"P.S. All for government workers paying more of their pensions and wealthier people getting less from the rest of us for their health care."

That's why I've made the point before, that health-care and a pension is both compensation to the worker and a burden to the employer - and that if the public is the employer, the public has to pay attention to those voting themselves benefits!

My Savings and Investment Plan is contributory. I set aside wages today for a return in the future. That fund is subject to market fluctuations and has suffered losses or reduced gains along with all other investors.

I am not sure how any entity would "guarantee" pensions, much less fully fund them at the expense of operations, as you've shown here in the case of Flint, MI.

And as for the quoted line above, this would do that.

Most politicians speak with forked tongues. Obama is now a known factor, and you can see when he's doing it. "Make the rich pay their fair share", sure. If you confiscate all of the property and all of the earnings of all the millionaires in the entire country, it's hardly a drop compared to the deficits Obama is racking up.

I do not understand Warren Buffet letting himself be used. Buffet himself said some years ago that rich people use trusts to do good work, because private trusts achieve results so much more efficiently than the government. Perhaps age and senility are setting in - I truly cannot imagine any other reason for his actions.

Dear Obama, do you want to reduce the deficits? Then cut government spending. Eliminate entire departments that produce nothing of value. Get rid of the TSA, both DOEs (energy and education), HUD, OSHA, etc, etc... Where there are truly essential functions (Radwaste can name one or two), put those back into place under a new organization. The size of government could be reduced by 90%, and the only people who would notice would be the government employees suddenly trying to find productive jobs in the private market.

Dear random_guy, nice of you to decide for the rest of us which departments produce 'nothing of value.'
Eliminate OSHA so we can get rid of those intrusive worker safety regulations.
Eliminate the DOE so that our nuclear materials are unregulated.
The DOD is where most of the waste is. The other things are your literal 'drop' compared to the DOD.

Actually, DrCos, the bulk of the waste is in the entitlement programs and the subsidy programs.

But thanks for thinking like BOTU and blaming it all on the sliver of the budget that is defense.

OSHA could use a new leash, but I wouldn't get rid of it.

What jobs that Dept. of Energy does that are actually necessary could not be done either by a much smaller DOE or by some other department?

Department of Education has only made the educational system worse from its inception, so dumping it would be an improvement. And as the Wisconsin fight shows, the union itself is responsible for the bulk of the expenses in health insurance for the schools.

The problem is that Obama doesn't want to reduce deficits or cut spending. He wants government to do ALL spending because you rubes are just too dumb to take care of yourselves.

> That's why I've made the point before,

There isn't a fucker on this planet who wants to hear that shit out of you.

I do not understand Warren Buffet letting himself be used.

Like many of the upper crust wealthy, he has no desire to see any more nouveau riche lower class swine cluttering his country club. This will
effectively give them incentive to not join him.

Meanwhile, his company is busy arguing with the IRS over a billion or so dollars in back taxes, going back to 2002.

Hey, Warren: if you're undertaxed, why haven't you paid your back taxes? stop fighting the IRS and give them every penny they ask for.

@DrCos: I did say "Where there are truly essential functions (Radwaste can name one or two), put those back into place under a new organization."

There are two sides to the deficit problem: spending and revenues. The spending problem is obvious. I also grant what Brian pointed out, that entitlement programs are the biggest problem. However, there is every reason to cut waste where you can find it - and lots of federal departments (such as Education) are not only unhelpful, but provably counterproductive.

On the revenue side, we need economic growth, not tax increases. If you read blogs written by business owners, you will see that businesses are absolutely drowning under regulations. The best thing you could possibly do for the economy would be to eliminate 95% of the regulations. The only possible way to do that is to eliminate the massive bureaucracies that created them and start over.

It doesn't matter. None of these gimmicks are going to make a dent in the debt or deficit.

Next thing you know, he'll be wanting to tax finger bowls and snidely whiplash mustaches. Obama is way beyond his depth in this situation.

The real problem is with human psychology. There are millions of potential little Napoleons out there, and if you grant them authority, they will wield it, mercilessly!

For those familiar with Myers-Briggs, we are being governed by the Guardians. Most creative endeavors come from other profiles, but if you let the Guardians get ahold of them, the initiatives will be squelched.

An innovative society would let ideas hit the market without Guardian oversight. Guardians in a different role, are good at establishing these things, but not inventing them. It's as if we're letting the draft horse choose where (or if!) to plow.

People who seek government jobs are invariably Guardians.

I think Plato got it right, just sayin'!

The Defense-VA-Homeland Security boondoggle-arama takes $3,333 every year from every man woman and child in America.

If you pay federal income taxes, about $6k a year goes into the coprolite of these federal agencies.

There is a place to cut, and not raise taxes.

>> Obama is way beyond his depth in this situation.

+1

I think that that's what has surprised many people who had voted for him. They expected that he would have an innovative approach to policy, something like what he'd promised. A lot of Obama voters were moderates. But instead he seems to be stuck in the 70's. He's like a guy who'd gone into a time capsule in 1973 and popped out again in 2008. He's just retreading the same tired crap that the Democrats had the sense to put aside w/ Clinton. Because it doesn't work. We've done all this before, Europe has done all this before, so has Central and South America. It doesn't work and actually does long term damage to the society. This is why people fall for the idea that Obama is some sort of Manchurian candidate out to wreck the US. But I don't think that it's that. I think that he's just a vain man with a very parochial background and limited experience, who doesn't know enough to recognize that he's making a mistake.

I must say a lot of these things make sense. If you feel the need for namebrand over perfectly-good generic, you should pay for it yourself no matter who you are. I don't believe these sort of changes are going to make a big difference, but they should be made anyway. Saying "I can't pay my rent anyway so I might as well go out to dinner with some of that money" is stupid thinking on the macro and micro scale.

Defense is one of the few Constitutionally mandated jobs of the federal government. Which makes me think people that advocate starting the cutting there have never read the Constitution, or had it read to them. Yes, it could be cut. But I don't think it's the priority.

Momo4-

And funding for the standing army is limited to two-year durations in the US Constitution, and it is clear from abundant language in the document that our Founding Fathers much preferred citizen militias to standing armies.

A hyper-mobilized permanent military is a modern invention, a Cold War relic, and something our Founding Fathers openly loathed and detested.

Indeed, even in the early 1950s, the right-wing so detested a mobilized military (then a D-Party patronage system) that they brayed that ICBM-nukes meant we would need hardly any military at all. Who would invade the USA knowing they could get nuked?

Now, the defense coprolite has become a GOP-patronage-fraud grifter bonanaza-boondoggle, so "patriots" bray about how great milytary spending is.

Our Founding Fathers thought lice had more honor than a large standing military.

And vote for Ron Paul.

Same Fucking dumb comments over and over. The militia lesson was learned when Washington burned. Do you understand how long it takes to train modern armies? It takes almost 2 years to train Apache pilots. Why must you show your ignorance somewhere else. And by all means, waste your vote on that whackjob Ron Paul.

The military is all a political game. Defense contractors pay hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Representatives to pass legislation that favors them. Any Representative that does not support them is labeled "weak on defense."

No one gives a shit about whether any of this spending is good for the nation. Neither Vietnam nor Iraq was in any way, shape, or from a threat to the US, yet the military complex needs to continually have these stupid wars to justify the spending.

The US spends almost as much on its military as all other countries combined. While we do need to cut entitlements, we also need to cut military spending, not by a little, but by a lot.

I have less concern about how the rich are taxed than with the outsourcing of jobs. Those who hire overseas should be taxed so heavily that it would be cheaper for them to hire an American worker at minimum wage than a sweatshop employee.

And those that hire illegals should be fined right out of existence.

Obama is out of his depth? Well, who isn't? Who do you know that's made a serious run for president (or even an unserious run for president) that is capable of balancing a national budget, especially one belonging to the wealthiest nation on the planet. Bush is the one who led us in this direction in the first place, so obviously, he ain't it.

So, let's hear about those that wouldn't be out of their depth trying to balance the budget?

Everything's getting more expensive, and people aren't making more money.

Since they won't get rid of most federal employees, I'm all for having them contribute more to their own pensions/healthcare/whatever.

As for fees going toward defraying the cost of providing a service: If that's true, then fine. But, that's a big "if."

"I have less concern about how the rich are taxed than with the outsourcing of jobs. Those who hire overseas should be taxed so heavily that it would be cheaper for them to hire an American worker at minimum wage than a sweatshop employee."

Uhhh, why do you think they went over seas to begin with?

How about remove the corporate tax all together and see what happens.... (along with a legislation to permanently prohibit ANY corporate welfare by the government or taxpayers...you screw up, you fail, no financial help, nada).

How about passing a law against lobbyists and special interests while they are at it...

PS. all this nonsense about the government controlling and legislating business in a (supposed) free market is fascism, plain and simple.

Got that. Fascists.

"There isn't a fucker on this planet who wants to hear that shit out of you."

"I don't want to read that again, because I didn't say it."

There. Fixed it for you.

Because what you said backs the idea that the public should pay no attention to pensions, that they don't count as income, etc., and that would contradict everything you apparently hate about my job, which you apparently still don't know anything about.

Not that that will stop you. I sure hope all parts of yourself start talking to one another soon (schizophrenia's the only explanation I can think of when you claim to speak for others), because you suck as a champion of fiscal recklessness.

Patrick, i agree wholeheartedly, ie offshoring jobs, tax the Fuck out of them and tariff the hell out if imports until our unemployment issues are resolved

I'm married to a state employee, and he's long felt that they should be contributing more to their pension plan. As it stands now, once you've put in for ten years you're vested and no longer have to contribute. His feeling (and I agree) is you've done without that money for ten years, so you won't miss it if you continue to contribute to retirement. But it would certainly make a difference in the pension fund and take some burden off of everyone else. Of course navigating all the red tape trying to implement such an idea is another story.

Ronc:

And who designs a weapon so complicated it takes years to learn (and can be shot down easily)?

A U.S. federal bureaucracy, that's who.

You just don't get it. The US military is not about preventing an invasion of our shores. It is about taking your tax money.

As for Washington being sacked in 1812, so what? We lost in Vietnam with a fantastically expensive "regular" military, and we will lose in Afghanistan. We probably will end up losing in Iraq, which will become an Iranian ally (after we spend $2 trillion there).

We had demilitarized by WWI, and then again demilitarized before WWII. We even de-militarized after WWII--so much so that President Truman could not find troops and equipment for his Korea adventure (that Eisenhower quickly brought to an end by getting out).

A permanently mobilized military is an anathema to our Founding Fathers and should be to you too.

"Military retirees would pay a $200 fee upon turning 65 to have the government pay their out-of-pocket Medicare expenses. They'd also pay more for non-generic prescription drugs."

At least there is a little common sense here. These guys retire after 20 years, with full pension and free medical coverage for life. At taxpayer expense. A $1 million package even before you count medical. Some of these guys will be on the public dole for another 50 years.

I know of no private-sector company offering such fat benefits.

ronc and Patrick, you are okay with the government telling companies-many of whom are foreign owned or do business in countries other than ours-who they can and can not hire? you're cool with that much more power to the feds?

Eliminate corporate tax completely. They don't pay taxes, they gather them from us and send them to the feds. We don't need the middle man. Not to mention wehahve one of the highest rates in the wolrd already.

> offshoring jobs, tax the Fuck out of them and
> tariff the hell out if imports until our
> unemployment issues are resolved

Those foreign countries are doing us a favor by providing merchandise for cheap, thereby raising our standard of living.

It's silly to think that increasing tariffs will bring back jobs. Sure, you'll create a few extra jobs, and those people will benefit. But the vast majority of the population will suffer due to everything costing much more. The higher prices in itself would cost jobs - e.g. people could no longer afford to eat out as much, costing jobs of restaurant workers.

And there are also unseen jobs benefits from imports - such as more jobs for dock workers, truckers, and sales clerks.

"I have less concern about how the rich are taxed than with the outsourcing of jobs. Those who hire overseas should be taxed so heavily that it would be cheaper for them to hire an American worker at minimum wage than a sweatshop employee."

Only with the provisions that (1) the minimum wage be eliminated, and (2) all federal regulations enacted since 1980 or so be repealed, and the federal regulatory agencies be stripped of their power to enact new or revised regulations without Congressional approval. However, at this point, I think you'd find that the taxing of outsourcing becomes largely unnecessary.

Also, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev said something on the order of the following (I can't find the exact quote): "Since Kruschev's day, we were searching every day, hour by hour, for the opportunity to launch a preemptive first strike against the United States. If we had seen the slightest opportunity, we would have done it. Because of the U.S. military, we never saw that opportunity."

Germany has an interesting corporate tax structure. The taxes are fairly punitive, but with huge deductions for every internal job created. The idea is that those companies that employ a large number of Germans pay nothing, and those that don't get stung.

It's not the best option, there's a bit of rearranging the deck chairs in that idea, but it might be better than the myopic system we have now.

Regarding first strikes, the same could be said of the Russian military. First strikes were always an iffy proposition, 99% success was still suicide... even the Russians figured that out.

> Germany has an interesting corporate tax
> structure. The taxes are fairly punitive, but
> with huge deductions for every internal job
> created. The idea is that those companies that
> employ a large number of Germans pay nothing, and
> those that don't get stung.

dervish, do you have a reference for this?

"So, let's hear about those that wouldn't be out of their depth trying to balance the budget?"

Someone who's run a business that had to show a profit. Someone who's run more than community planning. Someone who's put more thought into lawmaking than voting "present" the vast majority of the time.

Well, yeah, they'd probably still be out of their depth, but they'd have some experience at doing something constructive as opposed to just voting "present." Whatever one's political stripe is, Obama just didn't have the chops that the voters thought (or hoped) he had.

> what you said backs the idea that

Right! You're an ideas guy! Defense of your inexplicably privileged position of teatsucking security isn't a factor in your rhetoric, or anything like that. You're here because you care... You care about other people!

And it's all very clear to you! You stand outside, and above, and you see! You understand the competitive, risky forces that generate wealth and can make them successful!

Even though you'll have nothing to do with those forces in your own life.....

"Right! You're an ideas guy! Defense of your inexplicably privileged position of teatsucking security isn't a factor in your rhetoric, or anything like that. You're here because you care... You care about other people!"

In case anybody else is wondering...

Crid is just plain nuts. He's substituted things he has made up about me for the actual situation, and then decides that his delusion is both popular opinion and ample reason to discount any measure I suggest.

That's why you see him taking positions which are wholly irrational, such as the current rant that pension costs should not be a concern of the taxpayer or employer, etc.

I suspect he'll object to the idea that the sky is often blue if I say it.

And it's all because he doesn't know what my job is - and has substituted his own ideas for reality.

Just parse his last post. It's full of things he says - not what I say, and not what I am.

For the record: I process radioactive waste. I operate the process, review Engineering documents for design-change impacts to it, generate procedure and advise the Training division on class content. I work for a contractor, Savannah River Remediation, which is regulated by the Department of Energy. The terms of our operation are a matter of public record. The relevent Web site is that of Savannah River Site. As radioactive waste is not a material of economic congress and is considered a threat to public safety, its treatment cannot be privatized. As the waste will not magically disappear, operators treating it will be needed without letup for at least the next 20 years. I am one of those operators. This "permanence" of employment is what apparently is driving Crid insane.

The pay scale for operators at SRS is normalized with other equivalent technical jobs in the area, and compared with respect to both competencies and risks. I am supervised by an area manager, responsible for about a thousand people, and I am, indeed, known for putting out more work than is requested of me. This is not a claim that others cannot do this - although it is a fact that many don't. Operator pay is also a matter of public record, although not on a name-by-name basis. My retirement plan, which is contributory and subject to Federal laws, is also audited by Feds as part of the payroll costs inherent in the Site's operating contract. That contract is subject to annual review and modification which is biased in favor of the DOE, as you might expect.
The current budget woes have resulted in the postponement and cancellation of some projects designed to accelerate waste conversion to stable and inaccesible forms. I'm sure that at this point Crid will cheer some engineers and technicians losing their jobs.

I can be fired for non-performance or for misconduct - though my job will still be necessary, as explained above. My retirement plan is subject to revaluation by market forces. The health care plan for which a sum is deducted from my pay, Blue Cross, Blue Shield, is exactly the same for me as for anyone else who uses it.

Now, I apologize, on behalf of Crid, to the rest of you for this waste of time and for what will probably ensue as a result of more posts where I dare to suggest ideas. I hope you'll join me in hoping that some small bit of research as to what really goes on at SRS will cross his brow. I don't know what he does, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't depend on study, even though his command of the language indicates a capacity for it.

> he doesn't know what my job is -

I don't care.

> I can be fired for non-performance or
> for misconduct

Yeah. Right.

> My retirement plan is subject to
> revaluation by market forces.

Oh boolshit. That's just inexcusably precious and obfuscating... "My retirement plan is subject to revaluation by market forces." Such masculinity! Such daring! "Subject to revaluation!" WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO YOU FOR GIVING YOUR SERVICE TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AT THESE RATES!

> a result of more posts where I dare
> to suggest ideas.

Ideas! You're a thinker! And we, of the anonymous internet, LOVE you for it! You're clued into the paying agents, and we can all get behind you in a big, big way...

Snoopy: I don't have a website to offer, although I'm sure the info is out there somewhere. I'm speaking from experience. I used to run a bar in Berlin. Our goal was to break even, or pull a small profit (rent and labor were killers), and in effect become a tax shelter for my employer's other business, which was highly profitable, but not labor-intensive.

This was right after the wall came down. We were right on the Ku-Damm, and the jobseekers in those days were mostly from the East. My role was to train these folks to a western (read friendly) standard of service. It wasn't easy, and it damned sure didn't come naturally. Most of those folks had four year degrees in hospitality (East Germany had degrees for everything), yet they couldn't smile. About one in three was trainable, so I just burned through 'em until I got my crew.

"I don't care."

And that poisons your every syllable.

Nice going!

> And that poisons

Right! Because of all the federal Teatsucking Cunt-tards out there, you're special, Raddy!

The indispensable centrality of your desk to the human project cannot be overstated! The stapler at your elbow sits there, buzzing with importance... It shimmers in the Friday morning sunlight, quivering under a responsibility not felt by the office supplies of lesser United States Government employees! Without YOU —unlike all the janitors and Senators and other self-important yet illiterate technocrats on our payroll— America's future is DOOMED!... DOOMED, I tell ya!

So anyway...

How do you, Raddy, think America should respond to deficits!??!?!??

Answer carefully! We wouldn't want to unduly impact YOUR retirement plan, which is, after all, "subject to revaluation by market forces".

No.

Perish the thought!

How do you, Raddy, think America should respond to deficits!??!?!??

Hopefully the smart ones will realize that it is cheaper to pay to have someone trained properly to clean up nuclear waste then to pay to lowest bidder, with no such requirments, and then spend the next 100 to 10,000 yrs cleaning up the guy(who would have been a fry cook)'s mess

"Right! Because of all the federal Teatsucking Cunt-tards out there, you're special, Raddy!"

Another irrational statement of yours.

Why do you persist in thinking that what YOU say is the reality? Don't you recognize how your own credibility is being harmed when you engage in this?

When are you going to realize that you're simply making things up about both me and my job - that you're basically lying about me?

Don't you realize I asked you first - that if you thought my job or anyone else's was being done badly, you should say what is wrong and how to fix it?

Blinded, I'm guessing you're now asking for a simple solution of deficit reduction - after spending the last few months fuming about me for some reason, I'm supposed to think you're going to believe what I post now?

OK. The simple fact is that there ARE government jobs that cannot be halted. Another is that these have to be identified, because it has not only been a general practice to pay public officials by headcount rather than need, funding is generalized, not specific.

This is so sad. Just do some research. I bet you haven't even read anything on the Federal Web site I linked to. Yes, the "sunshine pump" is running there, but it still says what my company does, how, and who monitors us, and if you have a problem with that, the short story is still that you have to go look before you know what you're talking about.

Meanwhile, Monday I'm gonna go into the office in the company Maybach and dedicate the booze, drugs and hookers provided by the company "To Crid, who paid for all of this personally!"

(Just for Crid: just kidding, that last thing.)

Just for grins: here is Tank 35, about 100 feet from my office building. It has about 9000 tons of waste in it. Zoom in. The general area is called "H Tank Farm". Look at it in Google Earth. Count the other tanks, there and in F Tank Farm to the west.

How many people do you think it should take to run this facility? How essential is it?

That's my job. You?

> The simple fact is that there ARE government
> jobs that cannot be halted

If anyone had suggested that a job needed to be "halted", all that might be worth something.

"If anyone had suggested that a job needed to be "halted"..."

Then make the distinction. You started this with a claim that all Federal employees are {something}. You didn't even say anything about contractors, just jumped on me without doing a whit of research.

So, have at it when you get the chance.

I can roll with that

In these intervening years, Crid has noticed that it is, in fact, wise to consider the impact of public pensions, as Amy has raised the issue of the criminally convicted still getting paid. Go figure.