I honestly do not know what to say

[JBeukema]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

Where have YOU been? I've been bitching about this shit for YEARS.

Our taxes went up this year. How come His Eminence has promised to veto government spending cuts?

As usual, we're paying a f-d up bureaucracy's bill.

Exactly. Meanwhile bureaucrats have job security

When is congress going to take a pay cut?

Would you give yourself a pay cut?

 

[JBeukema]

It's all too easy to say that people should get what was promised to them.

However, when what was promised to them was for the purpose of increasing the power, prestige, influence, and/or personal fortunes of politicians who arranged for unsuspecting folks on down the road to provide the promised benefits, a time will come when the promises have to either be rescinded or the government entity is so strapped for cash it can't meet its obligations for much of anything.

And that is why collective bargaining in the public sector should never be allowed. The working guy, the tax payer, doesn't have a place at the table during the negotiations, but he is stuck with the bill when it comes due on down the line.

What about the CEOs?

 

[MaggieMae]

The way I see it, federal funding targeted for specific groups or interests is largely ineffective or quickly becomes that way and, more often than not, will continue to grow and divide like a cancer until it becomes cost prohibitive.

Meanwhile, the problem it is supposed to address appears little different than it did before or gets worse. The only improvements are as often as not accomplished by lowering standards and expectations or rewriting definitions.

The fact is, when you have so many layers of bureaucracy involved in anything, most of the taxpayers money is swallowed up there instead of getting to the people it was intended to help.

It's time to slowly, carefully, and methodically start shutting down all this stuff and returning it to the states where it belonged in the first place.

Define "all this stuff."

Social security?
Medicare?

How about we cut the military by 98% and brings all of our troops home? How about we cut Homeland security & be big girls and boys? How about we cut Foreign aid & corporate aid, and use those respources for the American people??

The national defense is a constitutional responsibility of the federal government. Social Security and Medicare is not.

So yes, we should begin now to slowly, carefully, and incrementally start transferring social security and medicare to the states where it always should have been. Like almost ALL federal entitlements, without exception, it has produced unhealthy dependencies while costs have spiraled to unsustainable proportions. We have to take care of those the government has made dependent on such programs, but she sure as heck don't have to create more unhealthy dependencies.

And how are states supposed to deal with those potentially enormous costs? Florida would have to raise taxes exponentially because of the large number of retirees there as compared to a small state like Vermont where we have far fewer. The taxpayers of Florida would soon be moving out in droves.

 

[Foxfyre]

It's all too easy to say that people should get what was promised to them.

However, when what was promised to them was for the purpose of increasing the power, prestige, influence, and/or personal fortunes of politicians who arranged for unsuspecting folks on down the road to provide the promised benefits, a time will come when the promises have to either be rescinded or the government entity is so strapped for cash it can't meet its obligations for much of anything.

And that is why collective bargaining in the public sector should never be allowed. The working guy, the tax payer, doesn't have a place at the table during the negotiations, but he is stuck with the bill when it comes due on down the line.

What about the CEOs?

CEOs are driven by profit motive so when THEY sit at the table with union representatives, they aren't going to concede what will eliminate the profit for the business now or later. The boss is negotiating with his own money. And the union representatives usually understand that. And, unless you have an unholy alliance between the union and government, the taxpayer isn't on the hook for the consequences of the negotiations.

In the public sector it is different. The government official, unless he is of the most ethical sort and lots of luck on that, has no need to show a profit. It isn't his money at stake. All he has to do is balance HIS budget while in office. And if he can get the union to agree to whatever is necessary to balance HIS budget, he can promise the sun, moon, and stars to the union for implementation after he is out of office. He might even know that it will throw future budgets way out of balance, but he knows he won't get blamed. It will be the poor slob elected years later who will have to deal with it and who will get the blame.

And THAT is why California, Ohio, Indiana, and yes, Wisconsin et al, are in the mess they are in right now. Collective bargaining in the public sector obligates future administrations that have no say in the matter at the time the contracts are signed. And it obligates the tax payer who doesn't ever get a place at the table. And THAT's why collective bargaining rights in the public sector should be illegal and forever outlawed.

 

[ClosedCaption]

I think 82 is overkill, but thats because the number 82 is a big number. I have no idea what the 82 agencies do but just to say thats too much just because its a bigger number than 1 is ridiculous. We all know ONE agency cant do everything...like the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security all are in the intel field but they do different things.

 

[JBeukema]

CEOs are driven by profit motive

As are the unions. Shouldn't both lose what was promised them? Or did they vote the right way last time and buy their safety?

so when THEY sit at the table with union representatives, they aren't going to concede what will eliminate the profit for the business now or later.

So all the talk about unions destroying jobs in America is bullshit?

The boss is negotiating with his own money.

Not necessarily

 

[Foxfyre]

CEOs are driven by profit motive

As are the unions. Shouldn't both lose what was promised them? Or did they vote the right way last time and buy their safety?

so when THEY sit at the table with union representatives, they aren't going to concede what will eliminate the profit for the business now or later.

So all the talk about unions destroying jobs in America is bullshit?

The boss is negotiating with his own money.

Not necessarily

Again the CEO is not on the taxpayer's dime. But if the business gets in over its head, it folds, closes, shuts down. So long as the government stays out of it, which it should, whatever it negotiates with the CEO is between that private business and the CEO. Employees who lose their jobs when a business folds or declares bankruptcy just lost a roll of the dice. It happens. It has always happened. It will continue to happen. But a business that wants to survive will not concede more to a union than it can afford to pay now or later. Which is why private sector union jobs on average pay substantially less than public sector union jobs.

Unions do cost American jobs when they force wages and benefits beyond what the market will bear and force good companies to move elsewhere in order to stay competitive.

And yes, the owner, which I meant by boss, of any business is always negotiating with his own money. Makes a huge difference.

 

[JBeukema]

Again the CEO is not on the taxpayer's dime. But if the business gets in over its head, it folds, closes, shuts down.

Bullshit

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-09-24/...an-mortgage-related-securities?_s=PM:POLITICS

» Obama’s Back Door Bailout of Wall Street - Big Government

Automotive industry crisis of 2008

Unions do cost American jobs when they force wages and benefits beyond what the market will bear and force good companies to move elsewhere in order to stay competitive.

They're not forcing anything. They're just refusing to be slaves. By your reasoning, blacks cost businesses when they refuse to be chattel.

 

[MaggieMae]

I think 82 is overkill, but thats because the number 82 is a big number. I have no idea what the 82 agencies do but just to say thats too much just because its a bigger number than 1 is ridiculous. We all know ONE agency cant do everything...like the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security all are in the intel field but they do different things.

Homeland Security is another behemoth that needs to be purged of all the overlapping responsibilities, including the intelligence agencies who STILL protect their own little corners and don't like sharing information.

 

[Foxfyre]

Again the CEO is not on the taxpayer's dime. But if the business gets in over its head, it folds, closes, shuts down.

Bullshit

Bush: Bailout plan necessary to deal with crisis - CNN

» Obama’s Back Door Bailout of Wall Street - Big Government

Automotive industry crisis of 2008

Unions do cost American jobs when they force wages and benefits beyond what the market will bear and force good companies to move elsewhere in order to stay competitive.

They're not forcing anything. They're just refusing to be slaves. By your reasoning, blacks cost businesses when they refuse to be chattel.

That our fearless leaders have formed unholy alliances with unions and certain high level people in industry is part of the corruption I have been railing against for years now. But do not mistake such corruption for legal entanglements involved in union contracts. Nobody forced Obama or Congress to bail out anybody. Yes, they did so at the taxpayers expense, and the unions and certain CEOs were the beneficiaries of that, but neither the unions nor the CEOs could have benefitted if politicians, whether due to malfeasance or incredibly bad judgment, had not handed over the money to them.

 

[JBeukema]

That's capitalism, buddy. Political favours are among the many services to be purchased in the free market. Capitalism, devoid of socialist restraints, leads to fascism.

 

[Foxfyre]

That's capitalism, buddy. Political favours are among the many services to be purchased in the free market. Capitalism, devoid of socialist restraints, leads to fascism.

Wrong. Capitalism devoid of recognition of and respect for unalienable rights leads to Fascism or worse. Socialism gives government power to determine what rights the people will have. That government would never be given that power is the single guiding principle behind the U.S. Constitution and the one that sets it apart from all others.

 

[JBeukema]

Capitalism, by design, recognized no right but the right of the strong to exploit the weak.

Else the food one needs to survive would be a right and Monsanto wouldn't be allowed to take control of the world's food supply in the name of 'intellectual property'

 

[Foxfyre]

Capitalism, by design, recognized no right but the right of the strong to exploit the weak.

Else the food one needs to survive would be a right and Monsanto wouldn't be allowed to take control of the world's food supply in the name of 'intellectual property'

As well our Founders knew and preached and debated and discussed and wrote about at some length. Again, the tempering affect for unrestrained capitalism is contained in the principles of the Preamble to the Constitution, the organization it structures, and its attention to ensure that doing violence to (i.e. infringing on the unalienable rights of others) would not be allowed without consequences.

The Founders gave us a document that restrains the worst of capitalism while allowing all its virtues. It was brilliantly conceived, designed, and structured.

 

[JBeukema]

They and those they idolized also espoused socialist principles

see: agrarian justice

 

[Foxfyre]

They and those they idolized also espoused socialist principles

see: agrarian justice

There are no socialist principles promoted by either the Founders or the Constitution they gave us.

They did see the role of government to be provision of certain essential basic services, but such services to be of an extremely limited nature. Pretty much to a man they agreed that any form of charity dispensed by the government would be a corrupting influence within society and a violation of the public trust. That pretty well rules out any socialist concepts.

 

[JBeukema]

They and those they idolized also espoused socialist principles

see: agrarian justice

There are no socialist principles promoted by either the Founders or the Constitution they gave us.

Do you know what socialism is?

They did see the role of government to be provision of certain essential basic services

Funded how?

, but such services to be of an extremely limited nature. Pretty much to a man they agreed that any form of charity dispensed by the government would be a corrupting influence within society and a violation of the public trust.

So they didn't want those basic services?

That pretty well rules out any socialist concepts.

Only if you took your understanding of words from Rushie

 

[kaz]

The boss is negotiating with his own money.

Not necessarily

Management represents and is answerable to the owners of the company

 

[JBeukema]

The boss is negotiating with his own money.

Not necessarily

Management represents and is answerable to the owners of the company

Means nothing when they're ensured with our tax dollars

 

[Charles_Main]

We all heard about the GAO report on government duplication that just came out yesterday.

U.S. GAO - Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue

But did you know that the government actually has 82 different programs to improve teacher quality?

the U.S. government has 82 distinct programs to improve teacher quality (which, judging from our schools, is clearly working quite well). Many of those programs “share similar goals,” according to the report, yet “there is no governmentwide strategy to minimize fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among these many programs.” Which probably helps explain how we got so many programs designed to do the same damn thing in the first place.

Federal Government's Duplicate Programs Make Dupes Out of Taxpayers - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

If that does not boggle your mind you know for a fact that you are a liberal progressive.

I was watching a show today on how many agencies over see Food Safety.

12 separate agencies that do not communicate well with each other.

There are agencies that over see eggs in shell, different ones who over see Eggs once out of the shell, other agencies over see Chickens, while yet another over sees the feed given to chickens.

This is the kind of Redundant wasteful bureaucracy we are talking about when we cay the Government could save Billions by just cutting out waste. Unfortunate the Libs will fight you tooth and Nail making any changes because it will mean some Bureaucrats at these various Redundant agencies will lose their jobs.

In their minds it is better to keep redundant wasteful Agencies open and continue to rack up debt, rather than to have to cut some jobs.