Charlie appears to be math-challenged. Check out this little piece of fiscal disconnect:
Baker said he wants to reduce the 5.3 percent income tax and 6.25 percent sales-tax rates to 5 percent.
What would this do for Massachusetts? To hear Charlie Baker tell the story, it seems kind of, well, sucky.
“I do think, at the end of the day, we’ll end up with fewer people working for the state,” said Baker, when asked about the consequences of his plan. “But at the end of the day, the state should have to suck it up the same way cities and towns and families and businesses are sucking it up.”
In case Charlie hadn’t noticed, its the withdrawal of local aid for cities, towns, and schools that brought sucky times to the local level. The wholesale cuts in local aid started with the Romney administration, and this recession is even more painful because municipalities and schools never recovered from Romney’s 20% local aid cut.
Charlie, you can’t run a state like a health insurance company, simply by cutting out the people who need the services.
christopher says
Yes he probably has plenty of connections in the health industry, but any individual is limited only $1000 (500 each for primary and general) per candidate. It’s not as if he’s going to be even more influenced by that sector than he already is based on his own experience and outlook. I think asking whether we want a health CEO as Governor is valid, but I wouldn’t harp too much on the contributions themselves. I don’t have a problem with his Lowell Sun quote.
stomv says
Just come out and say the truth. Something like:
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p>Look, I’ve been in the health care industry a long time, and many people in the industry have seen my work. They have confidence that I can take my experience running a business and use it to better run the state. It’s no surprise that people who work in health care are donating to my campaign — they’ve seen the quality of my work, and want the Commonwealth to benefit from my skills and experiences.
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p>How hard is that? Instead of making it seem like a happy coincidence, just call it what it is. Make lemonade.
johnd says
Interesting http://www.followthemoney.org/… Is Deval a “tool” for unions? Remember, for every union worker in MA there are 20 non-union workers. BTW, what percent is $90,000 of the $3 million Charlie has raised?
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p>15 Top Industries Contributing…
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p>
Top Industries
Total
Party Committees$2,403,066
Lawyers & Lobbyists$933,378
Public Subsidy$806,845
Education$376,235
Health Professionals$235,163
Candidate Self-finance$148,173
Real Estate$138,275
Securities & Investment$119,596
General Trade Unions$83,140
Civil Servants/Public Officials$70,782
Printing & Publishing$66,105
Hospitals & Nursing Homes$62,660
Construction Services$59,125
Business Services$54,395
Insurance$49,790
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p>15 Top Industries Contributing…
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p>
ContributorTotal
MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRATIC PARTY2379496
PUBLIC FUND403422
PUBLIC FUND403422
PATRICK, DEVAL L148173
PATRICK VICTORY FUND19466
HOTEL RESTAURANT INSTITUTIONAL EMPLOYEES & BARTENDERS15000
MASSACHUSETTS FEDERATION OF TEACHERS10500
SERVICE EMPLOYEES LOCAL 509/SEIU10500
UTILITY WORKERS LOCAL 369/UWUA10500
UTILITY WORKERS/UWUA10000
BOSTON CARMENS LOCAL 589/ATU10000
MASSACHUSETTS STATE COUNCIL OF SERVICE EMPLOYEES/SEIU10000
MASSACHUSETTS LABORERS DISTRICT COUNCIL/LIUNA5500
TEAMSTERS LOCAL 127/IBT DRIVE5500
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES LOCAL 291/NAGE5000
UTILITY WORKERS/UWUA5000
LEWIS, STEPHEN5000
EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS BRICKLAYERS & ALLIED CRAFTSMEN LOCAL 34000
FAIRMONT COPLEY PLAZA HOTEL2152
SHEET METAL WORKERS LOCAL 17/SMWIA
stomv says
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p>To recap, you claim that union membership is under 5% of all MA workers. This seemed a bit low, so I went a googlin’. According to the Boston Globe, union membership in MA was 15.7% in 2008, and 12.7% nationally. That’d be 1 in 6 in MA, 1 in 8 nationally.
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p>Don’t let the facts get in your way.
johnd says
Let me restate my remark…
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p>
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p>Thanks for keeping me honest!
stomv says
and I hope you’ll help me here too. I’m singling you out only because you responded… you’re not the only person (of any political persuasion) around here who’s done this…
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p>Where did 1 in 20 come from? Did you
* make it up
* guess
* vaguely remember that stat from somewhere
* have a reference (even if, in hindsight, it’s a bad one)
* think of it as a figure of speech
* something else?
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p>I ask because, as an engineer and scientist, that’s the kind of stuff that drives me nuts. The number exists, it’s easy to find, and it’s meaningful. To not use that factual number, but instead a different number in a way that presents the incorrect number as the correct number is just crazy to me. I’ve used the wrong number too… often when I do it’s either a transcription error, a misunderstanding of definition or problem scope or units, or using a bad source.
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p>Again, I’m not suggesting that you’re the only one who’s ever done it. What I’m after is… how did it happen in this case? What kind of mistake was it?
johnd says
only to find out are wrong. Forever, I used 9.8 pounds as the weight of a gallon of water until one day someone said it was 8.3 pounds and I almost chuckled at their error… they were right.
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p>I remember hearing that only 5% of the workers in the US were part of a union. Where that number came from is beyond me bu that’s what I have heard and been spreading in conversation. I was shocked when I saw it was 15/12% in the US/MA.
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p>So it was me transposing, wasn’t me misunderstanding the term and was a gross error based on me hearing something in the past and not researching it to see if it was true. Totally my bad!
dhammer says
I’m not sure on the actual number, but 5% sounds about right.
paulsimmons says
The Bureau of Labor Statistics actally cites 16.6% of workers to be members of unions, and 18.0% to be represented by them in 2009.
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p>This however does not say how many of those members were private versus public sector employees; and I was unable to find a State-specific breakdown for 2009 at the BLS site.
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p>However private sector unionization is declining nationally.
paulsimmons says
I should have specified that above.
billxi says
I think it bears repeating. I’s speaking seriously here.
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p>Congratulations Governor Patrick (3.00 / 3)
Your plan to cut Personal Care Attendant hours may not bode well for the clients and the PCA’s, but at least it will hurt you too. That is fairness!
You see, if you cut PCA hours, a great number of them will stop working as PCA’s. They stop working, they stop paying union dues to the SEIU. The SEIU sees a drop in revenue, they stop giving money to your re-election campaign.
The clients lose needed care. The PCA’s lose income. The state loses a bunch in payroll taxes. The SEIU loses dues income. You lose re-election. See, everybody loses. That is certainly fair.
But not me, I receive 20 hours a week, so I’m good.
Do you folks want to tell me you’re not Social Darwinists again?
______________________________________
by: billxi @ Sun Nov 15, 2009 at 12:02:13 PM EST
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p>The SEIU will need some serious investigation if they support Patrick again. my PCA’s are going to begin attending union meetings along with some PCA’s who work for friends. I’ll keep you posted on their happenings.
johnd says
vs. the financial campaign contributions Deval received in 2006. People like David want to concentrate on Charlie Baker getting $90K from the Healthcare industry but want to turn a blind eye to Deval getting…
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p>
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p>Sorry to have to point this out to you!!!
paulsimmons says
Heh
johnd says
I’m on my third cup of coffee so maybe the caffeine has me electrified. Sorry if I’m a little wired (not weird).
christopher says
Assuming you’re premise, which I don’t but whatever, given the choice between a corporate tool and a union tool I’ll take the union tool anyday.
sabutai says
…how casually Baker says “There might be fewer people working for the state”.
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p>Yes…prison guards, professors, state police, health care workers, EMTs, pothole repair…
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p>He’s proud of eliminating this people.
johnd says
Do we enjoy an amazingly efficient workforce with no “fat”?
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p>I don’t think I even know someone who could say we can’t cut the state budget… but I don’t know many people here.
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p>FYI…
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p>SURVEY QUESTION:
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p>”How many CENTS out of every dollar you pay in state taxes would you say is WASTED by the state government?”
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p>RESPONSE:
From All Voters: $0.41 of every dollar is wasted by government
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p>From Voters who believe that the state is heading in the Right Direction: $0.35 of every dollar is wasted by government
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p>From Voters who believe that the state is headed in the Wrong Direction: $0.45 of every dollar is wasted by government
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p>Source: April 2008 Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates survey exposing public opinion over government waste in Massachusetts; released by Citizens for Limited Taxation
sabutai says
You really don’t care how many times you get called out on your crap, you just keep doing it, don’t you?
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p>Surveys are no more reliable in accounting than they are in science.
johnd says
This should be good news to consumers who are looking for bank credit or loans since no addition requirements have been created to get credit…
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p>Oh wait a minute… this news MUST BE BOGUS! Look how they found it out…
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p>
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p>A SURVEY! A SURVEY???? Don’t they know that…
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p>
sabutai says
Nice…you found two different meanings to the same word! That totally invalidates my point…except it doesn’t one bit. I think you’re smarter than you let on, so I’ll chalk this up to malfeasance rather than a lack of fluency in English.
johnd says
Nothing wrong with this kind of back and forth is there Sabutai?
huh says
You lie, we correct it, you repeat the lie, we repeat the correction, you come up with a new lie, …
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p>”Fun” isn’t exactly the right word.
christopher says
Would you rather have a discussion with a Jack Russell terrier or Barney Frank’s dining room table?:)
stomv says
If the poll asked former governors or state treasurers (and broke it up by D and R), that would be a much more interesting survey. Not a study, but at least interesting.
david says
that the average poll respondent has a solid basis in evidence for accurately estimating the percentage of tax money that is “wasted.”
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p>Did this alleged survey even define what “wasted” means?
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p>There are lots of good reasons to be critical of some state government practices. Bogus surveys like this are not among them.
johnd says
survey, study or any other collection of data which goes against what you all want to think. The Scott Brown election was a striking example as you all ignored the data showing Martha was losing. You wanted to disbelieve therefore the polls were ALL wrong. You want to believe the Tea Party movement was a bunch of wackos. You chuckled at the “overestimated” crowds at rallies and on the MAll in DC. But you are now seeing the moderate Democrats retreating from their stances because there wee “substantial” amounts of people protesting. More data being ignored by BMGers.
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p>Is this survey result accurate… I have to freaking idea. I haven’t seen any other data to the contrary. Do I believe it could be that high ($.41)… sure as shit I do. We have a government which our own Governor essentially said had at least 5% extra fat. I say this because he started a “worker volunteer” program which allowed every state worker to volunteer 1 day a month to a variety of community organizations. So, he says every worker can leave their job and go plant trees for a day… This is a great example how the governor could have implemented a 1 day furlough program which would have had the same effect on the workflow of the government… nothing!
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p>As an exercise, go outside your usual cabal of lefty friends and ask the question about government waste. You may not duplicate the survey above but I’ll bet a coffee you won’t hear too many say there isn’t any!
paulsimmons says
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p>I don’t recall myself ignoring verifiable survey data.
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p>In any self-selected political group on or offline; left, right, or indifferent, there will be a certain amount of denial in the face of adverse information.
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p>Relax. Your side won, and if you want some real recreational gloating, you can remind people that Coakley’s folks leaked their own internal polling confirming that she was behind Brown at the same time some of the more rabid Coakley partisans were trashing identical outside data.
johnd says
my remarks are more far reaching than the election. I really do think many are “out of touch”. I should refrain from commenting since it helps my party in the end. But as someone told me, “in the end, we’re all dead” so I will comment.
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p>More sniglets from a story today…
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p>
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p>That’s how I see it. I think many Democrats see it the same way and finally Obama and many others like Evan Bayh are “coming to their senses”.
stomv says
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p>It is a bunch of wackos.
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p>
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p>They were “overestimated” in so glaringly obvious a fashion, it was hard not to call it out-and-out lying, especially when FOX used pics from other events (with larger attendance) in their broadcast, as shown by The Daily Show.
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p>
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p>
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p>Alright sport, find it. Find half of it. Tell me which one in five you’ll lay off. Will it be teachers (increasing class size 25% overnight)? Will it be firemen (closing down one in five stations)? Cops (nah, no impact on crime I’m sure)? Seriously, find it. Find it in your city or town budget. Find me that kind of waste in a single department of your municipal budget.
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p>You won’t. It’s simply not there. Every conservative and politician fetishizes searching for this waste because it’s so damn attractive to suggest that there’s massive waste instead of having a frank and honest discussion of what government program the conservative would actually cut. Instead of being honest and pointing out that lower taxes means the government won’t be there for you as often in your time of need, they believe that there’s a massive conspiracy of waste, and they could simply eliminate it. Right. Sure. Horsehockey.
kbusch says
There are too many Republicans, this commenter among them, who make accusations because they sound good, because they fit a narrative. Thus, here we have
Tolerating this kind of crap is inimical to democracy and, on this blog, to useful discussion.
nopolitician says
Do you really believe that multi-billion dollar corporations are 100% efficient, that every person working for, say, Fidelity, is absolutely necessary?
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p>It is not possible to have 100% efficient organizations once you get past a certain size. Government or private.
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p>That is not an excuse to constantly bemoan government or its size. The lack of perfect efficiency is made up for by economies of scale.
lynne says
This is exactly right.
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p>Lord, if I had a nickel for time a every large private company I worked for wasted amounts both small and large, I’d be independently wealthy. Hell, I’d settle for .005% of the money I know was wasted! LOL
kathy says
And these are public companies.
johnd says
People get fired or laid off all the time. I included laid off since many companies I know who are “too nice” to fire slackers use a layoff to dump dead weight. Plus, the market helps companies make decisions so when a product is not competitive, business goes down and workers get laid off.
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p>Government is a different story. We have schools with horrible teachers that unions protect… police, firefighters, state workers… all groups with slackers mixed amongst good productive workers, but the government either doesn’t have the will or the ability to get rid of unproductive workers. BMGers may differ with me but I don’t know of anyone working for the state that doesn’t have a boatload of stories about the “fat” in their own organizations.
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p>The time has come to cut out the fat and clearly Deval is not up to the task. His answer is to keep using the rainy day account and raise all sorts of taxes. It’s time for a change!
petr says
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p>Except most of the individuals who do the firing…
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p>
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p>How, exactly, does this happen? Are you saying that everytime a worker gets laid off, an angel gets his wings? I’m curious as to where and when these signals occur, wherein the ‘market helps companies’…
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p>A whole lot of people got laid off when the banks recently made a sudden, and drastic, change to the amount of money they lend. Are you saying that the banks ‘know’ when to stop lending in order that layoffs might occur? Are you further saying that this process is, in any way, efficient? I mean, it seems to me, that a kernel of what you say is true: bad businesses (mortgage brokers and high-flying high finance cowboys) were certainly peddling bad products and making bad business… There’s really no way, when you look at it, that their ‘products’ ought to have been competitive in the first place. But, when the market correction came, people who were building John Deere tractors and Caterpillar construction equipment got laid off. Having used both John Deere and Caterpillar equipment I can attest to the uniform excellence and obvious competiveness of their products… How, exactly, does the bad business (mortgages, finance, etc…) and the flame-out of their bad products justify the layoffs at Caterpillar and Deere, depressing the output of their obviously good products?
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p>
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p>You’re arguing against yourself here. If you believe, as you allege, in ‘self-correcting’ mechanisms like ‘market forces’ and signals between actors, then the simple task of firing ‘bad teachers’ for ‘horrible’ performance becomes much more than about protection: how is that you know teachers are performing ‘horribly’? What metric do you use? If you believe in the feedback mechanisms of markets, as you say you do, where simple buying power equates to unequivocal judgement on companies and workers, what signals are being sent that a significant portion of teachers are ‘horrible’?
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p>What, in fact, is the teachers ‘product’ upon which you can make this businesslike and market-friendly judgement? Is the product the students? Well, I submit that there are too many variables in a particular students success and/or failure, including parental involvement, class size, nutrition and other seemingly interconnected metrics… so you really can’t, from looking at given students, assert that a teacher is ‘horrible’. What then shall we use to as the teachers ‘product’? The curriculum? Well, the curriculum isn’t, in general, built by the teacher, but by the state, and in some cases, by the feds. So you can’t say that a particular curriculum and/or its implementation is the result of a particular teacher being ‘horrible’…
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p>Interestingly, one of the biggest correlations is between student achievement and property taxes: apparently richer communities hire better teachers, have better curriculums and overall better students… without, in fact, spending all that much more per student. There’s a paradoxical context for you… Perhaps the teachers, per se, have no product, but are themselves products of rich communities?
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p>Can you also allege, with a straight face, that, in the absence of unions, teacher hirings and firings will not be arbitrary? What mechanisms will you put in place that the administrators won’t be similarly “horrible” and upon what metrics will you decide this? Will you use a “boatload of stories” in deciding how and when to hire and fire?
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p>In fact, you can’t, with any degree of honesty, say that the ‘boatload of stories’ you hear about the ‘fat’ in the systems isn’t the arbitrary carping of disgruntled co-workers. It may be true. It may be calumny. You, personally, have no way of judging the efficacy of random complaints about state workers.
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p>
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p>There’s nothing particularly wrong with fat, and in a dry cold climate, fat becomes a help rather than a hindrance. In the private sector, management worries less about waste and more about profitability: they’re concerned very little with laying off people for reasons of efficiency and will choose obscene profits that mask a great deal of waste 10 times out of 9.
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p>But moving through your logic, where the rational market allows unmistakable signals between actors, what signals determine the difference between ‘slackers mixed amongst good productive workers’? What makes a productive fireman? More fires to fight? Hardly. It’s entirely possible to pay firemen to train and be ready for a fire that never occurs. Is this waste? In the narrowest, technical, sense of the word, yes, this is waste. I’ll take that kind of waste before letting someone burn. What makes a productive cop? More arrests? Well, that’s predicated on the assumption that people become criminals because of the presence or absence of the police: analogous to the well known predator/prey equilibrium. I’m sure that’s a factor, but not the mitigating one: people might wait for cops to be somewhere else before committing a crime they were already planning to commit, but people don’t note the absence of cops and spontaneously commit crimes due to that absence. A cop can walk a beat and never make an arrest. Is this, likewise, waste? Again, in the narrow sense of the term, it sure is. So be it.
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p>
johnd says
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p>I would submit that there is a correlation between student achievement and property taxes, but I would caution against causation. I have said here before that you can take the students from Newton High school and bus them down to Brighton High School and then take Brighton HS’s kids back to Newton. The kids from Newton would continue to excel while being taught by the existing Brighton HS teachers and using the facilities at Brighton HS. The major reason for students excelling is the families of the students, not the buildings OR the teachers. My youngest three kids go to Public schools and I would say 10-15% of their teachers are slackers who should be fired. I would also say we have too many administrators and too many janitors. lastly, I’d say we are underfunded for capital improvements which I’m sure gets negatively influenced by prevailing wage laws.
pablo says
It’s like shooting pickles in a barrel, you have these two sentences just sitting right next to each other…
So, if there are 10-15% slackers who should be fired, let’s reduce the number of people who do the supervision and evaluation and can document the case for dismissal.
johnd says
Even with a reduction in the administration there will still be enough people to pick out the bad apples in the system. Stop thinking like a public employee. Do more with less like we do in the private sector.
petr says
What an odd critique in a discussion about, at least tangentially, teachers…
huh says
Not only is he convinced a large percentage of his co-workers should be fired, he hates structure and “words.” Every meeting he’s in must be a variant of the “did too, did not” game.
petr says
If a fireman is paid and trains all year without ever facing a single fire, how much of his/her salary and training expenses were WASTED by the government?
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p>If a cop walks a beat for an entire year without meeting a single criminal in the act of committing a crime and thus makes no arrests in a year how much of that cops salary was WASTED by government?
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p>If a bunch of people are asked to estimate how much WASTE exists in state government, how far off from the true value would that estimate be? Is there any way to tell?
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p>If the government was WASTING .41 cents of every dollar, why hasn’t some clever fellow stood outside the banks and caught all those leaking nickels and dimes… ?
johnd says
In your “story”… what if it were “2” policemen (or Firefighters… firemen work on boilers). What if it were “3” or “4”… I’m sure we could chart a scale showing a correlation between the amount of people, in this case police officers walking a beat, who never actually stop a crime and crime. Going in the other direction, we could eliminate those same police officers walking a beat with no INCREASE in crime. I think we can titrate the police or the other public servants to lower levels with no decrease in these services and I would say YES, any amount of public servants over that “effective level of service” is a WASTE of the public’s money.
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p>We have a volunteer Firefighting force in my town. They hardly ever use the equipment or are called to duty. I do not consider it a waste. If someone proposed doubling our fire fighting equipment, then I believe it does turn from productive to wasteful
petr says
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p>By that logic the vast majority of defense spending is waste and you ought to be against it. If you’re against overly large standing fire departments… say, a fire department that spends vastly more than the next ten (ten) largest fire departments combined… then you ought to be against a similarly constituted standing army/navy, no?
christopher says
This a question I’d like an answer from Common Cause or like group, not just what voters believe.