As part of the New Deal after the Great Depression, the feds established the Federal Administration of Public Works that later became the Public Works Administration (PWA). The idea was to put people to work and resuscitate the economy. Large-scale projects began. Today we’d call it infrastructure – bridges, schools, dams, etc.

Although the PWA was eliminated a decade later, it had a “rival” agency called the Works Progress Administration (WPA). This agency hired unskilled and unemployed workers and addressed smaller-scoped job sites like sewers, sidewalks and certain buildings.

It may well have seemed like a good idea at the time, starting with a $6 billion price tag, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt, where and when did it go awry?

Considering the picture of the public entities these days, one could easily argue that the efforts did not experience healthy growth, but instead metastasized.

Purportedly, under the PWA, unattractive workers would have a job with a lower income but pleasing benefits. “Perks,” we call them.

Again, when and where did it go wrong? Wrong for the private-sector taxpayer, that is.

In August 2010, USA Today published an article that included the following:

“Federal workers have been awarded bigger average pay and benefit increases than private employees for nine years in a row. The compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.”

“Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.”

“The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year.”

A few days ago, The Washington Examiner published a story entitled, “County Employees Can Earn Twice as much as Residents They Serve.”

That article points out that “nine out of 10 of the highest-paying county governments in the United States are in California.”

Here is a sampling of dollar amounts from the Examiner’s research:

For cities, “the nine highest payers are also all in the Golden State, including Oakland, at $99,000. The average government worker in Fremont makes $108,000; in San Jose, it’s $100,000; in Los Angeles, it’s $93,000.”

“(T)he Examiner found that county workers made more than their private-sector counterparts virtually everywhere on the East Coast, the West Coast and the Rust Belt.”

In comparison to other states’ cities, “in Stearns County, Minn., the median full-time worker earns less than $40,000, but the average county employee makes $70,000. In Passaic County, N.J., residents make $42,000, while government workers make $67,000. In parts of the South, meanwhile, public servants make sacrifices to serve the  public, making, for example, $30,000 on average in Boone County, Mo. while residents make $40,000.”

Certainly, the subject of unions must be highlighted and factored into this morass.

There is a lot more, but you get the idea.

There is always another group going on strike for increased wages and more obscenely generous benefits while the same employees pay a mere few dollars a month, if any at all, for health insurance. Ditto for their pensions.

Many employees retire at young ages, collect incredible monthly pensions then hire on at anther level of government for more of the same. Many of them retire only to return as “consultants” and garner additional preposterous salaries and more perks.

The whole issue of sustaining the public employee status quo is massive, black and heavily looming. Finally, it is impossible.

The cities of Vallejo, Calif., and Detroit, Mich., come to mind. Any person would be hard-pressed to name a handful of cities that are financially healthy. Yes, mismanagement must be considered but the cost of “public services” is the prominent culprit.

The same goes for counties and states. Last but not least, there isn’t enough space here to look at the financial distress of our country.

What do you think would happen in our streets and at our government buildings if politicians smartly started austerity programs that started reigning in public service compensations and bring them in line with private sector pay and benefits?

How close are we to Greece, anyway?

I say the answer is “too darned close.”

What do you say?

Betty Arenson has lived in the SCV since 1968 and describes herself as a conservative who’s concerned about progressives’ politics and their impacts on the country, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She says she is unashamed to own a gun or a Bible, couldn’t care less about the color of the president’s skin, and demands that he uphold his oath to protect and follow the Constitution of the United States in its entirety. Her commentary publishes Fridays.