September 2, 2011 3:34PM # This Week in Government Failure By [Tad DeHaven](https://www.cato.org/people/tad-dehaven) --- SHARE Over at [Downsizing the Federal Government](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/), we focused on the following issues this past week: - Over the last decade, annual average military wages rose 6.6 percent, [federal civilian wages rose 5.0 percent](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/private-wage-growth-outpaces-federal-2010), and private sector wages rose 3.0 percent. - A rule-of-thumb to remember is that [total federal spending](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-spending-hits-41-trillion) is 3 to 4 percentage points of GDP larger than usually reported by officials. - Imagining that more [federal infrastructure spending](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-infrastructure-spending-how-about-boondoggle) will be a panacea for the economy is a liberal fairy tale, detached from the actual experience of most federal agencies over the last century. - [We’ve nearly tripled the cost](http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/obama-jobs-plan-push-more-k-12-bloat) of sending a child all the way through the K‑12 system, while performance near the end of high school has been stagnant (reading and math) or even declining (science). - [Small Business Administration](http://http//www.downsizinggovernment.org/small-business-administration-close) to close? Unfortunately, no. Follow Downsizing the Federal Government on Twitter ([@DownsizeTheFeds](http://twitter.com/DownsizeTheFeds)) and connect with us [on Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/pages/Downsizing-the-Federal-Government/26635669039). ##### Related Tags [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).