Dispatch from the Affordable Care front:
The Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama's healthcare reforms. Among the new corps will be 81 workers assigned to make sure tanning salons pay a new 10 percent excise tax. Their cost: $11.5 million.
There will be 81 people who actually have to go through life identifying themselves as "tanning salon auditor." Your fiscally responsible government at work.
Comments
Leo - Assuming a cost per visit of $20.00 - that means that 5,750,000 visits will have to be made each year JUST TO BREAK EVEN!!! What a waste of energy!!!!(And $$$$$'s)
I'd be happy to audit AND collect that tax for Uncle Sam, paying the costs auditors out of my own pocket, for just 10% of the tax collected.
And what's more, I'd be happy to pay income tax on the profits I'd earn. Overjoyed, in fact. You'd be giving me more than 50 times what it would cost the IRS.
Well, Teh One said he'd creat jobs. He just forgot to mention they'd be six figure government jobs. An oversight I'm sure.
How's that whole "Hope-N-Change" thing working out for you disciples?
Those are NOT six-figure government jobs. Their salary would be somewhere around $60,000/year.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008, middle-income auditors in private industry earned between $46K and $78K, and most of the auditors get to see their kids every night.
Generally, for every white-collar professional, a business ends up spending $2 for every $1 in salary, by the time they pay for benefits, desks, offices, computers, telephones, computers, printers, software, xeroxes and faxes, postage, supervision, parking lots, etc.
Because of the travel involved in these jobs, there would be a lot of motel rooms and car expenses, so instead of getting $70,000 out of $140,000 average total cost, they would be getting less.
White collar workers don't have a lot of associated overhead. A fast-food restaurant spends about $3 for every $1 in salary, and a factory often spends $20 for every $1 in salary.
As a percentage of the population, Bush had about 12% more employees than Obama has.
"As a percentage of the population, Bush had about 12% more employees than Obama has."
Link Please?
Tim:
I think the whole "shovel-ready" thing didn't necessairly apply to JOBS (per se).
(we're gonna need hip-waders)
Just a thought.
I've searched for that link, and I can't find it, so I went looking on census.gov for population numbers, and bls.gov for employment numbers.
The census uses July 1 for population estimates, so I used bls.gov data for July each year. Comparing the most recent July-to-July period for Bush43 and Obama:
Under Bush43 -
Government jobs grew by 383,000.
The population grew by 2,783,769.
1 extra job for every 7268 additional people.
Under Obama -
Government jobs grew by 37,000.
The population grew by 2,394,526.
1 extra job for every 64717 additional people.
Growth of government under Bush43 was 8.9 times as fast.
I also came up with this.
Government jobs as percent of population:
2001 - 7.03%
2002 - 7.08%
2003 - 7.04%
2004 - 6.98%
2005 - 6.99%
2006 - 6.96%
2007 - 6.96%
2008 - 7.02%
2009 - 6.94%
2010 - 6.90%
If you compare the worst year under Bush to the most recent year for Obama, it's a 2.61% improvement. Maybe there was a typo (or an intentional typo?) slipping an an errant 1 in front of that 2.61%.
Thanks for challenging that number, Tim. My apologies for introducing bad data into the discussion.
(And yeah, when someone gets a project to the shovel-ready stage, it's because the money is already there.)