If spending cuts kill jobs, "so be it": Boehner

The govt cannot sustain all it's jobs. It makes no money, it only gets money from the private sector being taxed.

YES GOVT PEOPLE WILL HAVE TO LOSE THEIR JOBS. The same as everyone else in the country right now. You aren't exempt or sacred.

I just read an article this morning the IRS is hiring 81 people just to enforce a new tanning salon tax. It's straight out of Dilbert.


And the sad part is once 20% of the tanning salons close shop from being taxed to death do you think the IRS will let go any of the new 81 auditors they hired? Of course not.

reply to post by beezzer


The truth is that I think most on here just want to have something to complain about.

I have spent years watching post after post, thread after thread about government being too big and being a huge problem. I have seen people follow blindly what one puppet says while bashing another who said the same thing only in a different way. Of course one side will "always" be right to people on here because they need to complain and pretend in their own mind they are standing for something important while sitting behind a screen and an anonymous name.

ATS makes my head spin with the rhetoric I see posted here daily. No matter what if someone is doing something they are screwed they can do nothing right to please the people of ATS.

I am happy to see that a few see and understand what the context of the wording is. Down with bigger government (there are jobs out there to be found) and up with smaller government.

Raist

Originally posted by pajoly
reply to post by Flatfish

 

Let's be completely honest: Boehner said those words in context of the potential loss of FEDERAL jobs -- the payroll of which has reportedly grown over 200k just since Obama took office. Viewed in that context, it still might be blunt, but it is a truth. If you want to cut federal spending, there must be a commensurate negative impact on the federal payroll. I don't like Boehner at all (I think he is unstable and a fraud, like most of his peers and he is trying to seak $450M of pork into the budget for his district), but you telling half truths is just as bad.

Just exactly what "half truths" did I say? Other than my personal opinion, I think I found this article at the news site I linked in the OP. I'm not against cutting the federal budget, I'm just against killing jobs and hurting the poor in the process. I think there are much less painful places to cut.

reply to post by Flatfish


So tell us. Where can you cut that does not affect jobs?

Money always goes to pay for something and in turn pay someone.

Where should we cut spending if not the federal government?

Government has grown too big and needs to be slimed down.

Raist

Originally posted by beezzer
I joined a conspiracy site. Thread upon thread is about government this and government that.
Contrails.
Area 51.
9/11.
et al.
Yet, I see people hyperventilate when someone ACTUALLY wants to cut government.

Which is it, people? Do you want bigger government with it's flouride and contrails and NSA and UFO's and Nirubu and talking about sheeple and RFID chips and . . . . ad nuseum.

Or do you want smaller government?
Less control.
More freedom.

To quote a friend of mine, Bill Shakespeare, "Methinks you doth protest too much."

Unfortunately, I have to totally disagree with your post, most relevantly due to today's ills..

Big gov is useless when the economy is humming splendidly. Too much control will only restrict its pace to progress and evolution.

BUT big gov is necessary in today's context when corporations and selfish individuals are hoarding their money and not spending, circulating it.

Consider this simple maths:-

If 1000 workers were hired by gov for infrastructure projects, it would mean additional $5 per workers per day JUST on transportation alone, meals excluded. Gas stations, buses, cabs would be the beneficiary of these 1000 workers per day alone circulated, meaning $5,000 up for grabs perday.

Small change for some, but it would mean $150,000 per month for private enterprises, meaning more hiring for workers in that industries. What you see is just transportation alone, think about other jobs that serve those JUST 1000 workers, how much would be circulated and the masses benefitted??? And if a hundred thousand federal jobs are created, how big are those figures gonna be? And the taxes returned just based on GDP growth, service or manufacturing. how can the fed gov lose????

Should these 1000 workers be NOT hired, transporation companies would not be able to make that $5000 per day. Workers there would be laid off, and investors huddle closer with their hoard.

PS:- this is opposed to the bailouts for banks, for banks only kept their money hoarded up, to balance and coverup their gambling margins on the wall street casino and property bubbles, and not for circulation.

Originally posted by pajoly
reply to post by Flatfish

 

Let's be completely honest: Boehner said those words in context of the potential loss of FEDERAL jobs -- the payroll of which has reportedly grown over 200k just since Obama took office. Viewed in that context, it still might be blunt, but it is a truth. If you want to cut federal spending, there must be a commensurate negative impact on the federal payroll. I don't like Boehner at all (I think he is unstable and a fraud, like most of his peers and he is trying to seak $450M of pork into the budget for his district), but you telling half truths is just as bad.

It would help if Boehner didn't skew his figures:

In previous fact checks, we have rejected the idea of adding temporary Census workers to federal job totals. While the statements we rated previously aren’t structured in exactly the same way as Boehner’s, we think the general principle remains valid -- that when you’re counting the rise or fall in the number of federal workers over a long period of time, it’s cherry picking to count the creation of temporary jobs but not their elimination.

All told, we find that Boehner’s 200,000 number is way off. We rate it False.

www.politifact.com...

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101

So big government is okay, if we need big government help.



How about this. Personal responsibility. Stop relying on government, big business, big anything for any help. I don't know you so I can't speak specifics, but to many I say, "Man up!"
Stop.
Relying.
On.
Government.

Want to feed your kids, work.
Want the new Mercedes? Work harder.
Want to pay your bills? Get rid of the cell phone and cabletv and get second job washing dishes.
Want retirement? Don't hold your breathe for social security, unless you want the government to give you an allowence for being a "good" boy. Make your own damned retirement!

Want freedom?
Or security.

Freedom will give you the oppourtunity for security, but if all you want is security, then get the "chip" become a drone, join a union, and sacrafice the rest of your personal liberties.

reply to post by beezzer


Wow, you just through PC out the window. I do however agree with you.

Personal responsibility and "manning up" is what this country needs a huge heaping dose of.

Raist

Originally posted by Raist
reply to post by beezzer

 

Wow, you just through PC out the window. I do however agree with you.

Personal responsibility and "manning up" is what this country needs a huge heaping dose of.

Raist

Somtimes the truth isn't nice. Sweat equity, made this country great. Whining about bills while "tweeting" has made this country weak.
As for PC?
I can only hope that I will never, ever be considered politically correct. I will be polite, respectful, honourable, honest.
But never PC.

I find it humorous that people think the size of government has anything to do with its corruption and wastefulness.

Sad, to think that those who never know homelessness, hunger, and despair eagerly tell those who do to 'man up.'

Angry to think that the solution to our communities problems can be polarized into a one-size-fits-all answer.

Define 'big.' At what point is government small enough? Or big enough?

Who draws the line? Those who have (of course)?

And those who don't are what?... excess baggage to be purged (or punished).... that's the 'final solution' thinking in action.

"Government" is the problem only after our lack of community....

reply to post by beezzer


I would never ask anyone to be anything other than you stated.

As for PC it is the downfall of our country. I agree with your post about what made the country great and weak.
I wish more people would cast the PC garbage aside and go back to freely expressing how they truly felt.

Raist

reply to post by Maxmars


That is just it though.

If people would "man up" take responsibility and help their communities more than they do we would not need a big government. I do not do enough most of the time I realize that and admit to it. However, most would be happy to do nothing and let government do it for them.

Big government never needed it never will.

Raist

Originally posted by Maxmars
I find it humorous that people think the size of government has anything to do with its corruption and wastefulness.

Sad, to think that those who never know homelessness, hunger, and despair eagerly tell those who do to 'man up.'

Angry to think that the solution to our communities problems can be polarized into a one-size-fits-all answer.

Define 'big.' At what point is government small enough? Or big enough?

Who draws the line? Those who have (of course)?

And those who don't are what?... excess baggage to be purged (or punished).... that's the 'final solution' thinking in action.

"Government" is the problem only after our lack of community....

Nice tap dance. I stand by what I said. Have I known hunger? Yep. Have I been unemployed? Yep.
Did I take a dime from government?
No.
Years ago, working a crummy job, my wife got pregnant. She stopped work. I took a second job washing dishes at night. I provided. It's my responsibility.
Want my definition of big government?
One that thinks entitlements are a "right".
One that thinks liberties are traded for TSA patdowns.
One that thinks tax dollars are "theirs".
One that thinks the Constitution was written on a dry-erase board to be altered at a whim.

I give 10% of my pay to charity every year. Do you? I help, my family helps with food kitchens, food banks(though my favorite is St. Judes Childrens Hospital), what do you do?
Have you "manned up"? I have.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about the villiage blacksmith. One line I have always remembered.

"He looks the whole world in the face
For he owes not any man."

Criticize what you will, parse what I say. But I stand by my words, and act upon them on a daily basis.

It's not nor has it ever been the governments job to create jobs. It's there job to get out of the way and let the private sector prosper. The ridiculous amount of "red tape" one has to go through to take a stab at prospering is what is killing the country. Ad in the waste piled upon waste and its beyond ridiculous.

One example. Our local school district just built a 28 million dollar new hi skool. Then the next year they have to cut teachers because of budget cuts meanwhile they have ordered 100 new flat screen TV's to place throughout the school. Kids tell me they are just hanging all over the walls scrolling the same announcements over and over. I ask a teacher why they got rid of teachers instead of the TV's and she said its because the funding comes from two different pools. So teachers had to be let go because they money was in another pool and it had to be used or lost so they bought a bunch of TV's.

Originally posted by beezzer
Nice tap dance. I stand by what I said. Have I known hunger? Yep. Have I been unemployed? Yep.
Did I take a dime from government?
No.
Years ago, working a crummy job, my wife got pregnant.

She stopped work. I took a second job washing dishes at night. I provided. It's my responsibility.
Want my definition of big government?
One that thinks entitlements are a "right".
One that thinks liberties are traded for TSA patdowns.
One that thinks tax dollars are "theirs".
One that thinks the Constitution was written on a dry-erase board to be altered at a whim.

I give 10% of my pay to charity every year. Do you? I help, my family helps with food kitchens, food banks(though my favorite is St. Judes Childrens Hospital), what do you do?
Have you "manned up"? I have.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about the villiage blacksmith. One line I have always remembered.

"For he looks the whole world in the face
For he owes not any man."

Criticize what you will, parse what I say. But I stand by my words, and act upon them on a daily basis.

My you did take that personally didn't you?

This conversation, however, was not meant to be about you. It is about those who feel their passage through tribulation, and their ordeals of life entitle them to cast judgment on others. That's the "entitlement" that I reject. It is very VERY clear that too many think the government owes them much..... I call them corporations. It is clear that the government is wrongly placed in a position to subsidize under-productive and poorly managed groups.... like banks and industries who will not suffer the indignity of investing in competitiveness... clinging to old models of business and technology knowing that their way includes a bailout because they're "too big to fail."

They are the pathologic parasites that make government too big!

Where the hell do they think wealth comes from ... THEMSELVES? NO, wealth comes from labor... as you well know. Yet it is those who do NOT labor who seem to be GIVEN (and declare themselves entitled) the first share of everything the people labor for.

They then posture themselves to stand and point at the people who were not able to drag themselves out of the yoke of debt serfdom or mediocrity as if it was a failure of their worth. And people who did succeed through grief and sacrifice seem successfully conditioned to believe that such struggles are what life is all about. Unfortunately, I am no Sarah Bernhart, my life is not theater. I do not accept that the purpose of existence is martyrdom or strife.... that is something imposed by those who apparently would be jealous and resentful if another had good fortune where they had not.

It seems so cool and 'raw' to call out for people to 'butch up' and 'take it like a man' .... but I suspect that those are empty phrases made in the vacuum of ignorance. The first people who need to be told to man up (and grow up) were the very people who decimated the global economy for their 'sport' of investment 'fun.' Yet they remain large and in charge.... how's that for entitlement?

Ironically, you and I very likely are exactly on the same page when it comes to t he conduct of this government, it's bloated nature, and the crap that passes for 'necessary spending.' I just refuse to accept the "let's make the poor and disenfranchised the bad guys... yeah... that will save us money.... they have it easy".... did you? - no. Did I? - no. What would make you assume that it was about any one person?

My biggest issue is that the 'social safety net' as they like to call it - costs us about 1/100th of what the real abusers do.... so why sidestep that critical problem? The politicians and talking heads have already begun their ridiculous chant about 'nanny state' this and 'welfare state' that..... somehow ignoring the biggest beneficiaries.... the corporate (transnational no-less) behemoths and institutionalized money holes we are told are 'too big to fail' and otherwise "essential to our prosperity."

I'll tell you what though..... if we could get the 54 trillion in derivatives back.... and STILL: be unable to manage our national finances, I would agree to start looking carefully at what we consider 'help' for the needy, as opposed to a 'gravy train' of public support. Heck... maybe if we could just dismantle the DHS we might save a few trillion.

The icing on the cake is the fact that I agree our government is too big and needs the equivalent of a high-colonic. I just disagree that the culprit is anywhere as far removed from government as the voters..... the real culprit is entrenched within the government.... they are the ones pointing the fingers and pulling the strings.

I would, of course, be remiss if I didn't point out that we would be in some kind of control if we didn't have to be slaves to the bankers' agenda. But that is too far removed from the notion of 'big government' to stand on its own in this discussion.

PS - Dude, no offense intended.... your points are all valid... I simply offer alternatives....

reply to post by Maxmars


I take things personally, because the issues that affect America, affect me. The poor and disenfranchised are not the bad guys, but they enable the bad guys.
A lazy person say I need help.
The government helps.
Then the government justifies itself by creating a situation where there are MORE poor people and lazy people and just stands back and says, "Well golly gee, gotta help them".

Once people stop relying on government, it'll shrink on its own because no-one will want its help. But geting people off the governent teat is probably harder than getting a heroin addict to "wean" himself off the drug.

They will always be able to justify their "need".

The government is a dealer. The people? Junkies.

I can't really make it any plainer than that.

Peace.

Originally posted by Maxmars
This conversation, however, was not meant to be about you. It is about those who feel their passage through tribulation, and their ordeals of life entitle them to cast judgment on others. That's the "entitlement" that I reject. It is very VERY clear that too many think the government owes them much..... I call them corporations. It is clear that the government is wrongly placed in a position to subsidize under-productive and poorly managed groups.... like banks and industries who will not suffer the indignity of investing in competitiveness...

It's a nice post.
Just thought I add something re: corporations and banks.

The executives of GM went through the crisis, on the personal level, just fine. You see, savings will last for a while. Same applies to bankers who made one-sided bets -- seriously, the downside for them is fairly limited, which is losing a job -- which is same as for most Americans anyway, but the upside is just humongous, you do well for 2-3 years and you are all set -- no wonder few could resist the temptation.

Where was the "BIG GOVERNMENT" when it failed to regulate the industry into some sensibility? I just sense that people who rally "against the big government" are same who rally for big corporations, and I believe that's a result of a large scale and systematic brain wash, mainly from the right. Somehow having $100,000,000 compensation package for a single person who's exercising judgment clouded by greed is not too big, but 200,000 employees on the federal paycheck is.

reply to post by usernameconspiracy


He is absolutely right. Many government jobs are make work and as such only create needless work to keep busy.

I spent over 20 years in the private sector in the IT industry. My company went out of business and I took a job at the state. Here are a few things I observed in the 9 months I worked there. I left because I could not take the environment and what simply amounts to waste.

- the team I managed at the state was roughly 60% over staffed vs. the private sector
- despite the over staffing, the work was of far less quality
- I was told by team members not to give them work. that they were civil service and would do what they wanted to do. They might do the assignment if they felt like it. One gent (around 50) actually told me "listen hot shot, I've been collecting a pay check here for almost 30 years and I'll do what I want". This dude was only about 5 years older than me.
- In speaking with my boss about the above I was told simply to not give them anything to so. It was not worth the pain and suffering to deal with the union, and that I would wind up spending more time dealing with that than doing my job.
- deadlines are out the window. A project that would take 6 months in the private sector took well over a year with the state
- third party providers were not held accountable for work and absolutely did work of a level of quality that ensured rework and additonal fees. In the private sector, they would be fired, held accountable, period. No body managing these contractors seemed to care.
- the talented folks that were there, those who actually did the work hated their jobs. They hated them because there was little if any merit pay. Every one got the same raise regardless of skills, work effort or dedication. Not only that, when there was a cut-back it was based on seniority so the good folks were the ones to get cut.
- despite the fact that training was available to all team members, over half of them never took training. They refused to, so their skills were not updated (on purpose) making it impractical, if not impossible to give them any assignments with current technology. If you needed some COBOL code, they might have been good, if they chose to do the work
- the turnover was extremely high among the talented staff. They did not want to be on a team of losers
- the amount of worthless paperwork and triple checking of forms was actually funny

there is no way that you would have these folks working for your company, no way. There is no way that they would survive 6 months in the private sector and probably no way based on their attitudes and skills that they would get hired in the first place

After about 9 months of trying to get something done and to turn the team around, I left and went back to the private sector. I got tired of my boss telling be to "get with the culture" and ask me why I was still in the office at 5:30 and that I was working too many hours and that that schedule was counter-culture. I went to the 7-3 schedule - (this was a well.
paying salaried position) and used the afternoon to get a job.

So be it if losers like this lose their jobs. They deserve to lose them and anybody who feels sorry for them is an absolute fool.

I would absolutely be cheaper to put them on welfare

reply to post by dolphinfan


Very well put, and from someone with experience.

Of course those who will defend the "I am entitled" people here at ATS will call bunk or completely disregard you as the uneducated fool. I on the other hand believe you are correct.

I have seen similar in the private sector but they tend to not last as long without the help of the unions. If you are too lazy to do the job given to you, you do not need to be doing it, step out of the way and let someone else who is will step up.

Raist

reply to post by Raist


Here's the kicker.

The gent who told me he was "collecting a paycheck" made $75k/year. His title was Sr. Programmer Analyst. He certainly qualifies for a state pension, which is full medical and 80% of his salary for for the rest of his life which is $60K. Add on to that his social security and you can understand what the problem is with respect to government employees