Why government is infrequently the solution

and often the problem:

City and state politicians want voters to believe that they have been careful stewards of taxpayer money, searching out waste far and wide, and genuinely doing everything they can to control government bloat. Ah, no.

New York City did witness a reduction in public employment in 2002 and 2003, during the last period of slower economic growth. But the city quickly resumed its habit of ever-growing payrolls, and they have kept growing rapidly in the years since -- to an estimated record this June 30 of 313,965 employees on the public dime, according to the Mayor's office. That's an increase of more than 40,000 public workers in a year when Wall Street has been enduring historic losses and laying off tens of thousands of people.