On the Republican side, former Vice President Dan Quayle will counter that most of Mr. Gore's
"reinventions" came from cutbacks at the Defense Department. Texas Gov. George W. Bush will
promise to put more government work up for private bids. Sen. John McCain will likely argue
that President Clinton misled the public when he declared in 1996 that the era of big government
was over.
Each of these claims has merit. The federal civil service is smaller than it was in 1993; most of
the reduction has come at the lower levels of the federal hierarchy where union workers are most
heavily represented; the downsizing did start at the Defense Department; there is always room for
more contracting; and it was only by using the most narrow head count of civil service
employment that Mr. Clinton could make his claim about cutting big government.
Yet these various claims make sense only because the size of government can be calculated in
different ways. To see the true picture, one must count all the heads, including full-time federal
civil servants, uniformed military personnel, postal workers and people who deliver goods and
services on behalf of the federal government under contracts, grants and mandates to state and
local government.
When all those numbers are added together, the federal government looks very big indeed. In
1996, the most recent year for which good numbers are available, the true size of government
was just under 17 million, or roughly 10 times as large as the head count Mr. Clinton used when
he announced the end of big government. That 17 million includes the 1.8 million civil servants
in the president's head count plus 1.5 million uniformed military personnel, 850,000 postal
workers, 5.6 million contract employees (of whom 4 million were working under service
contracts), 2.5 million grant employees and 4.7 million state and local employees encumbered
under federal mandates.
Although the contract, grant and mandate numbers are estimates, they suggest the presence of a
huge shadow work force that accounted for 64 jobs per 1,000 Americans in 1996--not the 11 per
1,000 advertised in that year's federal budget.
How do the assorted campaign claims stack up against this more inclusive head count? Mr.
Gore's claim looks strongest. The number of federal contract employees dropped almost as much
during the first years of reinventing government as civil service employment did, while grant
employees held steady. Factoring in continued cuts in the number of uniformed military
personnel, the total federal work force was almost 750,000 smaller in 1996 than it had been in
1993. It has gotten smaller since.
Yet most of those cuts came from the Pentagon downsizing that began at the end of the Vietnam
War and accelerated under President Bush. The total defense contract work force dropped
210,000 from 1993 to 1996, while military personnel and civil service employees dropped by
another 385,000. And if one also removes such contract-driven agencies as the Department of
Energy and NASA from the 1993-96 calculations, the federal work force actually grew slightly
under the Clinton administration, mostly in crime-fighting activities at the Department of Justice.
Mr. Gore's case is weaker if he is forced to defend Mr. Clinton's claim that the era of big
government is over. The president was right only if he defined government as composed solely of
federal civil servants, if he counted the Pentagon and nondefense work force together, which
masks the long-term growth in the nondefense civil service, and if he ignored the shadow work
force, which has swelled dramatically since President Kennedy's time. Remove Defense
Department workers from the civil service totals and the civilian work force has almost doubled
since 1960.
Republicans also face definitional difficulties. There is no basis for arguing that government is
getting bigger, and any effort to do so dismisses the substantial cuts begun under President Bush.
Moreover, Republicans can argue that government is too big only if they include contracts, grants
and mandates, which have long been their preferred options for cutting civil service jobs.
The key question in sifting through the numbers is not why the shadow of government is so large,
but why the federal civil service is so small. The answer resides in the incentives on both sides of
the political aisle to create an illusion of smallness. Democrats use the illusion to protect a more
activist government, and Republicans to hide their reluctance to change the basic mission of
government. And both parties cater to a public that wants a federal government that looks
smaller, but delivers at least as much as it always has.
It is impossible to have an honest debate about the proper role of government without accurate estimates of the true size of government. Much as the numbers might unsettle the candidates, they are essential for sorting through the claims that will fill the air as the 2000 presidential campaign gets underway. And they just might help the public recognize just how big government must be to deliver the things they want.