One of the staple arguments the statists use for their prodigious programs is that they do good things and, at the same time, provide lots of “good” jobs with high pay, security, and benefits. Those of us who pay the taxes are supposed to think that such job creation is something to applaud.

In this FEE article, Professor Walter Block explains why that argument is fallacious.

Paying people to do unnecessary work has an opportunity cost, namely what other work they’d have done if the government weren’t absorbing their time.

As Block notes, private enterprise would undoubtedly figure out how to provide airline security at lower cost. Many of TSA’s 47,000 employees would have to find productive work if the feds hadn’t barged in with their solutions following 9/11.

Don’t fall for the claim that government programs are good because they “create jobs.” Instead, they waste a valuable resource — labor.