lotsa talk about budgets, but one target seems immune. Why's that?

There is a lot of discussion about deficits and debt.

Everything seems to be prepackaged for us.

Even the analogies are already chosen
and it seems like we are debating
architecture more than money.

Debt Ceiling? WTF.


Anyway, in an attempt to make all the fog in the room evaporate at one instance
tell me who is not on this list. This list of potential cuts.

social security
medicaid
welfare
unemployment
food stamps
politicians pay
politicians health care
politicians retirement fund
Defense spending
services
infrastructure
payments on the interest on the debt itself

Anyone . . . anyone see what's missing?






























Public employees.














Namely Washington public servants.














Politicians come and go,
but some of those chaps have been there for decades
and I bet you the lot of them know where all the money went
and who is making arms deals, and where the laws are hidden.



In other words,
Save the poor, throw out the Bureaucrats, and reelect politicians with bad news.



It'll never work you say?
... well I say ...
and shooting at the targets they provide for us has worked?



Seriously I don't care which target is chosen for cuts
but surely someone out there can pick one that we choose.


David Grouchy


p.s. no flags please I'm trying to keep my Watts rating below 16

Thank you !

Sorry, had to flag in order to attract attention to this thread.

On Topic: Great catch. You know that they will not cut their salaries or benefits. Their "wisdom" and "dedication" comes at a price. They deserve everything that they have given themselves and more. [/sarcasm]

Your countries situation is similar to being held responsible for a lunatics credit card bills,everybody knows hes a lunatic irresponsible and stupid so ones natural reaction is to not be too happy about having to pay a part of the bill.Washington is run by purile and juvenile children and they are currently in cahoots with wall street and the media to try to scare people into accepting a tax increase and debt limit increase by presenting us with all these doomsday scenarios if we dont allow the greatest fraud and misappropriation of funds in human history to continue unabated.Quite frankly the punch and judy show is beyond pathetic,its not about the good of the country its about letting the ship of fools continue uninterrupted.

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Yes and lets start with the Congressional staff. There are thousands of staffers who work for congressmen and Senators who are lifers. Each member has them, each committee has them. They write the bills, they recommend to members how to vote, they brief the members on the bills, thus having enormous power as they slant the briefings. Most of them stay from one member and move to the next or into the Executive Branch.

Congressional staff has a direct relationship to the volume of items that come out of the Congress. Eliminate 75% of congressional staff, including committee staff should be a number 1 priority. If a Congressman needs more than a couple of administrative assistants, to handle meeting scheduling, travel scheduling, constituent interaction than there is a problem. There are currently over 10,000 congressional staff supporting the House of Representatives with over 2,000 of them making over $100K. In the Senate, as of 2003, each Senator was allocated between $3.1M and $4.1M for staff.

These numbers do not include staff dedicated to committees nor does it include dedicated staff provided by lobbiests and pressure groups, nor does it include staff that wealthy members choose to hire off budget.

In 1947, each Senator was allowed 8 staff members.

Everyone complains about the members of congress. I'd rather toss out 90% of the congressional and senate staff and keep the elected officials. They are the beast that is destroying this country

Very good Ideas here,

Cut the staff, set a limit of only 1 term for elected representatives and pay them minimum wage.
I think this might go a long way towards weeding out the greedy and corrupt and attracting people who actually want to fix things.

Politicians are supposed to be working for WE THE PEOPLE, so WHY is it [color=gold]WE THE PEOPLE whom always are the SOLE victims when it comes time to make CUTS????????

All while these [color=gold]lazy good-for-nothing politicians live like ROCK-STARS!!!

Cut these BUM politicians and their EXTREMELY DRAINING benefits and pay and pensions.

Absolutely RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!

I don't usually make replys or posts here, but was compelled by your post, OP, to also mention the raises that the White House staff just got.....AGAIN...this year. Must be great to work there -

www.thenewamerican.com...

westorlandonews.com...

I simply cannot believe that these folks got a raise when 14.1 million people are out of work and the administration does nothing but gripe about how the country has no money. OH, that's right, my 78 year old mom who gets about $12k/year in Social Security will pay for it! Or the 45+ million people on food stamps can just go a month or two without food...that should make everything ok again.

I come from a generation where leaders led by example. Ya know, actually walking the walk, not simply talking the talk. Sadly, with this administration, we have lots of talking, but no walking.

Originally posted by PlantGirl

www.thenewamerican.com...

westorlandonews.com...

I simply cannot believe that these folks got a raise when 14.1 million people are out of work and the administration does nothing but gripe about how the country has no money.

I'm impressed PlantGirl,

Those two links are directly on topic,
and exactly the kind of thing that is being overlooked.

Thanks!


David Grouchy

Considering the increasing significance of government employee voters.... listen to this:

I have been wondering....what do politicians actually do? Like, what is their 'job'? I mean, do they actually "WORK" or just sit in their office, Mon-Fri, B.S.ing on the phone; checkin' their facebook accts???

Here's my idea....since they work for "we the people"...FIRE THEM and take over their job! Or, maybe "we the people" should sue them for embezzlement? They are STEALING from "we the people"...and they do work for "we"...so, have them arrested. Oh wait, they own the police. But "we" do have an ARMED FORCES, sworn to fight enemies foreign AND domestic, so CALL them. "WE" also have state militias and an armed public.

Oops, i forgot..."we" lack the testicular fortitude to do anything about it. Never mind!

Originally posted by Maxmars
Considering the increasing significance of government employee voters.... listen to this:

Maxmars,

That video is . . . disturbing.
Why aren't these numbers widely published.
^ rhetorical question


David Grouchy

OP's idea is a good one. The tue benefits would not be the actual amounts saved -- which would be miniscule in comparison to the overall probems. Rather, this would be powerful because ir would motivate politicans via self-interest. (Although for many politicos, income from work represents a relatively small part of their total net worth. Politicans don't seek their positions for money, usually.) The civil servants need to be subject to more accountability, too, and they are more directly dependent on their salaries.

OP,

Let me get this straight? You want to put millions of people out of work - in the middle of the Great Recession (which we are recovering from - just see the unchanging unemployment number which excludes people that stop looking for work).

Do you know much money is generated by those millions of people? Sure - I suppose if you wanted to be technical it would be like NEGATIVE 400 billion or something but that is just trying to make a big deal about something extremely important.

Sheesh...some people.

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Yeah right. Like they would give anything personal up.
Not to mention they are really the only group of workers in American that get to vote on their own raises.

Originally posted by ararisq
OP,

Let me get this straight? You want to put millions of people out of work - in the middle of the Great Recession (which we are recovering from - just see the unchanging unemployment number which excludes people that stop looking for work).

Do you know much money is generated by those millions of people? Sure - I suppose if you wanted to be technical it would be like NEGATIVE 400 billion or something but that is just trying to make a big deal about something extremely important.

Sheesh...some people.

The feelings and thoughts you express are valid.

I'm just glad that we can even begin to have this discussion.

In the age of computers do we need millions of people to administer aid?


David Grouchy

reply to post by davidgrouchy


Public employees themselves don't drain the system, the services they work at do. It'd be a waste of time to gripe about saving a few millions firing DC employees when you could cut hundreds of billions through various services or hell closing one international military base.

We should cease all foreign aid.

That could save the American taxpayer trillions.

Originally posted by Rockpuck
reply to post by davidgrouchy

 

Public employees themselves don't drain the system, the services they work at do. It'd be a waste of time to gripe about saving a few millions firing DC employees when you could cut hundreds of billions through various services or hell [color=gold] closing one international military base.

As unpopular as my view on the military is,
I for one feel that we get our moneys worth out of the services.
It's the career civilian government that has both created the problem
while simultaneously getting bloated on the back of it.

International military bases,
on the other hand . . . well let's look at Europe.
Every single border in Europe is defined by blood.
Centuries of warfare between neighboring countries.
But since the permenant presence of the USA military
no one is thinking they are big enough to take over a neighbor.

Besides,
the millitary has been hit by decades of cut backs.
Isn't it the turn of the career civilians in Washington D.C.?


David Grouchy

Originally posted by mike_trivisonno
We should cease all foreign aid.

That could save the American taxpayer trillions.

2,000,000,000,000 = 2 Trillion
50,000,000,000 = Annual foreign aid


Not that I'm against slashing most of it, but we're going to have to do a lot more to fix our budget defecit

reply to post by davidgrouchy


You are very right...they never cut their own budgets...not travel...not staff...not offices...and they pass healthcare that eventually will be mandated for us but keep their system in place because they know its better