U.S. Federal Government Employee and Regulation Growth

Stephen Moore in National Review in February 2004 mentioned a couple of statistics on the size and growth of government. Though the article is from 2004, the statistics and information still provide a current picture of the federal government:

• “In 1940 there were 4 million Americans working for government and 11 million working in manufacturing. Today, there are 7 million more Americans working for government (21.5 million) than in all manufacturing industries (14.5 million).”
• “In 1935 there were 4,000 pages of federal regulations in the Federal Register. Now there are 68,000 pages. That’s a 17-fold increase in sixty-five years. Since 1970 the number of federal regulators nearly doubled from 69,000 to 130,000.”
• George W. Bush’s budget grew, after taking inflation into account, 8% every year for the first 3 years of his presidency.
• In the budget for 2005, President Bush asked money “to keep marriages intact, to prevent overeating, to encourage teenagers not to have sex, and to help give Americans the willpower to stop smoking.”

To read the entire article, click on Uncle Sam, Inc.