{"id":6110,"date":"2011-07-05T19:24:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T19:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=6110"},"modified":"2011-07-05T19:24:48","modified_gmt":"2011-07-05T19:24:48","slug":"government-jobs-of-the-productive-for-the-unproductive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/government-jobs-of-the-productive-for-the-unproductive\/","title":{"rendered":"Government jobs: of the productive, for the unproductive?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cAn incarceration program is not an employment program,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>announced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this year, in justification of his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/07\/01\/nyregion\/following-through-on-budget-state-will-close-seven-prisons.html?scp=1&amp;sq=andrew%20cuomo%20prison%20jobs%20program&amp;st=cse\">recently announced plan <\/a>to close seven New York state prisons.\u00a0\u00a0 So true, and the argument made by the local communities housing those unneeded prisons that they should be kept operating because they provide jobs is absurd.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But how about extending this wise principle\u2014government is not a jobs program\u2014beyond functions, such as incarceration, that the left despises.\u00a0 Public employee union apologists defend cushy government jobs with their virtually free medical care and astoundingly generous pensions on the ground that in many localities, they provide the best middle class jobs available.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It needs to be endlessly reaffirmed that the purpose of government is to provide services\u2014such as law and order or national defense\u2014that the free market cannot efficiently provide.\u00a0 It is not to transfer wealth from one group of productive workers so that another group of workers can have secure jobs.\u00a0\u00a0 Europe has long regarded the public sector as simply a stable source of employment.\u00a0\u00a0 It is now paying the price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAn incarceration program is not an employment program,\u201d announced New York Governor Andrew Cuomo earlier this year, in justification of his recently announced plan to close seven New York state prisons.\u00a0\u00a0 So true, and the argument made by the local &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/government-jobs-of-the-productive-for-the-unproductive\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[813],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6113,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6110\/revisions\/6113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}