The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Bottom Stories of the Day
“Waterford Finance Board Starts to Ask for Town Wage Freeze–and Then It Doesn’t”–headline, Day (New London, Conn.), March 9

Questions Nobody Is Asking

  • “International Women’s Day: What’s It All About?”–headline, Christian Science Monitor, March 8
  • “Could You Eat Britain’s Biggest Burger? 13,000-Calorie Giant Is Equivalent to 26 McDonald’s Quarter Pounders”–headline, Daily Mail (London), March 7

We’re All in the Same Bloat
“Government payouts–including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance–make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement,” CNBC reports:

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

“The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients. “Consumption supported by wages and salaries is a much stronger foundation for economic growth than consumption based on social welfare benefits.”

The economist gives the country two stark choices. In order to get welfare back to its pre-recession ratio of 26 percent of pay, “either wages and salaries would have to increase $2.3 trillion, or 35 percent, to $8.8 trillion, or social welfare benefits would have to decline $500 billion, or 23 percent, to $1.7 trillion,” she said.

This doesn’t give a full picture, since it omits income from saving and investment. But it does give a sense of why Americans are increasingly nervous about the growth in government spending, which has only accelerated since Barack Obama became president. On a related note, the Associated Press reports on growing resentment of government workers’ generous benefits:

When Erin McFarlane looks at public workers, she sees lucrative pension benefits she doesn’t ever expect to get. And it makes her mad.

“I don’t think that a federal employee or government employee is worth any more than anybody else who does their job and does it well,” said the Slinger, Wis., woman. She’s been working a couple of bartending jobs since January, when she was laid off from her job at a Harley Davidson plant after almost a decade.

She’s not alone in seeing public servants as public enemies in some ways. For some everyday Americans, it’s a case of pension envy. . . .

At its heart, the issue is this: Some public workers get a sweet deal compared to other workers. And it’s taxpayers who pay for it.

That’s set off resentment in a time when economic doldrums have left practically everyone tightening their belts. Many people have found their tax bills rising even if their earnings haven’t. . . .

“It’s the government sector worker who’s the new elite, the highest-paid worker on the block,” said David Gregory, who teaches labor and employment law at New York’s St. John’s University.

This explains the ferocity of the union reaction to proposals such as Gov. Scott Walker’s to curtail the special privileges government employees have enjoyed. The AP notes that some opinion polls show the public is sympathetic to the government employee unions on some points of dispute. Our guess is that that won’t last.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for thef “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”