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Startling Facts About the Government that Made Me Feel Good

2016-03-04 · explainer · Hank · 3:42 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society · mode: Explainer

Against the image of a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy, Hank argues the US federal government is effective, efficient and surprisingly small: its workforce has not grown in 50 years, state and local governments employ far more people, and most federal spending goes to Social Security, health programmes, poverty assistance and veterans.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; John is back from refugee camps in Jordan and Tunisia

  • ★ Hank notes that John has just returned to America from Jordan and Tunisia, where he visited refugee camps, and says he looks forward to John's thoughts from there. — 00:00:00 · John Green

00:00:13 — The common picture of a wasteful federal bureaucracy vs Hank's claim that it is effective, efficient and small

  • ★★★ Against the common idea of a massive, inefficient bureaucracy that spends a lot and gets nothing done, Hank takes the 'radical position' that the federal government is effective, efficient and surprisingly small. — 00:00:35

00:00:44 — Government employee numbers: Twitter guesses, state/local vs federal, public education, 50 years without growth

  • ★ Hank says he asked his Twitter followers how many government employees there are at each level, after being surprised by the figures himself; nearly everyone, him included, guessed federal and state/local numbers were about equal. — 00:00:44 · Twitter
  • ★★★ Hank says state and local governments employ more than 7 million people, not counting education, while the federal government employs fewer than 3 million. — 00:01:06
  • ★★ Hank says people overestimate the uniformed military and underestimate public education, by far the largest category of government employee, with more than 7 million workers. — 00:01:15 · education
  • ★★★ Hank says that over the last 50 years the number of federal employees has slightly decreased, while the budget and economy grew and the US population rose by more than 100 million. — 00:01:33
  • ★★ Hank argues that with a growing budget, economy and population but no more federal employees, it is no wonder the federal government seems hard to deal with: more to manage, same staff. — 00:01:46

00:02:09 — Where the money goes: contractors, 64% on transfers, costs driven by demographics and health care

  • ★★ Hank says much federal money goes to contractors, from janitorial firms to Lockheed Martin building fighter jets: about $500 billion, more than the government pays its own employees. — 00:02:09
  • ★★★ Hank says the federal budget is more than $3 trillion and 'we give it away': 64% of this year's (2016) spending went to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, poverty assistance and veterans' benefits. — 00:02:28
  • ★★ Hank says that without those transfers, state and local governments spend significantly more than the federal government. — 00:02:45
  • ★★★ Hank says politicians link skyrocketing spending to bureaucratic inefficiency, but the two are unrelated: rising costs come far more from demographic trends and health-care cost increases. — 00:02:50

00:03:06 — Recap: keep these facts in mind, local elections matter; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank asks viewers to remember that government employment has not grown in 50 years and that those employees do good, important work and are pretty good at it. — 00:03:06
  • ★★ Hank says state and local governments greatly affect residents' lives and employ far more people than the federal government, so their elections are extremely important. — 00:03:17

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description lists 2.7 million non-military federal employees, over 600,000 of them in the postal service and about 95,000 at the IRS, plus 5 to 7 million federal contractors. — video description
  • ★★ Hank's figures put the uniformed military at 1.4 million, with more than 7 million local government employees outside education and more than 7 million in local education. — video description · education
  • ★★ Hank's budget figures: $1.1 trillion of federal money not spent on social services, against $1.8 trillion of local government spending, $620 billion of it on education. — video description
  • ★★★ Hank puts overall government employment at 12 million, roughly 4% of Americans, or about 18 million (6%) with contractors, and the government's budget at around 24% of GDP. — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: bureaucracy · Federal government of the United States

Also: Organizations: Lockheed Martin · Twitter · United States Armed Forces

Concepts: education · health care prices in the United States · local government

Places: Jordan · Missoula, Montana · Tunisia

Policies: Medicaid · Medicare · Social Security

Only in the description or credits: Government spending · gross domestic product · Internal Revenue Service · United States Postal Service

Also centred on bureaucracy: How Social Security Fraud Actually Works

Also centred on Federal government of the United States: Understand the Sequester (Spoiler: It's Bananas.) · Who Owns Oregon? Some Historical Context on the so-called Militia Occupation of Public Lands · DOGE Is Not Cutting Government Spending

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