This week I want to discuss the purpose of Government. Trump and his followers literally do not understand what government does or what is its purpose. This is shown in a video of US representative Marjorie Taylor Green- R-GA 14th District who literally says
“Federal workers don’t deserve their paychecks.” “Those are not real jobs producing federal revenue.”
Watch this, it is short, but there may be a commercial in it. Seriously watch it, so you can see the attitude and tone of her words.
If you are one of those people nodding your head and agreeing with what she is saying, I beg you to read on so you can see why she is dead wrong in what she is saying.
Your government and what it does
Let’s start with the simple explanation and primer that most everyone will agree on:
What a government does or is supposed to do:
- Makes laws: Governments create laws that establish order and stability.
- Provides services: Governments provide services like schools, roads, and public utilities.
- Protects citizens: Governments protect citizens from natural disasters, invading armies, and other crises.
- Manages resources: Governments organize people and resources to run the state efficiently.
- Establishes policies: Governments establish policies that impact citizens’ daily lives, including their economic activities and human rights.
(I don’t have a source page except to say that this is from Google search AI overview without a direct link to a page for reference.)
Government is not a business. It is not for-profit. Its only mission is to serve the citizenry…the public…you, me, the citizens of the country. How the government does that morphs into politics with disputes on how much funding should go to each budget category.
Government should not be considered political in general. Government exists to do those things listed above regardless of the political party in power. Politics comes in to play when there are different approaches to each funding category regarding the importance of each issue and the funding.
Federal workers are part of the government and not part of the politics. These workers exist to serve you, me, all the other citizens. They work through multiple, different administrations, adjusting their duties and missions according to the politics of the time, and do it for the sake of serving the country. That is their only purpose.
Federal workers do not and should not produce revenue. That is not their job. They serve the public in the governmental agencies. They provide a service, to the public, as the government service that is paid for by your taxes.
Government revenue is brought in by TAXES (not employees). These taxes are then used to pay the federal employees to serve the public in many different areas of government.
These taxes can be used to pay for:
- Parks and park rangers
- NIH and scientist performing medical research, grants to universities for medical research
- office staff/administrators who staff social security offices, USDA offices, museums, etc.
- FEMA response
- IRS tax collection
- FDA (food safety, drug safety, medical device safety)
- Road repairs
- Department of Defense – Armed forces
- NOAA – weather alerts
- CDC- infectious disease response and research.
- USDA – food safety
- Veteran’s services
- And more. There are too much to list. Just want ted to give you an idea.
Your taxes pay for all of those things. If we did not have taxes, then government could not supply services. Politicians decide how much funding will go to each part of the government. The citizens vote for the political party which represent their own opinion, ideals and viewpoints.
Here are 2 charts that represent the federal budget. One shows allocations of each budget category while the other shows the dollars spent.
A great read! Pew Research website discussion about federal workers.
The purpose of government is to supply services to the country
Now that we have gone through the basic facts of what government does, let’s go into why the slashing of the federal workforce and the attitudes of the Trump administration are so corrupt and deceitful. The federal workforce makes up a very small part of the budget. Most of the workforce that Elon Musk and his DOGE minions have hit first are in a very small part of the budget. They fall in the red circle on the chart below:
Cutting employees means cutting services for these government initiatives. Musk and Marjorie Taylor Green (MTG) are justifying the slashing of thousands of federal employees, by claiming that the government will go bankrupt because of the high cost of employee salaries and benefits. They also claim, as in MGT’s video above that since they don’t bring in revenue, that they don’t deserve these jobs. They forget that these jobs are there to serve the public and are NOT supposed to bring in revenue. That is not the purpose of federal workers. Their logic does not justify the means. They are being deceitful when implying that all these job cuts are going to balance the budget or pay down the debt.
decimating the workforce that supplies all the services to the public goes against the purpose of government.
The two categories that draw the largest dollars in the budget are Social Security and Medicare. Although Trump is saying he won’t touch those items, I bet he does. I think the cuts in the federal workforce in these departments are just the warmup to the slashing of Medicare/social security, but we shall see. However, the Defense department is next in line to be looked at. Will they ever make cuts there? Maybe not. DOGE should have started there. Personally, I don’t think the mission of DOGE is to cut costs, it’s to dismantle the government.
(I am not going to go into how Social security is really not an entitlement and is a program that the citizens have actually paid in to and therefore should not be touched. It is too complicated and checks to seniors should not be reduced. However, Musk has started cutting offices and staff which will affect how seniors can apply for benefits)
It’s all a scam
Meanwhile, as DOGE fires people left and right, Trump and the congress are pushing a HUGE tax break for the wealthy (decrease in revenue). This is where the deceit is. Trump, Musk, and MTG all want you to think that the federal workers deserve to be fired because they don’t produce revenue, while THEY are cutting the direct revenue stream to the government (decreasing taxes). They are manipulating you into believing that the federal employees are the problem. They are using the Federal employee firings as a red herring to distract you from their proposed tax cuts for the wealthy. The Federal employees are being scapegoated and accused of not doing their jobs because they don’t produce revenue-which has nothing to do with their jobs. The federal employees are not revenue producing jobs! It’s all a scam. They want you to believe that they will solve the budget deficit problem by decreasing expenses (federal salaries).
In order to balance the (federal) budget and pay down debt, you either have to increase revenue (raise taxes) or decrease expenses (cut jobs, programs) or do both. If you spend more than the revenue you bring in and you run out of credit, you go bankrupt. That is business 101. Nonetheless, the Trump administration wants to decrease revenue by giving the wealthy and the corporations a HUGE tax break and decrease expenses by eliminating government employees and programs. The problem is that even if you got rid of ALL the federal employees , the savings would not pay for the proposed tax cut the Trump wants and will increase the deficit. They want the common person to carry the tax burden for the federal government. Since that revenue is limited, they will just cut all the services in order to fund the tax cut and raise the debt ceiling.
A balanced budget occurs when revenues are equal to or greater than expenses
to balance the budget = ↑ revenue + ↓ expenses Business 101
Trump / Musk Plan = ↓↓↓revenue + ↓↓expenses + ↑ debt ceiling
See the difference and why it won’t work?
Here is an example you might relate too so you can understand what is happening. For comparison’s sake….
If you are having trouble paying your bills, you don’t decrease your family revenue so you can pay your bills? Do you? If your credit card debt gets too large, do you move to a job with less salary (less revenue) and then take food away from your kids, so you can use that grocery money to pay off the credit card. No. You might cut expenses. Or you get a job that pays more (increase revenue) to pay down the debt. But why would you take a job with a lower salary, purposely, and then take food from your kids to pay the debt? It is nonsense.
Don’t accept the grift
So, if you come this far and still believe that the wealthy and corporations should not have to pay federal taxes for whatever reason is in your head, then I leave you with this one example to think about. This is only one example and something for you to actually ponder. We the people pay federal taxes to maintain, repair, and build the roads. The corporations use the roads. Think Amazon, Fed Ex, and semi-truck hauling parts to any factory. They use the roads more than most of us on an individual basis. Yet, they will have less responsibility to maintain, repair, and build the roads. They will be making a PROFIT off of our subsidized roads that have been paid for from our taxes. Why? Shouldn’t they pay their fair share.? Why should they pay less?
The HUGE tax cut for millionaires and corporations makes it impossible to run the government without drastic cuts in other places That is why they want to dismantle the government. It is all a scam, a grift, a con so that they wealthy pay less and you pay more. They manipulate you into thinking that federal employees and services are a waste of your tax dollars, Are they?
Is mail delivery a waste of your tax money? Are park rangers a waste of your tax money? Is medical research a waste of your tax dollars? Are hurricane warnings a waste of your tax dollars? Is FEMA a waste of your tax dollars. The list goes on and on. Federal employees work in all those fields and more. Be careful what you support during these government cuts.
I leave you with this. Everyone needs to understand on how the government functions in their lives. Know that any prescription, treatment , or cure you get prescribed at the doctor started with government dollars. Know that the clean water you are drinking, is because of a government regulation. Know that the federal park you are vising is supported by tax dollars. Know that 50% of all the elderly in nursing homes are subsidized with medicaid dollars. Know that the postal service is government subsidized. Know that your food is safe because of factory inspections and regulations. Know that dangerous weather events are tracked by NOAA. Know that pandemics are tracked by CDC. Know that banks and other companies are regulated by the Consumer Protection Bureau so they don’t rip you off. Know that the FA A has regulations that make it safe to fly. The list goes on and on and I am missing a lot.
The point is do you want to give any of that up, so that the wealthy and corporate America gets a tax cut and does not have to pay their fair share? Are you willing to sacrifice yourself, your livelihood, and basic government services, so that the privileged few have it even better? So Elon Musk can benefit personally?
Take a listen to my new favorite pod caster – Politics Girl- who can sum this up better than I can. This is 5 minutes long, but at least listen to the beginning.
-MOTL
I think there’s no higher calling in terms of a career than public service, which is a chance to make a difference in people’s lives and improve the world.
~Jack Lew