I don't suppose that when Senators and Congressmen fly mil-jet, we're talking about them sitting in a web seat on a C-17, next to a load of F-16 parts, are we?

I don't suppose we are!

The WSJ piece has links to the sort of luxe flying times they've been accustomed to.

Remember, some pigs are better than others.

I don't suppose that when Senators and Congressmen fly mil-jet, we're talking about them sitting in a web seat on a C-17

No, we're talking about the military version of the Gulfstream, or perhaps a Learjet. Wikipedia has a list of the USAF's current inventory.

Any manager who cannot cut three percent from a budget that has been growing for as long as the ones in DC have is incompetent.

They will throw a tantrum and attempt to inflict the maximum pain possible to the peasantry. I have a counterproposal. The last time we had bad weather, nonessential personnel were allowed to stay home. Why don't we get rid of all nonessential personnel, and selectively re-hire if and where needed?

I work for a big financial services company, and I call the regular customer service line to do my business. I don't get a colleague to do things for me behind the scenes. I suppose if I had, then my replacement VISA card wouldn't have gone to the wrong address. But the inconvenience of it is the point of the whole thing; how else can I learn what our customers go through?

In other words, Nancy Pelosi should WANT to fly commercial, maybe even economy class. How can she serve her constituents if she doesn't go through the same shitty experiences as they? Oh, that's right, she gets her perquisites just so she doesn't have to. Some animals really are more equal than others.

"Why don't we get rid of all nonessential personnel, and selectively re-hire if and where needed?"

I was thinking about this the other day. Whenever there's a strike by public employees, essential service levels are always maintained. Do we get superfluous, non-essential service when they're not on strike? So, why am I being robbed by the taxman for non-essential services?

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I'm all for getting rid of the deadwood, but firing all "non-essential" personnel is not the way to do it.

First, all or almost all low level employees are non-essential. They are also the ones who do the actual work! There are some upper-level non-managers who do work (particularly things like analytic or R&D stuff), but they really aren't the non-essentials. Rather most of the "essential" people are high ranking "meeting-sitters."

How about we get rid of all of THEM???

OK, in seriousness, lots of "non-essential" stuff means not-essential-in-a-serious-emergency. So, for instance, the folks who do stuff like design training for the troops or fix tanks wouldn't be essential for the day-to-day, but they are still essential in the long haul!

So, I still say privatize TSA, and get rid of the folks who spend all day on Facebook.

I work for a big financial services company, and I call the regular customer service line to do my business.

In software development they call this "eating your own dogfood". Using your own product in your day-to-day work, just like one of your customers would. It can be very effective, especially for picking up little niggling usability issues that aren't really bugs, but piss people off anyway.