Here are two key facts that everyone ought to keep in mind: (1) there are more men and women on one aircraft carrier than there are employees of the US Department of State; (2) the military budget for music, military bands, is greater than the budget for the US Department of State.
This imbalance should be turned around by creating, filling and deploying committed servants of this democracy (not of course shills for political and theocratic points of view) in the service of this country around the world. That is the point of this comment, but I'll add a bit more on the inside ...
The Department of State is the second smallest department in the Federal departmental structure. Interestingly enough, the smallest department is the Department of Labor.
There is no question in my mind that the government of the people of the United States is leaving work undone -- work related to inspecting job security, work related to economic development, work related to promoting and ensuring the careful maintenance of our planet, work related to analyzing and understanding our own economy to help us better manage it and work our way through this crisis. The jobs of the government of the people of the United States have been, to some significant extent, contractor to private employers in all these kinds of categories and more. Whether they are doing the people's work is I suppose a question, but there is little question that there are not enough people left in government to deal with the current tasks at hand.
We can promote job growth by turning to the leaders of the private sector and asking them to create jobs in their companies. I am sure that they, like the bankers before them, will willing accept handouts to undertake that assignment.
But we can also promote job growth by strengthening our own government.
The Civil Service is an honored employment. There might be 100 thousand jobs right now ready to be filled, and there are surely way more than that many people qualified by character, temprament, training, and experience to step up to that work.
How can we have a jobs program, and not include the jobs that our government needs to function effectively?