I once heard Barney Frank quip something like this, “In all my years of public service, I’ve never gotten one complaint along the lines of ‘Please don’t plow my roads every day!’ or ‘The ambulance got here too fast!'”
People seem to get very upset when THEIR government services are cut; they are delighted, however to see “efficiencies” achieved elsewhere. For the most part, I think that people do not even realize how much service they get from government, from schools to parks to roads to the internet, etc.
Especially in these times of high unemployment, you’d think there would be an outcry for government at all levels to spend more money to create jobs. And, if we need higher taxes to support that, so be it; we’d all be better off!
Please share widely!
Big Gubmint needs to get its hands off my Medicare!
This is giving too much credit to respondents perhaps, but our government is a pretty appropriate size, but just malformed. It’s just a matter of moving some of the resources put into Predator droves that attack Pakistani civilians and the F22 air force that will defend the United States against the Soviet Union fifteen years hence.
…and we should be able to expand service with even smaller government.
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p>Let’s conduct basic gov services, like the RMV or paying tickets, online and reduce costs. Let’s chop out wasteful Sheriffs and have their functions absorbed into existing agencies. Let’s help the needy–who usually deal with multiple needs, like substance abuse, housing issues, job training and so on–and have to navigate a different agency for each issue, ending in frustration and not solutions.
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p>I don’t mind expanding government services or increasing government spending, what I have a problem with is when 90 cents to the dollars being spent goes to pushing paper and not helping people or fixing problems. Today the state spends billions on social services and outcomes aren’t changing…this is bad. It’s time for us to expect better outcomes (like in the area of substance abuse and educational achievement) with the money that is being spent. I think that is a very progressive position–we need to improve the lives of people who need assistance, not just focus on spending money.
From Friday’s New York Times article asking “Who can clean up Albany?
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p>And boy does he have his work cut out for him!
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I don’t think Ed Koch has been thinking clearly for a few years now.
Tom Golisano, the owner of half of Buffalo, tried this in 2008. Epic fail.
Sorry couldn’t resist.
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p>Read the article and who’s been recruited into this effort – they are following the script used by reformers of Tammany Hall a century ago. ………………
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p>2. Ensuring that Open Meetings laws apply just as much to executive agencies and the state legislature as they do to the Boston City Council, the Arlington Board of Selectman, etc.
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p>3. Ensuring that the Freedom of Information Act applies just as much to executive agencies and the state legislature as they do to the Boston City Council, the Arlington Board of Selectman, etc.
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p>4. Ensuring that all fair and open procurement laws apply just as much to executive agencies and the state legislature as they do to the Boston City Council, the Arlington Board of Selectman, etc.
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p>Government behaves better, me thinks, when the governed are watching.
During the debates, Joe Kennedy would mention that you can’t cut taxes without cutting spending without causing a deficit and everyone sorta stood there for a second, and then continued talking to each other as if he hadn’t said anything.
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p>It was an office space-like ignoring of people talking.
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p>Dom Portwood: Hi, Peter. What’s happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it.
Dom Portwood: Yeah. Did you get that memo?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I’ve already taken care of it so it’s not even really a problem anymore.
Dom Portwood: Ah! Yeah. It’s just we’re putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that’d be great. All right!
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p>JUST like that.
The problem in this case was, of course, that Joe Kennedy was not a credible messenger. I’m not sure why anybody should have listened to him during the debates more than any random wacko off the street, regardless of how correct he is.
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p>Instead, respected people in both parties have to make the deficit case. Democrats have to realize that long-term deficits will have major long-term negative consequences for the economy, and commit themselves to deficit reduction sooner rather than later. Republicans have to realize that tax cut fundamentalism, regardless of how well it works as a political pandering strategy, doesn’t work when it comes to actual governance.
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p>On balance, however, I think the Democrats are a lot closer to their realization than are the Republicans. That is indeed a problem.
they don’t mean cuts in essential services, or services to the poor, or even medicare. What they want is for the waste to stop. In such areas as:
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p>GAO says millions were wasted in awarding of Katrina contracts
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p>Surprise! ‘Billions Wasted’ in Iraq Reconstruction
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p>$18M Being Spent to Redesign Recovery.gov Web Site
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p>just to name a very few. There are so many ways the government could save money. Especially the Federal and State governments.
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p>Instead, there always seems to be a hand reaching out to get more money from taxpayers. Especially middle class taxpayers, who qualify for no government subsidies for anything.
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p>Also, government getting involve in controlling peoples lives. Such as helmet laws & seatbelt laws. Different from speed limit laws which are designed to protect people from speeders, helmet laws and seatbelt laws are designed to force you to protect yourself. Many people take offense to that. One law that really irked me was making it illegal to ride in the back of a pick-up truck. I loved riding in the back of a pickup truck when I was a kid. Of course, not far, maybe down the road a ways to the lake or the bowling alley. Now it’s against the law. If it weren’t, I would still ride in the back of a pickup truck if the opportunity presented itself, and I trusted the driver of the truck.
Why must everything be so complicated and why do many many “civil servants” do htings to make things easy on them and not the citizen?
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p>Example: I offered to work the polls in my community and later learned I would be paid $50. great. They asked me to come in to fill out the paper work, which I figured was a 1099. Nope, they wanted two picture IDs, and they initially rejected my employment ID because it did not meet Homeland security guidelines and they wanted my pass port. Then they made me sign up for direct deposit–so I had to give them voided check. It gets crazier, they told me my first (and only) check would not be direct deposit, because they needed to test things to make sure the money went into the correct account and subsequent checks would be direct deposit (as if I’d ever subject myself to this again).
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p>I was told the direct deposit was mandatory and that puzzled me. I later found out from a friendly official that accountant makes people do direct deposit for even the smallest checks, because IF someone doesn’t cash the check, the accountant does want to spend the time finding where the discrepancy is. So I (and all other citizen poll workers) were made to jump thru hoops, so she could avoid the POSSIBILITY of having to.
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p>It’s that kind of crap that upsets people and makes them want “smaller government” and Michael, your call for more government spending will fall on deaf ears until crap like this stops.
Most poll workers do it more than once. A lot more. In my town it’s the same people year after year. Spending more time upfront to make sure the accountant doesn’t have to waste his time, that my tax dollars are paying for, is more efficient.
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p>This is exactly the problem with criticizing “government waste”: a lot of it isn’t waste. I want people being paid by my tax dollars to carry out their jobs in ways that save time. Then they can get more done, or we can cut back on their hours and retain the same level of service. If you want the gilded version of their services, pay extra. But you can’t logically complain about the existence of big government and about the level of service being too low at the same time.
…and I can assure you, they spent more time processing the direct deposit paperwork (which of course never happened) than the POSSIBLE time spent if I did not cash th check.
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p>And how do you measure “cost”? Stifling people from getting involved in local government has a great cost. There is a reason it is the same people working the polls–because new folks like myself get frustrated with all the hoops. If you want to keep the same blood in the system, then you will have no problem with this–if you want to encourage more participation, then don’t make people jump thru unnecessary hoops.
trying to mow lawns and wash dishes and clean hotel rooms.
Republicans seem to insist the government demand your proof of citizenship at every turn.
to get hired these days. Maybe it’s just a protection for election workers, to prevent election fraud.
But what it really was the law of unintended consequences…Homeland (I assume) wants to make sure all levels of Gov don’t hire terrorists (or maybe illegals) and want two picture ids. I gave them two, but they both fell into “Column A” types of ideas and they needed one type of ID from column a and one from column B–which was a passport. Even though 90 % of Town Hall knows me and knows I’m a long time resident, the person was more worried about what would happen to them, if they got audited by Homeland Security. So again, one bureaucrat was worried about a possible audit by another bureaucrat, so they made the life of a regular citizen difficult. And folks around here wonder why people hate “government”?
But it is definitely an immigration thing.
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p>You are not allowed to hire anyone without proof that they are US citizens. Anyone I hire has to show me proof of citizenship.
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p>I realize that they all know you… but how do they “know” you are a US Citizen?
What, that’s no longer sufficient proof?
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p>A lot of it is.
But a lot of people have knee jerk reactions instead of really thinking about it. I support the 2 pic IDs requirement for the reason you mentioned, but it sounds like waste if you don’t think about it.
I had two picture Ids, but one was not a passport. One ID was a drivers license and one was a employment id from a very recognized employer. Yet the clerk was more concerned about a Homeland audit by another bureaucrat that using their head.
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p>Go right ahead and defend a one hour process that spanned a couple of that required me to go to my town hall twice and go thru two paper work processes (the Homeland Security form and the mandatory direct deposit–which didn’t even do direct deposit for this event) all so I could get paid $50 for my civic good deed of working the polls, but it feeds right into the “anti-government” knee-jerk attitude you bemoan.
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p>At one point in the process the clerk said many people forgo the $50 because of all the paperwork involved–something I should have done, but it soon became a matter of principal for me. So there you have it…a system that is so complex that many people forgo their $50…that is a process you defend?
Homeland Security is a staggeringly large bureaucracy. I’ve never understood why merging several agencies into a behemoth with a mind-numbingly complex mission was supposed to make the federal government more responsive, more effective, or more efficient.
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p>Your anecdote is an excellent example of what really happens when mission statements collide.
The question shouldn’t be do you want government to be bigger or smaller, but do you want government to do more or less.
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p>No one wants big government for it’s own sake. If a department can perform its function with 10 people just as well as with 20, almost everyone would say “only hire 10.”
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p>What’s missing in the question is the implicit trade-off. A more neutral wording would be something like, “Do you favor a larger government that provides more services or a smaller government that provides fewer?”
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p>It gets even worse once you start talking about what you want to cut. Conservatives like to rail against increased spending, but it’s much harder to come up with specific cuts. Across the board cuts only go so far and if preformed repeatedly lead to long lines, ineffective agencies, and deferred maintenance.
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p>What we ultimately need to decide what we want government to do and how we want pay for it. Do we want clean parks with well maintained facilities? Do we want roads that are smoothly paved and bridges that are sturdy? Do want small class sizes in our schools with salaries for our teachers that attract qualified people? Do we want quick and efficient service at our government agencies? Do we want transit that has frequent service with few delays? All of these cost money. Money that has to come from the taxpayer. That you can get all of these just by cutting “the fat” out of the budget is a pervasive and destructive myth.
6 for this
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p>and a 6 for this
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p>and a 6 for this
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p>and three more 6s on general principles.
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p>Yes, we do want these things. There isn’t enough money in the world that will pay for it. Statements like this make it sound as if we don’t already pay taxes. We do pay taxes – on everything: income, real estate, automobiles, purchases, I even pay tax on my son’s trumpet rental.
Our government would be able to make better use of the wealth of revenue they already receive if they learned to manage their responsibilities in a sound and cost effective way.
We get a lot for our taxes here. (I used to live in NH, so I know how trying to get by on the cheap skimps on important things, like primary and higher ed.)
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p>We have the best schools in the country. Read that sentence again. We have a great university and community college system, we have relatively affordable public transit (ask NYers what they pay), we have universal health care (granted, not in the way I would want, but we have it, and are the better for it), we have great businesses, we’re poised to do pretty well coming out of recession, we have a fairly balanced budget thanks to responsible Dems who cut spending and raised some small levels of taxes (since we’ve been doing decades of cutting lately, and some of our taxes have not gone up with inflation essentially BEING a tax cut against the budget). We have a highly educated, entrepreneurial climate here.
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p>I dunno, I think I get more for the money, bang for the buck, in MA than I ever did in tax-shy NH (by the way, ever compared their real estate taxes to yours lately??). I chose to live in MA and sure as hell if I wanted kids, I’d want them to be educated here and not in NH. My standard of living is higher here, than in many, many other states in the union. And that’s WITH the cost of living being so much higher here.
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p>There’s a reason MA is one of the top states for sending more money to the federal government than it gets back – we’re a productive, rich state. That came not from reducing our obligation to one another, but because we emphasize that (at least, we do when we’re at our best).
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p>Is it perfect? Nope. Would I live anywhere else? Not a chance in hell.
-it looks like there is no need for tax hikes. Sounds good to me.