It's no secret that the federal government has expanded far beyond what the Founders envision. Today, armies of bureaucrats craft the laws and policies under which we live, and there doesn't seem to be any area of American life immune to their regulations.
How has this happened? There are many reasons, but one method, as the Daily Signal reports, has allowed D.C. to nearly quadruple their manpower without technically hiring more employees.
To constrain the growth of central government, conservatives have fought to keep down the number of federal bureaucrats.
This strategy has failed.
Since the 1960s, the number of federal employees has remained constant at about 2 million, yet federal power has greatly expanded.
This phenomenon arises because Washington has outsourced many civil service functions to contractors, nonprofit groups, and lower levels of government.According to New York University professor Paul Light, the true size of the federal government’s “blended workforce” is now somewhere between 7 million and 9 million people.
The biggest portion of the blended federal workforce consists of federal contractors. Today, there are about 3.7 million federal contractors—almost twice as many as there were in the 1960s.
These contractors fill a wide range of functions: security in war zones, statistical analyses, janitorial services, management consulting, and almost everything in between. Many of these functions were once performed by the largely blue-collar federal workforce of the mid-20th century.
Increasing the number of federal contractors has allowed D.C. to administer hundreds of thousands of regulations -- which in turn has decreased the number of decisions Americans and their families are allowed to make for themselves.
Tackling each agency one by one would be like trying to build a mountain one pebble at a time. We need a solution that gets at the heart of the problem and has the power to limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government once and for all.
An Article V Convention of States is just that solution. A Convention of States has the power to propose constitutional amendments that limit the power of the federal government as a whole. These amendments can address the deeper problem in our federal government -- that the Courts have allowed D.C. jurisdiction over more areas of American life than they were ever supposed to have.
Millions have joined the movement and fifteen states have jumped on board. They understand that it's high time to shrink the number of federal employees and contractors, and they've realized that a Convention of States is the best way to do it.
Sign the Petition below to show your support!
