On the campaign trail, reports MSNBC, Sarah Palin is telling audiences Barack Obama would raise taxes and expand the federal government. Her punch line:

“America, we just cannot afford another big spender in the White House.”

That’s for sure.

The Pew Center on the States maintains an online news service called State​line​.org, which recently ran an article on the burgeoning plight of state government employees in the current economic downturn.

From Stateline:

But with the economy in a doldrums — only three years after states had emerged from the last recession — the hiring and salary freezes and benefit cuts that occurred earlier this decade are making a comeback as states struggle to meet their budgets.

The most galling aspect of this statement is the fact that it contradicts the Pew Center on the State’s own recent research.

From the Pew report:

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when half the states’ pension plans were fully funded, many states reacted by increasing benefits…Legislatures responded in 1999 and 2000 by shortening vesting periods, increasing the multipliers used in determining benefit amounts, decreasing the age at which employees could receive full retirement benefits and shortening the years of service needed to qualify.

According to the same report, “…public sector employees are far more likely to receive retirement benefits—and the gulf between private and public sectors continues to grow.” Pew found that (1) 90% of government employees have a defined benefit compared versus 20% in the private sector; (2) the median pension in 2005 was $17,640 (public) versus $7,692 (private); and (3) 82% of government employees have a retiree health care benefit compared with only 33% in the private sector.

Moreover, future state and local government employee benefit obligations are a ticking time-bomb for taxpayers. See previous Cato work on this topic here, here, and here. The Stateline article also says that state government salaries compare unfavorably with the private sector. Cato has already pointed out that this isn’t necessarily the case either (see here).

My own experience in state government led me to conclude that much of it amounts to one big “jobs program.” The truth is the typical state employee faces a relatively shorter work day, more generous benefits, and absurd job protections. I would contend that one of the most dangerous places on the planet is a state employee parking garage at closing time, which in my state is 4:30 pm following a 7 1/2 hour workday.

In his acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama stirringly declared that all people are connected: “It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work.” And in his appearance at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, he said, “America’s greatest moral failing in my lifetime has been that we still don’t abide by that basic precept of Matthew — whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me.”

And some conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh suggested that it was hypocritical of Obama to declare his belief that each of us is “my brother’s keeper” while his own half-brother lives at subsistence level in Kenya. Shouldn’t being your brother’s keeper start with, you know, your brother?

But maybe that’s unfair. This particular half-brother, George Hussein Onyango Obama, is 20 years younger than Barack Obama, and they’ve met only twice. Why should he be responsible for his half-brother’s welfare?

But then I noticed something else. Barack and Michelle Obama gave almost nothing to charity until their income skyrocketed after his election to the Senate in 2004. Between 2000 and 2004, for instance, they made about $1,218,000 and gave $10,770 to charity, a bit less than 0.9 percent. In 2005 and 2006, Obama earned much more from his books, and his wife’s salary at the University of Chicago doubled. In those two years they made more than $2.6 million and gave just over 5 percent to charity.

And then Joe Biden released his tax returns. And as the TaxProfBlog says, “the returns show that the Bidens have been amazingly tight-fisted when it comes to their charitable giving. Despite income ranging from $210,432 — $321,379 over the ten-year period, the Bidens have given only $120 — $995 per year to charity, which amounts to 0.06% — 0.31% of their income.” The average American in that income category gives far more.

So Obama and Biden believe strongly that we are our brother’s keeper. They believe in redistribution of income to the poor and the middle class (and the Wall Street bankers). Are they hypocrites when they don’t give much of their own money?

Maybe not. They’re not hypocrites if they believe that it’s the job of government to take care of the needy. And that it’s not the job of anyone else. The traditional American argument for welfare and other transfer programs is that government should step in to take care of needs that can’t be met through self-help, mutual aid, churches, or other charities. But there’s another view in modern America, a view that says helping people is the job of government in the first place. Advocates of that view complain that we shouldn’t expect private charity to do the job of government, that caring for the needy is rightly and appropriately a collective task that should be undertaken collectively (and coercively) by government. That would seem to undermine the notion of virtue; I might consider my personal charity a virtue, but how can I think of myself as virtuous if all I did was pay my taxes as ordered? But there are clearly people who believe that faith, hope, and charity are attributes of government, not of individuals, churches, and private charities.

If that’s what Obama and Biden believe–that personal charity is no substitute for government welfare and foreign aid–then they’re not hypocrites. They’re living by their beliefs. But those are not the beliefs and practices of most Americans, who give more money to charity than Obama and Biden and who are perhaps unsurprisingly more likely to give and to give more if they oppose government redistribution.

But if that is Obama’s position, then he should not say “I am my brother’s keeper.” He should say, “You are my brother’s keeper,” or “Everyone is everyone’s brother’s keeper, and I as a politician will tax you to pay for his needs.”

NPR’s “Studio 360” ran a segment Saturday on conservative folk music of the ’60s. Yes, it existed, though it seems to have been largely parodies of lefty folk songs. One of the clips included was a 1964 tune from the Goldwaters: “Oh, what have you done, left wing, left wing? Oh, what have you done for our country? Well, we’ve raised the national debt, Yeah, it’s going higher yet!”

So it must be a great disappointment to Goldwater Republicans to discover this story that got almost no notice this week:

With no fanfare and little notice, the national debt has grown by more than $4 trillion during George W. Bush’s presidency.

It’s the biggest increase under any president in U.S history.

On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That’s a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush’s watch.

The bailout plan now pending in Congress could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt – though President Bush said this morning he expects that over time, “much if not all” of the bailout money “will be paid back.”

But the government is taking no chances. Buried deep in the hundred pages of bailout legislation is a provision that would raise the statutory ceiling on the national debt to $11.315 trillion. It’ll be the 7th time the debt limit has been raised during this administration.

Which might be why the former lead singer of the Goldwaters says he would describe himself “as a Libertarian today.”

In between expansions of Medicare and the passage of bloated farm bills — not to mention socialistic bailouts — it is not uncommon for limited government folks to pause and lament the failure of the short-lived GOP “revolution” of the mid-1990s. That was a hopeful time when budget resolutions actually included the dismantling of entire cabinet-level bureaucracies.

Today I came across a reminder of those seemingly ancient limited-government days in a 1996 Washington Post article on the budget just signed into law by then-President Clinton. It quoted then-House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bob Livingston (R‑LA) as saying, “Thirty years from now…They’re going to say this is where the cost of government began going down.”

In fiscal year 1996 the federal government spent $1.5 trillion. The figure for 2008 will be around $3 trillion. Adjusting for inflation narrows the spread but not nearly enough — ditto spending on a per capita basis. Only when you calculate spending as a percentage of GDP does it get close.

Regardless, 12 years since Congressman Livingston made his prediction, the cost of government has certainly not gone down. Dimming the prospect of it doing so is the looming entitlement spending explosion that will be set off as the baby boomers begin to retire en masse. The good news is there are 18 years to go until the outcome is officially decided. Furthermore, although Congressman Livingston is gone and the embers from the “revolution” have long since burned out, Cato is still here to help present and future legislators make downsizing the federal government a reality.

The New York Times shines light on the unsurprising trouble state and local governments are having issuing new debt:

“Analysts said the dysfunction in the municipal bond markets appeared to signal the end of an era of relatively cheap money for governments and, probably, the start of an era of tough choices for communities.”

It’s about time. As the following chart shows, state and local debt outstanding has almost doubled since 2000:

Says the Times article:

Municipalities will probably be able to function, but may not expand services, said John V. Miller, chief investment officer at Nuveen Asset Management, a municipal bond investment firm. “For some, the level of service they provide will decline.” Some governments, already straining to balance their budgets, will have to cut payrolls, he said, and others may decide to raise taxes.

Raise taxes?

Bureau of Economic Analysis figures show that total combined state and local expenditures have risen an average of 5.8% a year since 2000 — an overall increase of almost 50%. Taxpayers shouldn’t get stuck with the hangover that inevitably results from politicians binge-spending while the party was good.

The Senate is scheduled to vote tonight on the Wall Street bailout package, which now includes a provision to relieve taxpayers of a scheduled $60 billion or so jump in annual alternative minimum tax payments.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer noted, “there’s no doubt in my mind that the Senate added this [AMT provision] because they thought that’s the only way they could get it passed.”

Thus, despite the outpouring of public opposition to the bailout, Congress is determined to rig the vote and grab the people’s money anyway it can. The Senate is essentially saying to the public: “We won’t impose a $60 billion tax hike on you next year if you let us bailout Wall Street. And don’t worry about the $700 billion, we’ll just tack that on to the $5 trillion in public debt that your children and grandchildren already owe.”

There are too many insider experts and economists driving this debate, and too little recognition inside the Beltway about the basic injustice of a bailout. As many callers to the talk shows are saying, the government wants to take $700 billion from average hard-working families who followed the rules and give it to people who made bad, irresponsible, and even disastrous decisions.

Many economists are saying: “Well, I’m usually against intervention and subsides, but this case is special.” But that’s what they always say. The hunt for supposed “market failures” is a full-time pursuit for many modern economists, and it’s mainly nonsense. Back in January the administration and many top-flight economists created a similar crisis atmosophere, inducing Congress to pass the ridiculous “stimulus” bill. What did that achieve other that putting us $150 billion further into debt?