January 9, 2006

The Trough

In the January 2006 edition of the Cato Institute's Tax & Budget Bulletin, tax expert Chris Edwards investigates the bureaucracy of state governments and argues that the "nation's 16 million state and local government workers form a large, growing, and well-compensated class in society." According to Edwards, the number of government employees has increased by 13 percent from 1994 to 2004, and the number of employees in public education and public safety has swelled by more than 20 percent during that time.

In Tennessee, 11.6 percent of total employment is in state and local government. That's higher than the national average.