Capital Market Players: Federal, State, and Local Government Officials
Category Overview
Government Officials
Bureaucrats, mostly non-elected, control capital markets
The U.S. government is large, complex, and to most people, incomprehensible.
In 2002, there were 87,900 government units at state, county, sub-county, municipality, city, and township levels.
The federal government has more than 20,000 agencies, departments, and bureaus.
The government involves over 100,000 separate units, jurisdictions, agencies, courts, bureaus, offices, committees, commissions, and departments of all kinds, each exercising its own measure of power and sharing to a greater or lesser degree in the spoils.
Americans Spend 15% of Income on Government
By 2000, American households spent 15% of income on taxes to support the vast government bureaucracy.
Government employees, like other citizens, have the right to vote.
In recent decades, the number of government employees and other beneficiaries of tax money has grown, while the percentage of Americans that bother to vote has fallen.
The point may have been reached where the political power of those receiving tax money exceeds that of those paying taxes, resulting in the establishment of a permanent oligarchy of public servants and other recipients of tax money that will continue to erode entrepreneurial activity and permanently change the nature of the capital market.
Government officials are beneficiaries of tax moneyGovernment Uses Corporations As Tax Collectors
The U.S. government uses large corporations as tax collectors and, in return, has gradually reduced corporate income tax over the last fifty years, while increasing the share of taxes collected from the public.
State and local government has been growing faster than the federal government, mainly because of complexity, lack of transparency, and declining citizen participation in ever-larger local jurisdictions.
Although the United States is a democracy, most government employees and officials are not elected and cannot be easily fired, even for malfeasance in office.
See Democracy's Snare.
