Expecting a Government Expansion; Report: New President Will Have to Add to Federal Work Force
Big government is about to get bigger, despite the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates' pledges to the contrary, according to a new report.</br></br>After years of downsizing, the number of people directly or indirectly employed by the federal government could grow by about 1 million to reach 18 million over the next five to 10 years, according to Paul C. Light, director of government studies at the Brookings Institution.</br></br>"Directly or indirectly responsible for about one-eighth of the jobs in the nation's economy, the government now is poised to expand, no matter whether the electorate chooses George W. Bush or Al Gore as the next president," Light writes in an article in the October issue of Government Executive.</br></br>According to Light, promises by candidates Vice President Gore and Texas Gov. Bush on defense spending, prescription drug coverage and education will lead to increased staff numbers. "Both candidates are making promises that can only be kept by adding to the true size of government, as measured not only by the size of the federal civil service but by the number of employees working indirectly for Uncle Sam under contracts and grants," Light says.</br></br>Excluding state and local jobs mandated by the federal government, which Light sometimes includes in his numbers, the size of the federal government last year was down nearly 1 million jobs from the beginning of the Clinton administration in 1993. Light has contended previously, and continues to do so in the October article, that the true federal work force includes not just civil service employees but also postal workers, contract workers and grantees, as well as the state and local employees whose work is mandated by the federal government. All of these workers are "needed to deliver the federal mission," Light states.