In a surprisingly family friendly post, Ace points out what has gone completely missing in the debt debate:
Have you heard any stories of older, more expensive federal employees losing their jobs during this budget crisis — as corporations typically do when they are hemorrhaging money?
Have you read any stories about departments drastically cutting back and looking for money-saving solutions — doing more with less, as they say, or “working smarter, not harder”?
Has the media been full of stories by weary bureaucrats complaining, like teachers are apparently instructed by their unions to claim, that they have to buy their own supplies to properly do their jobs?
Has there been any grousing that federal employees are missing expected pay raises and promotions, being forced to work at their old salaries through this crisis?
The answer is no.
While the country is teeters on the verge of a Depression (if it has not tottered over already), the federal bureaucracy remains gold-plated and immune to cutbacks.
I hope the Republican nominee makes a real issue of this, as there is undoubtedly billions of savings to be had simply by taking a hard look at the bureaucracy.
Apollo posted this at 10:50 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 10th, 2011 as Budgets, CHANGE!
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Since we’re spending future people’s money, I guess it’s fair that we make deals today based on the premise that future people will cut spending. I mean, it would hardly be fair if we cut our budget in order to benefit them.
Here’s to boosting today’s debt in exchange for spending cuts 10 years down the road! Tomorrow I shall have a conference call with my liquor store and my student loan servicers to discuss a similar arrangement for myself.
Apollo posted this at 11:26 PM CDT on Monday, August 1st, 2011 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Budgets
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In this post, I giggled at a journalist’s statements that many “compare” Obama to Reagan, and in a comment pointed out that the correct word would have been “constrast.”
Today I read this story, which details the political inaction in Minnesota during a government shutdown:
The lack of action contrasts with what’s been happening in Washington, where an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the debt ceiling has lawmakers scrambling for a deal that would keep the U.S. from a potential default on its debt. President Barack Obama has summoned leaders for a rare weekend session and aides are trading proposals behind the scenes.
The lack of “action” in Minnesota doesn’t “contrast” with what the federales are doing in Washington. In Minnesota there is talk; in Washington there is talk. In neither place is there “action.” Perhaps they are talking faster in Washington, but no matter how fast people talk, it’s not action.
Apollo posted this at 3:43 PM CDT on Saturday, July 9th, 2011 as Budgets, Journalism, Politics and the English Language
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Because this is surely the product of illegal drug usage on a massive scale. The alternative explanation is that numerous federal legislators have gone insane:
Senate Democrats want the deal to include more money for highway construction, a payroll tax cut and clean-energy subsidies to bring down the 9.1 percent unemployment rate.
You mean the way that we spent money on highway construction, cut payroll taxes, and subsidized clean energy a couple of years ago to bring down the 8.1 percent unemployment rate?
Apollo posted this at 3:59 PM CDT on Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 as Budgets, It's Economics - Stupid!
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Because the less money government has, the less it can snoop on you. Scott Henson has a list of some of the horrid “Big Brotherish” dreck currently pending in the Texas legislature. Whatever the substantive arguments of allowing law enforcement to closely monitor citizens, our $23 billion shortfall almost surely means these new programs won’t pass.
Apollo posted this at 9:03 AM CDT on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 as Budgets, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Who's Your Nanny?
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Rule: Any plan that pitches itself as an effort to reduce the deficit by x amount of dollars over a ten year period is an absolute joke.
I think this is an iron clad rule. As a serious question, can anyone name me a single year since 1934 when the needs and actions of the federal government were accurately predictable 10 years earlier? Did anyone in 2001 (or 2004, or 2006 even) forsee the budget deficits of the last three years? We all griped about deficits during the Bush years, but the notion of a $1 trillion deficit (much less a $1.5 trillion deficit) was not in the realm of possibility.
I’m limiting the question to post-1934, since that’s when our modern massive federal government came to be; prior to 1934, when we actually had a small federal government, actions and outlays (except for wars) were fairly predictable. So long as we have a federal government that has unlimited purview, any budget projections beyond three years might as well be made by tarot readings and random number generation.
Apollo posted this at 10:57 AM CDT on Sunday, February 13th, 2011 as An Insult to Drunken Sailors, Budgets, CHANGE!
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Gov. Perry has released his proposed budget to account for Texas’s enormous shortfall, and, among other things, he’s cutting all funding to the Texas Historical Commission and the Texas Commission on the Arts. The story cites concerns from “cultural leaders.”
If you’re like me, you read the phrase “cultural leaders” and think of people like P. Diddy, Martha Stewart, and the costume designers for Mad Men. Ya know, the people who lead the culture.
Instead, the “cultural leaders” in the story are: “Nancy Bless, executive director of Texas Folklife, a statewide nonprofit organization that promotes traditional culture,” “Amy M. Barbee , executive director of the Texas Cultural Trust, which promotes the importance of the arts,” and “Tere O’Connor of the Heritage Society of Austin.”
Ah yes, “culture” doesn’t refer to our actual culture. It refers to select elements of the culture of yore that some quirky people believe are worth preserving. You see, our actual culture – the books we read, the music we listen to, the way we dress, the tools we use – doesn’t need government’s help in preserving it, and it doesn’t need “leaders” in the people-with-titles sense of the word. We’re a free people who do what we want, and as such our culture is organic, ever-changing, and self-sustaining. It doesn’t take a government handout to support modern cloth production the way it takes a government handout to support some woman in a period costume who handweaves cloth from hand-picked cotton so she can tell school children about it.
So let me suggest a rephrasing. The people in this story aren’t actually “cultural leaders,” and calling them such gives them too much credibility. “Oh no!” says a reader, “Gov. Perry’s budget eliminates our culture!” Instead, let’s use the more accurate phrasing: ”people with jobs that revolve around their unusual tastes.” I think that gets across the point that, in essence, government support for these groups is taking from the many to indulge the odd preferences of a few. Though now that I put it that, I can see why they prefer “cultural leaders.”
Apollo posted this at 12:13 PM CDT on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 as Budgets, Deep in the Heart of Texas, Politics and the English Language
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