Would you like to see less or more Government services? Or maybe just the same? And if more or the same whom should burden the cost? Everyone equally, the ones that use these services, or a top % of the wealthy? And why? Might I add if we had less services then taxes for everyone could go down.
One place I would like to see change is all the tsars that presidents of both parties have used and funded. Reagan had a drug tsar and they have continued since. This administration has 30+ tsars. We even have a car tsar. These officials work at the pleasure of the president and have no oversite by congress as cabinet secretaries have.
Less is more. The less money the government spends, the less money we are taxed. The less money we are taxed, the more money I have to spend on stuff that makes me happy. Harry Reid can take his cowboy poetry and shove it up his backside!
As far as taxes are concerned, I firmly believe that a Progressive Tax is most effective. I'd like to see the implementation of a consumption or value added tax so we can reduce the Progressive Tax to something more manageable for everyone. It's no coincidence that almost immediately after this country began rolling back the taxes on the upper class that economic growth began to decline. Anyone who chooses to look at the facts and not rely on the messages we were taught by politicians knows this. Taxes are the rent we pay to live in a civilization. Social programs benefit the poor by obvious reasons. They benefit the wealthy because poor people are able to sustain a living without having to resort to crime. This also provides a workforce for corporate America (aka The Wealthy). It also affords opportunity for the poor to gain an education which improves intellectual capital and in effect, provides a larger, more stable tax base. I'd like to see the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education gone. I'd like to see a National Healthcare Plan (in the model of Taiwan), a real Energy Policy that involves lowering dependence on oil by taxation (consumption tax) and making huge investments in technology like wind, solar and nuclear power and a balanced budget amendment to force our representatives to not overspend.I I'd also like to see us stop electing lawyers to represent us, but that's another thread.
I won't spin. I'll be objective about it in my answer, but this will be more of a rant and may be a little all over the place so work with me here... Ok, look at it like this. Instead of focusing on insignificant, stupid, and petty "which side is right or wrong" arguments which seems to be the way it goes around here (and it's really getting sickening from both you R's and D's), I'll attempt answer the question in a more general fashion. Are federal employees over-paid? Abso-phucking-lutely. Why? The answer is simple and it encompasses ALL federal employees, particularly the law-making bodies. We're $15 trillion in debt and it's rapidly growing. We're barely past the Q1 of the year and they're out of money already. And neither side seems to care whether it continues to grow or not. In other words, they are doing a terrible job and phucking us without even the courtesy of a reach-around. This is the culmination of years and years of these power hungry pigs eating at the seemingly endless slop trough, and now it's finally to the point that it's caught up to us. So they sit up there on the hill and squabble over cuts, and the difference between what each side thinks should be cut is minuscule. $30 billion? Really? Big phucking deal. All they're doing is fighting over which side gets bragging rights for winning the @sshole Olympics. Paul Ryan is the only one I've seen come out with cuts of the necessary magnitude that will have to be made to even begin to make a difference in getting us out of this hole, and still it won't be easy. I haven't read the entire details of his proposal, so I'm not going to argue its merit. However, I do feel that regarding strictly the monetary amount, he's on the right track. If anyone would have come out with a proposal in the same ballpark, left or right, I'd give them props too. I don't really give a chit about republicans or democrats, though admittedly I have right-leaning tendencies on more things than not.. That's all a big distraction and they want us fighting over that petty crap. I know my rant seems to be more directed to congress present and past, but as a result of their stupidity we have a bunch of jobs that aren't necessary to the survival of this country. Since those jobs are contributing to the problem, those people are over paid too. I don't care if those jobs pay a dollar a week, it's too much if they don't need to even exist. A person getting a salary that doesn't need to exist, is overpaid. Look at it this way. Do you realize that most federal employees are getting paid from money that we're borrowing now days? The tax revenue isn't paying them, it's paying the interest on the debt we owe so we can continue borrowing. Show me a business model that leads to prosperity by borrowing money for payroll at a greater rate than you can pay it back. We are currently taking in about 2.8 billion a month in tax revenue. We are paying 30+ billion a month in interest on our debt. There's approximately 22.5 million government employees (according to WSJ) that make an average of $100,000 a year (counting benefits). Assuming that number is correct, it means the monthly payroll for all government employees is roughly 187.5 Billion dollars. Hell even if the average salary is half that, it's still $93.75 billion/month which is three times what we're taking in on income, payroll, duties and excise taxes, and corporate taxes combined. Yes, they are grossly over-paid. Again, this is not a left vs. right rant on my part.
I expect nothing less from you man. You are a class act, and I know that even though we don't agree on alot of things, you will always give a heartfelt response without personal attacks, and it's actually quite refreshing. If you read that article, the reason federal employees are overpaid is because the majority of lower level paying jobs, are run by the private sector. My question is, what is the private sector doing to bring wages up? Why is it that fed jobs must come down in wages, yet private sector wages rarely go up?
