't vote for Bush in 2004, the terrorists have already won!“
Anyway, I have an update to work on.
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