State Budget Problems In The Us

[strategy 4]

You make an excellent point though. If everyone's doing it, we should ignore it.

no. why would you think that? no. I think we ignore some easy common ground because we're so ridiculously divisive. that's what I meant with the false dichotomy comment above.the government has a bunch of well-known agency issues that cost the taxpayer a huge sum of money each year. one big, basic example: representatives who spend wisely with federal money are doing a massive disservice to their constituents under the current system. we talk about california's terrible budgeting, but they are also getting absolutely hosed on federal spending and essentially subsidize a huge portion of the rest of the country. this basic concept is manifest in a bunch of other lower levels as well. in the army, money that isn't spent each year is returned and subtracted from the next year's budget. the schools here in Kansas work the same way.another example: term limits. this article claims the WSJ polled on the topic in 2003 and found that 67% of respondents nation-wide favored term limits. I wonder why none of our representatives are in a rush to amend the constitution to allow for strict term limits at the state level.the media is complicit in this game of diversion. SB has some words to live by on the topic.

Two points regarding the whole vacation and time-of-response thing: no one -- not the press, not Democrats, and certainly not fellow Republicans -- criticized Bush for taking a week to respond to Reid. So all the criticism of Obama now is pure partisanship. There is zero real concern about leadership here. It's nothing but one more example of giving your own party a pass on what you hate the other party for doing, and both sides are guilty.Secondly, and more important, it's a perfect example of how impossibly shallow and self-echoing so-called "media analysis" is. All the paid yakkers, right and left, create "controversy" just so they can talk about it. Media frenzies justify their very existence and can never be allowed to cease. If a legitimate media frenzy (if there is such a thing) ceases, then an imaginary one must be created, because the yakkers have multi-million dollar contracts to yak. The monster must be fed.Or consider what Ted Koppel once said: "We exist to make money. We exist to put commercials on the air. The programming that is put on between those commercials is simply the bait we put in the mousetrap."Step away from media for a few weeks. Read headlines only to make sure the world isn't ending and a blizzard / earthquake isn't heading for your house, and don't spend time on political sites. It won't take long before you realize how ridiculous and inconsequential all the yakking is.

so, my response is: stop worrying about BS that costs taxpayers millions when we have fundamental systemic problems that cost billions.

[strategy 4]

for a little context re: my hate for the media: manufacturing consent

[brvheart 1,752]

so, my response is: stop worrying about BS that costs taxpayers millions when we have fundamental systemic problems that cost billions.

I'll worry about both, thank you very much.

[85suited 0]

Really? It must be tough being so physically effect by such trivial, superficial things. Or do you think that his staff's budget is a significant fraction of the state's deficit?(I mean, yeah, the guy's an idiot for doing this, clearly. But not because it will actually effect the state.)

This is the problem with Government (R & D) They are disconnected from the real worldThe state's going bust - RAISES FOR EVERYONE!As pointed out..... sure this one instance doesn't kill the budget...but it does when it is repeated over and over year after year...it need's to stop

[Apostrophe Police 0]

it need's to stop

Im going to have to place you under arrest.

[TOTTENHAMKID 0]

The democrats have been taken over by the progressives, led by Georgy Schwartz AKA George Soros, the most evil ********** on the planet. Through Saul Alinsky's, and Cloward and Piven's, break the system startegy they are achieving the "numbing and dumbing" down of the American system. Soros is the problem and should be neutralized at any cost.

[strategy 4]

Im going to have to place you under arrest.

The democrats have been taken over by the progressives, led by Georgy Schwartz AKA George Soros, the most evil ********** on the planet. Through Saul Alinsky's, and Cloward and Piven's, break the system startegy they are achieving the "numbing and dumbing" down of the American system. Soros is the problem and should be neutralized at any cost.

oh gee whiz I wonder who'se novelty account this is

[El Guapo 8]

Probably not the right thread, but it will do here.When I first read the title, I thought, OK, the IMF might finally be on to something. Then I read further. These are some awful ideas.LOL at the bolded, especially the reducing write offs from Mortgages. That would be a huge blow to an already fragile Real Estate market.IMF calls for deficit cuts in USWASHINGTON (AP) -- The International Monetary Fund is calling for the United States to make a stronger effort to curb its budget deficits.The IMF said Thursday that in addition to cutting government spending, the Obama administration will have to consider raising taxes to get the U.S. deficit down to a manageable level.The IMF proposed a range of possible tax increases that would be certain to generate huge political opposition, from reducing the popular tax deduction for home mortgages to instituting a national sales tax.The IMF report said that the U.S. economic recovery was becoming "increasingly well established" but it warned that the risks remained on the downside.Among the threats, the IMF said, were the possibility of a double-dip recession in housing, continued deterioration in commercial real estate and the threats posed to the U.S. economy from the European debt crisis.But the IMF said so far the U.S. rebound "has proved stronger than we had earlier expected" thanks in large part to what it called a "powerful and effective policy response" on the part of the government, including the efforts of the Federal Reserve.But the 185-nation international lending agency was less positive about the outlook for the U.S. government deficits going forward.It noted that because of the recession and the government's spending to battle the downturn, the amount of U.S. government debt held by the public has almost doubled since 2007 and now stands at 64 percent of the economy as measured by the gross domestic product, the highest level since 1950.The IMF said it projected that under current government policies, that debt burden would grow to 95 percent of GDP by 2020 and climb to 135 percent of GDP by 2030.The IMF said that the Obama administration's goals of cutting the annual budget deficit in half as a percentage of the GDP by 2013 and stabilizing the public debt at just over 70 percent of GDP by 2015 were welcome.But the IMF said it believed a more ambitious effort would need to be launched to achieve those goals.Reacting to the report, a U.S. official said that the IMF had used forecasts for economic growth and interest rates that were too pessimistic compared to the consensus of most private forecasters and this had the impact of inflating the government's deficit problem over the next decade."While we share the IMF's assessment of the importance of President Obama's plan to cut the deficit in half and help spur a strong recovery, we believe that their economic projections over the next decade are overly pessimistic," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.The IMF praised the administration's proposed three-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending but said using less optimistic assumptions about the economy, more will need to be done to trim deficits, including raising taxes.It put forward a range of proposals from trimming the mortgage interest deduction to imposing higher taxes on energy or implementing a national sales tax saying the problems would grow in the future as the baby boomers make greater demands on Social Security and Medicare."Looking beyond 2015, the aim should be to put public debt firmly on a downward path to rebuild the room for fiscal maneuver, especially given the risks from large funding shortfalls in state and local government pension and health" programs, the IMF said.In a statement, the Treasury Department said that the IMF review represented that "independent judgment and assessment" of the IMF staff.

[hblask 1]

This is why we shouldn't be getting involved in these useless international organizations. Now some idiot politicians will start to say "well IMF said...."

[AmScray 355]

The democrats have been taken over by the progressives, led by Georgy Schwartz AKA George Soros, the most evil ********** on the planet. Through Saul Alinsky's, and Cloward and Piven's, break the system startegy they are achieving the "numbing and dumbing" down of the American system. Soros is the problem and should be neutralized at any cost.

And what are you doing to work towards those ends?

[Balloon guy 158]

And what are you doing to work towards those ends?

Going long on the pound?

[nutzbuster 7]

Going long on the pound?

Tried that once.Me wanker hasn't been the same since...

[LongLiveYorke 38]

I hope you don't feel like I'm picking on you, but you haven't addressed my questions here, and the bolded seems to go along the same line of thinking. What's the difference between teachers unions and other unions in general? I think job security/difficulty culling are a union problem, not a teacher's union problem. The only union that I deal with on a daily basis is Kaiser Permanente, and they are a staff model HMO, union, insurance company. I can't begin to tell you the problems with that company, and it's all union related.

Well, the difference between a Teacher's Union and other unions is that... they're different. I'm not sure why you think it's implied that I would be for ALL unions just because I'm a progressive or a liberal or whatever. I'm not. I think that unions, like anything else, can grow too large, too complicated, too stagnant, and can drag things down.The teacher's union is just that. They're too large and powerful, and they make it impossible to fire bad teachers. I think the government should break the backs of many such unions. In New York, Bloomberg is putting a lot of effort into doing just that by making it easier to fire bad teachers. I support his efforts. Unions have their place, but they can get bloated. They can become more powerful than the thing they were originally uniting against. In those cases, they become a monopoly and should be broken, just as when a corporation becomes too big.In many cases, good government regulation can replace unions. Things like minimum wage, safety inspectors, minimum health requirements, and all that can supplant the role of unions. Historically, unions emerged when companies were pretty much free to abuse workers, make them wage long hours for little pay in sweatshops. Now that most of those conditions have been removed and now that we have laws against such conditions, unions become less necessary.

[Zealous Donkey 0]

Well, the difference between a Teacher's Union and other unions is that... they're different. I'm not sure why you think it's implied that I would be for ALL unions just because I'm a progressive or a liberal or whatever. I'm not. I think that unions, like anything else, can grow too large, too complicated, too stagnant, and can drag things down.The teacher's union is just that. They're too large and powerful, and they make it impossible to fire bad teachers. I think the government should break the backs of many such unions. In New York, Bloomberg is putting a lot of effort into doing just that by making it easier to fire bad teachers. I support his efforts. Unions have their place, but they can get bloated. They can become more powerful than the thing they were originally uniting against. In those cases, they become a monopoly and should be broken, just as when a corporation becomes too big.In many cases, good government regulation can replace unions. Things like minimum wage, safety inspectors, minimum health requirements, and all that can supplant the role of unions. Historically, unions emerged when companies were pretty much free to abuse workers, make them wage long hours for little pay in sweatshops. Now that most of those conditions have been removed and now that we have laws against such conditions, unions become less necessary.

This is an excellent description of what is wrong with unions and why we don't need them anymore. It should also be noted that the reason the unions are so powerful and corrupt in the USA is because they have powerful, corrupt freinds in the Democratic Party. Without the assistance of the democratic party it is unlikely the unions would have become powerful enough to ruin the American auto industry and most of the public school system.

[CaneBrain 95]

This is an excellent description of what is wrong with unions and why we don't need them anymore. It should also be noted that the reason the unions are so powerful and corrupt in the USA is because they have powerful, corrupt freinds in the Democratic Party. Without the assistance of the democratic party it is unlikely the unions would have become powerful enough to ruin the American auto industry and most of the public school system.

It should then also be noted that the only reason corporations are able to get away with so much of their greedy crap is because of their powerful, corrupt friends in the Republican Party-----and that this greed and abuse by corporations is what necessitated unions in the first place.Unions are the chicken, greedy rich pricks are the egg.

[Jeepster80125 0]

It should then also be noted that the only reason corporations are able to get away with so much of their greedy crap is because of their powerful, corrupt friends in the Republican Party-----and that this greed and abuse by corporations is what necessitated unions in the first place.Unions are the chicken, greedy rich pricks are the egg.

So, you are in a union until you get rich, then you decide to keep your money so you become a republican. That sounds about right. Get on the public teat until you have wealth, then you change your mind and want to keep it.

[CaneBrain 95]

So, you are in a union until you get rich, then you decide to keep your money so you become a republican. That sounds about right. Get on the public teat until you have wealth, then you change your mind and want to keep it.

America----everyone is out for themselves and in the end it will all work out. Right?

[JoeyJoJo 18]

America----everyone is out for themselves and in the end it will all work out. Right?

That's the panocrat platform.

[AmScray 355]

In many cases, good government regulation can replace unions. Things like minimum wage, safety inspectors, minimum health requirements, and all that can supplant the role of unions. Historically, unions emerged when companies were pretty much free to abuse workers, make them wage long hours for little pay in sweatshops. Now that most of those conditions have been removed and now that we have laws against such conditions, unions become less necessary.

I live in Chicago. Given our position in history with heavy industry, etc, Chicago is *the* union town and for perfectly understandable reasons. Fuck, "The Jungle" was written about the very stockyards I used to drive by on a semi-regular basis to buy narcotics from impoverished brown people. I know "union guys". One can live in many other large cities and never meet "union guys". They have bumper-stickers on the backs of their trucks that say "Local 1234" and "Buy Union Made". They refuse to shop at Wal Mart because they're non-union. They vote straight union tickets... They're meaningful here. Obviously, their organized position has come with some benefits. Union labor is directly tied to city contracts, since the politicians know that if they were to suggest otherwise, they'd get voted out in a heartbeat. Any number of 'makework' jobs are fabricated for them; when Chicago has a tradeshow, vendors are required to have $60 hourly union electricians plug shit into sockets (people think I'm exaggerating when I say this- I'm totally not)Of course, over time, there have been huge macro costs, particularly in the way of industry jobs that can be moved elsewhere. There are a lot of unemployed "union guys" these days. It's easy to talk about Unions and working conditions but really, this isn't 1903 anymore. In the modern area, Unions are simply a collective mouthpiece and in many cases, nothing more than a political bludgeon to 'vote lagresse from the treasury', be it the public or private one. It's been a god-awful long time since Unions have struck regarding matters of working conditions or unfair practices. It's almost entirely a wage matter these days and the prevailing mantra is more, more, more... Still, in "union town", you'd damn sure be prepared to kiss their ass, or else you don't get anywhere.

[brvheart 1,752]

http://www.northjersey.com/news/politics/0...nspections.html