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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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The federal government is literally the same size it was in the early 1970s.
Idiots voting red: "the gubments gotten too big!"
What do you mean by “same size”? Is it the same number of employees? Same number of divisions?
I was strictly speaking of the number of civilian federal employees. Yes that number was 3 million as of December 2024. It was roughly 2.8 million in 1970.
This also includes a RIF of around 450k people in the 1990s, and I'm not sure about what in the 1980s as I recall reading Reagan was very anti-fed. As a proportion of the population, the amount of people working for the country as civil servants has shrunk.
Thank you for clarifying
What do you consider "the federal government".
There are roughly 3 million people in the federal government and that number varies.
I was strictly speaking of the number of civilian federal employees. Yes that number was 3 million as of December 2024. It was roughly 2.8 million in 1970. It has always been around that amount, despite the population and complexity of the country growing in the 55 years since.
It is a lie that the government is larger at least in terms of employees, and any citizen saying they feel the government has "gotten too big" is generally a fucking moron. Especially when those types typically support the abusively bloated and heavily unchecked defense spending.