Doc7505
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- Feb 16, 2016
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How to End It — If We Must
How to End It — If We Must
The answer to the problem — if it even is one.
Will Rogers, long ago, had the most economical analysis and dismissal of the issue that currently worries wonks, swamp creatures, and those who take the mainstream media seriously. The insightful Will said, “It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.” Ain’t that the God’s honest truth? I’ll wait here for the “amen.” Tuesday will make a month since the federal government was “shut down.” There’s much alarm and fretting in Washington and in Democrat-majority precincts. But the planets are still aligned. Cabernet still goes well with grilled steak. Spring training will still begin next month. Discomfort is minimal, though I hate to see those Coast Guard petty officers going without their paychecks. That the TSA has had to lay off a couple of hundred proctologists at airport inspection stations across the land doesn’t trouble me at all. In fact, I count this as a plus. It makes the friendly skies friendlier.... And we’ve not much discussed the benefits accruing to the fact no one is going to “work” at the Federal Department of Education. This colossal waste of time, tax money, effort, and office space has been around since 1979, has 4,000 employees, costs us $70 billion a year, and in its pointless 40 years of existence has never helped a single child learn how to read. It has, however, issued a series of crackpot rules and directives that have made government education even worse than it otherwise would have been (and this isn’t easy). That these overpaid ear-mites are currently riding it out at home, where they’re even more idle than they are when they’re at “work,” is hardly an inconvenience to the republic. More like a boon.... But if one is convinced, as so many Americanos seem to be, that it’s important to return to what passes for normal in the federal Leviathan, I think I have a way to make the Democrats come up with the money for the wall. Just tell them today (with fingers crossed, of course) that we’ll build a bike path on one side of the wall and run high-speed rail down the other. The money will be on the table tomorrow.
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It's really too much when any Federal politician argues that the reason something should be done is that Fed. employees are suffering. The benefits Federal employees receive for working less and even lesser hours is truly disgusting. Even more blatant is the fact they're proud of it.
Why the Secret Service and Coast Guard are in this category should really be changed.
No one in the DC swamp sheds a tear when some person paying their fed taxes, loses their job in the private work force.
Reduction in Force (RIF) sounds like the silver lining. Apparently the Obama administration converted the status of a lot of bureaucratic jobs to civil servants so they couldn't be fired. But that doesn't mean they can't be furloughed permanently. Wouldn't that be a grand consolation?
Once again an excellent essay by Thornberry.
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