Kerby Anderson

On one of our radio programs, one of the guests argued that the government had grown so big that it's unrealistic for anyone to manage it. His comment reminded me of a commentary I did six years ago that compared the government to some of the largest companies in America.

First, let’s look at the federal government. The federal budget six years ago was $4 trillion dollars. Today, the federal budget is $7 trillion. By the way, federal tax revenues are only $5 trillion, which is why we have $2 trillion deficit this year. How many federal employees? That number is 2.4 million (but if you count military, civilian, and contract employees, it is twice that).

No one in history has ever managed such a large organization. The current president has managed a large company, but it pales in comparison to these numbers. And remember that the two other presidents were both U.S. Senators who had never managed a company.

Let’s compare this to the largest U.S. companies. Walmart employs 2.1 million people worldwide, and about 1.6 million of them are in the United States with annual revenue of $680 billion. Amazon employs 1.6 million worldwide with 1.1 million in the U.S. with annual revenue around $637 billion.

I know that is a lot of numbers, so here is the bottom line: if Walmart or Amazon were part of the federal government, they wouldn’t even be the largest federal programs.

During the confirmation hearings, some of the nominees were asked about their experience in running a large bureaucracy. Even some of the nominees who were governors had never managed something as large as a federal department. Perhaps that is a good reason why the Department of Government Efficiency should be looking for ways to cut spending.