Big Paychecks, Bigger Problems: How a bloated bureaucracy exposes Congress’ funding failure
FIRST ON FOX: A new report from a government watchdog group begs the question of why – with nearly 800,000 federal bureaucrats drawing six-figure salaries and the average payroll of...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: A new report from a government watchdog group begs the question of why – with nearly 800,000 federal bureaucrats drawing six-figure salaries and the average payroll of the federal workforce far outpacing its size – is Washington still unable to fund the basics of government? Open The Books, a project of American Transparency – a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan charitable organization, closely tracks government spending and released an expansive report Wednesday ahead of a looming agreement between Republicans and Democrats to reopen the government, showing the swamp has gotten bigger, richer and more secretive since 2020. The report, which analyzed all publicly disclosed federal salaries for Fiscal Year 2024, found a total of 2.9 million civil service employees with a total payroll of $270 billion plus an additional 30% for benefits. While the total number of employees rose by 5% since 2020, payroll grew nearly five times as much. DEPT OF ED SPENDING SOARED 749% DESPITE DOWNSIZING, NEW DOGE-INSPIRED INITIATIVE REVEALS Currently, the federal workforce is costing American taxpayers $673,000 per minute, $40.4 million per hour and just under $1 billion per day, according to Open The Books. This includes almost 1,000 workers who are out-earning the president's $400,000 per year salary, 31,452 non-War Department federal employees who out-earned every governor of all 50 states, and 793,537 people making $100,000 or more. Those making $300,000 or more have seen an 84% increase since 2020, while there has similarly been an 82% increase in those earning $200,000 or more, the report points out. Meanwhile, during Open The Book's investigation, the fiscal watchdog group also found that the names of 383,000 federal workers across 56 different agencies were redacted, amounting to a total of $38.3 billion in pay. According to Open The Books CEO John Hart, "You can't have accountability without visibility." "The Trump administration has a historic opportunity to bring…