patrick.net

thunderlips11 says

Discretionary spending is the Entertainment Budget of a Household. When faced with a budget crisis, households cut the trips across the state to play paintball first, not taking Johnny out of college or stopping contributions to their IRA.

Entitlement spending is funded by extra, regressive taxes - look at your paycheck. Military spending comes out of general revenue.

Who cares? It is all funded by our taxes.

The point is that we spend way way more on our entitlements that our national defense.

Alot of people seem genuinely unaware of this fact.

It would be efficient to euthanize half the population. To install cameras in everybody's room to prevent crime. To shoot all the cats and dogs to prevent billions on wasted resources on family pets.

Efficiency is not always a good thing. "Efficiencies" also create lots of suicides, broken homes, and a host of other problems.

Vicente says

I sleep better not voting for SELFISH ASSHOLES any more, who put political score-settling above humanity.

You mean when Democrats let cities go bankrupt and burn to the ground to protect their union members?

Those SELFISH ASSHOLES?

Fuck the rest, we got ours!

socal2 says

Who cares? It is all funded by our taxes.

The Pre-paid benefits are funded by working people; general revenues are paid in by all. It's not a surprise that people who don't work want to steal the revenue from pre-paid benefits and direct it to subsidies and private contracting they benefit from. A few millions extra in subsidies for their military contractor business is worth a lot more to them than a thousand bucks in SS per month.

Vicente says

In what way is military pension different than any other pension, or OASDI for that matter? It's still an entitlement, and a loomingly large one!

I consider pensions to be the same as wages and salaries; many people choose high benefit jobs than pay crap (like being enlisted in the military). Attacking pensions is no different to me than shorting somebody's pay.

One great way to cut military pensions is not allow it to be drawn upon until age 55-60, regardless of when the person leaves the military (ie at age 45 for someone who joined at 20).

socal2 says

You mean when Democrats let cities go bankrupt and burn to the ground to protect their union members?

Remind me what cities those are?

thunderlips11 says

I consider pensions to be the same as wages and salaries; many people choose high benefit jobs than pay crap (like being enlisted in the military). Attacking pensions is no different to me than shorting somebody's pay.

It used to be the case that people sacrificed shitty pay for higher benefits down the line.

But that is no longer the case where the average Public Sector worker earns more than the equivalent Private Sector worker.
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/09/public_sector_workers_make_mor.html

I've personally lost half a dozen employees to work for our municipal clients for much higher pay over the past 10 years. I work with Local and State government every single day in the water infrastructure sector and see the inefficiency and high costs first hand.

Regardless, it is mathematically impossible to let people retire in their mid 50's at 90%+ of their final pay FOR LIFE with our demographics. The automakers in Detroit found that out the hard way.

socal2 says

It used to be the case that people sacrificed shitty pay for higher benefits down the line.

They're not draftees. They weren't pulled from other things. They're volunteers, they get paid, they have a very generous benefit system, and free Room and Board. Their income is largely disposable, even though many of them get rolled by skanks.

socal2 says

But that is no longer the case where the average Public Sector worker earns more than the equivalent Private Sector worker.

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/09/public_sector_workers_make_mor.html

Because the private sector, despite record profits, has not increased wages. It's not much relative to inflation, and horrible considering the massive gains in productivity driven by worker largely self-driven education.

I posted Disney World's firing of long time IT workers for newly minted college graduate H1-Bs - this was done to cut wages. Disney made record profits. And Disney World has little direct competition, it certainly isn't seeing a drop off in attendance.

socal2 says

I've personally lost half a dozen employees to work for our municipal clients for much higher pay over the past 10 years. I work with Local and State government every single day in the water infrastructure sector and see the inefficiency and high costs first hand.

Raise wages.

Vicente says

Remind me what cities those are?

Chicago
Detroit
Stockton
Vallejo
San Bernardino

There are many more who are simply raising taxes and reducing services to stave off the inevitable.

If our government had to abide by the same accounting rules as the Private Sector, we would be dealing with hundreds more bankruptcies and people in jail.

thunderlips11 says

They're not draftees. They weren't pulled from other things. They're volunteers, they get paid, they have a very generous benefit system, and free Room and Board. Their income is largely disposable, even though many of them get rolled by skanks.

I am not talking about the military. Their pension system is paltry compared to the fat union fucks like this guy in Chicago.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-pension-lawsuit-lobbyist-met-20150318-story.html#page=1

This is the system that is bankrupting Chicago and folks like you seem perfectly OK with it.

thunderlips11 says

Raise wages.

Then they can't afford our services and reduce the scope of work, which means they are spending less on fixing their water infrastructure and keeping more of our tax dollars to fund the government bureaucracy like that fat fuck in Chicago.

socal2 says

Why don't you post the pie chart of Mandatory Spending which is 65% of total government spending which includes Medicare and Social Security?

So again, entitlement spending dwarfs military spending and is getting bigger by the year.

If you want to complain about mandatory spending for social secuirty and medicare, there better never be a complaint about the 47% or who pays "income" taxes again, because social security and medicare are pre-paid benefits and have their own taxes separate from income taxes.

Infact, I'm all for it, lets lump it all in together and show the % of income for all federal taxes to show the truly regressive nature of our tax system. That way, no one is screaming that "they deserve it because they paid for it" when a moderate proposes means testing for these "entitlements" or a progrssive proposes lifting the income cap on the taxes.

socal2 says

Then they can't afford our services and reduce the scope of work, which means they are spending less on fixing their water infrastructure and keeping more of our tax dollars to fund the government bureaucracy like that fat fuck in Chicago.

That's funny, how do they afford all those unionized road construction companies?

Again, the real scandal isn't the pay of public employees, whose wage gains have been modest (except for the Administrators, many of whom are Revolving Door with Private Industry). The scandal is the flaccid pay of private employees.

The private sector has done a crap job of increasing wages, or creating jobs for that matter. You can't blame it on taxes, which are about the lowest they've been since WW2, nor on declining profits due to competition, which doesn't apply to localized services (nobody flies to China to pay for a haircut or visit a doctor for the flu, or fly over some Chinese to do pothole repair) and which are at record high percentages.

Nobody mentions that private company Unions have almost entirely disappeared, either. They only want to focus on the public unions remaining. How come there aren't huge pay increases due to the fact that people are now "Free" to negotiate "man to man" with their employer (and his multiple HR Skanks, Lawyers, and MBAs)

thunderlips11 says

The private sector has done a crap job of increasing wages, or creating jobs for that matter. You can't blame it on taxes, which are about the lowest they've been since WW2, nor on declining profits due to competition, which doesn't apply to many services and which are at record high percentages

Exactly.

Republicans are spend and borrowers.

They even contract to guarantee to keep prisons 90%+ full in order to privatize them:

Corrections Corporation spokesman Steve Owen defended the company's "investment initiative," describing it as "an additional option" for cash-strapped states to consider.

The proposal seeks to build upon a deal reached last fall in which the company purchased the 1,798-bed Lake Erie Correctional Institution from the state of Ohio for $72.7 million. Ohio officials lauded the September transaction, saying that private management of the facility would save a projected $3 million annually.

Linda Janes, chief of staff for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the purchase came at time when the state was facing a $8 billion shortfall. The $72.7 million prison purchase was aimed at helping to fill a $188 million deficit within the corrections agency.

Ohio's deal requires the state to maintain a 90% occupancy rate, but Janes said that provision remains in effect for 18 months — not 20 years — before it can be renegotiated. As part of the deal, Ohio pays the company a monthly fee, totaling $3.8 million per year.

thunderlips11 says

Again, the real scandal isn't the pay of public employees, whose wage gains have been modest (except for the Administrators, many of whom are Revolving Door with Private Industry). The scandal is the flaccid pay of private employees.

You keep wanting to change the subject from the Public Sector corruption, because you must know it is inexcusable.

You simply can't allow a person to work 35 years and retire at 90%+ pay and live for another 40-50 years.

It is just simple math. No economy can support that kind of benefit........especially now when people are living longer and birth rates (future tax payers) are reduced.

How many more Cities need to implode like Detroit, Chicago, Vallejo and Stockton to get it through the Prog's skulls?

socal2 says

It's funny when people think that productivity is simply due to people working harder and not technology innovation. Twenty years ago, my company still had to hand fill out our timesheets and fax them to the central office (using crappy heat paper fax machines) that required an army of Admin and Accounting people to double check hand-written hours and assemble for payroll. Now we use the Deltek website to fill out our timesheets saving time for each employee and were able to eliminate 10 Accounting positions nationwide.

Do you really think all of the savings from the 10 eliminated positions by our investment in IT should all just go to increase employee salaries? If so, what's the point of implementing any productivity initiatives?

Of course it's partially from technological innovation. That doesn't change the problem, however. As more and more positions are eliminated and the gains only realized by the owners, inequality will rise, unemployment will rise, and the economy will get continually worse. There are several ways to fix this fundamental problem, but the political right is controlled by the owner class so they want to maintain status quo until the SHTF. They have theirs so f*#() everyone else.

Japanese Car Makers are unionized in Japan:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/12/japan-wages-toyota-motor-idUSL3N0M91ID20140312

German, Italian, etc. Automakers? Thoroughly unionized.

Unions are the excuse that US Auto execs made for their marketing of cars nobody wanted.

tatupu70 says

Of course it's partially from technological innovation. That doesn't change the problem, however. As more and more positions are eliminated and the gains only realized by the owners, inequality will rise, unemployment will rise, and the economy will get continually worse.

That's not necessarily true. The example I provided regarding timesheets, a portion of the money we saved by eliminating 10 Accountants and Admin positions went to firms like Deltek for use of their great web based timesheet program. So we eliminated a few employees and Deltek probably added some at the same time. The IT sector which is responsible for much of the economy's improved productivity has done quite well and grown in the last 20 years.

Lots of horse and buggy manufacturers went out of business due to Ford. Should we stifle innovation, productivity and profits because it will eliminate some out dated jobs?

Seems to me that many unions and "Progressives" are like the horse and buggy manufacturers trying to hang onto a past when our demographics and life expectancy were much much different.

socal2 says

It is cheaper to live in those States since you don't have to pay higher taxes to fund big fat Progressive government employee wages and pensions.

Instead, you get shitty wages, high crime, and most of the worst educational outcomes in the nation.

How many IT or Pharma Rx offices are moving to Little Rock and Biloxi?

thunderlips11 says

Instead, you get shitty wages, high crime, and most of the worst educational outcomes in the nation.

Really, crime and education in the South is worse then Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia?

Might want to check on that.

thunderlips11 says

How many IT or Pharma Rx offices are moving to Little Rock and Biloxi?

I don't know. But there is more to this economy than just IT or Pharma. And there are many many nice areas to live and raise families in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Texas.

"Auf Wiedersehen, y'all: Mercedes moving U.S. headquarters south"
http://fortune.com/2015/01/08/auf-wiedersehen-yall-mercedes-moving-u-s-headquarters-south/

This is damning evidence... *

socal2 says

thunderlips11 says

Instead, you get shitty wages, high crime, and most of the worst educational outcomes in the nation.

Really, crime and education in the South is worse then Chicago, Baltimore, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia?

Might want to check on that.

socal2 says

Lots of horse and buggy manufacturers went out of business due to Ford. Should we stifle innovation, productivity and profits because it will eliminate some out dated jobs?

Seems to me that many unions and "Progressives" are like the horse and buggy manufacturers trying to hang onto a past when our demographics and life expectancy were much much different.

There's no need to recycle the same tired strawman arguments. I'm not against technology nor productivity gains. Increasing productivity is the golden ticket to a better society. I'm all for eliminating dead jobs and reducing the workweek as productivity increases. The problem isn't innovation, technology, or increasing productivity---the problem is the fruits of those gains are only going to a very small % of the population. It's a DISTRIBUTION problem.

tatupu70 says

socal2 says

It's funny when people think that productivity is simply due to people working harder and not technology innovation. Twenty years ago, my company still had to hand fill out our timesheets and fax them to the central office (using crappy heat paper fax machines) that required an army of Admin and Accounting people to double check hand-written hours and assemble for payroll. Now we use the Deltek website to fill out our timesheets saving time for each employee and were able to eliminate 10 Accounting positions nationwide.

Do you really think all of the savings from the 10 eliminated positions by our investment in IT should all just go to increase employee salaries? If so, what's the point of implementing any productivity initiatives?

Of course it's partially from technological innovation.

It's entirely from technological innovation. There is a limit to how hard the human body can work, especially the American Human Body.

Strategist says

There is a limit to how hard the human body can work, especially the American Human Body.

Obligatory:

Strategist says

Autoworkers for Mazda, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Volvo, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Ford, GM, Chrysler in Mexico are not unionized.

Guess which cars have the worst quality? I'll give you a hint.....it's none of the above.

Subaru, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Kia.

zzyzzx says

So all the jobs leaving Detroit were due to ridiculous Republican free trade agreements and outsourcing?

That is nothing. Wait for the TPP by Obozo the clown.

http://news.yahoo.com/special-report-multitude-local-authorities-soak-illinois-homeowners-130308828.html

Special Report: Multitude of local authorities soak Illinois homeowners in taxes

Mary Beth Jachec lives in a three-bedroom house in Wauconda, a village of 14,000 in Illinois, 45 miles northwest of Chicago. Her semi-detached brick home is unassuming. Her tax bills are not.

The 53-year-old insurance manager gets a real estate tax bill for 20 different local government authorities and a total payout of about $7,000 in 2014. They include the Village of Wauconda, the Wauconda Park District, the Township of Wauconda, the Forest Preserve, the Wauconda Area Public Library District, and the Wauconda Fire Protection District.

Then there is Wauconda Road and Bridge, not to be confused with Road and Bridge, Wauconda Gravel, or with Wauconda Special Road Improvement and Gravel unit – all three of which have imposed separate taxes on her and the village’s other homeowners.

Those three road entities come under the auspices of Wauconda Township. Officials there struggled to explain exactly what they each do, and why three separate taxing bodies are needed. The Wauconda Township Highway Commissioner, Joe Munson, said: “They are all for road maintenance.” So why three? “I don’t know why,” Munson said. “It’s always been that way."

Jachec, looking at her property tax bill, is dismayed. “It’s ridiculous,” she said.

A lot has been said about the budget crisis faced by Illinois - the state government itself is drowning in $37 billion of debt, and has the lowest credit ratings and worst-funded pension system among the 50 U.S. states. But at street level, the picture can be even more troubling.

The average homeowner pays taxes to six layers of government, and in Wauconda and many other places a lot more. In Ingleside, 55 miles north of Chicago, Dan Koivisto pays taxes to 18 local bodies. “I pay $271 a month just to the school district alone,” he said. "And I don't have children."

The state is home to nearly 8,500 local government units, with 6,026 empowered to raise taxes, by far the highest number in the U.S.

Many of these taxing authorities, which mostly rely on property tax for their financing, have their own budget problems. That includes badly underfunded pension funds, mainly for cops and firefighters.

The Illinois authorities range from those typical across the nation, such as school and fire districts, to the unusual: for example, districts that raise taxes solely for the purpose of killing mosquitoes, lighting streets or maintaining cemeteries.

A Reuters analysis of property tax data shows that the sheer number of local government entities, and a lack of oversight of their operations, can lead to inefficient spending of taxpayer money, whether through duplication of services or high overhead costs. It leads to a proliferation of pension funds serving different groups of employees. And there are also signs that nepotism is rife within some of the authorities.

There is no central repository of data on the size and geographical boundaries of the local government authorities. The state comptroller does not audit the annual financial reports the local governments submit to it, said Rich Carter, a spokesman for the Comptroller’s office.

The state’s revenue department does keep data on property taxes collected by counties, but does not track taxes on individual properties. This makes it virtually impossible to systematically determine how many taxing districts overlap on parcels of land, or how much tax residents in a particular area pay unless they are individually surveyed. Because of these gaps and omissions, it is difficult to assess whether multiple layers of government lead to higher taxes.

On average, Illinois’ effective property taxes are the third highest in the U.S.

Critics of both the high taxation and the state’s governance structure say that it takes too much of a toll on homeowners, discouraging people from either coming to the state or staying in it. Illinois saw net migration of 95,000 people out of the state last year, the greatest in its history.

In the state capital Springfield, pension costs for police and fire alone will this year consume nearly 90 percent of property tax revenues.

Sam Yingling, a state representative who until 2012 was supervisor of Avon Township, north of Chicago, has become an outspoken critic of the multiple layers of local government. Yingling said when he left the township three years ago, the township supervisor's office had annual overheads from salaries and benefits of $120,000. He claimed its sole mandated statutory duty was to administer just $10,000 of living assistance to poor residents.

A succession of Illinois governors over 20 years has called for a reduction of the number of government units, but made little progress, partly because of Byzantine regulations. To dissolve one of Illinois’ 1,432 townships, for example, state law stipulates that three-quarters of voters in every township in that county must vote to approve.

When that state's newly elected Republican Governor Bruce Rauner established a commission to address the problem of local government, the group quickly discovered that the taxing units continue to proliferate. The net number of local government units increased by 148 between 1998 and 2015, the governor’s office reported last month.

"You could probably get by with half as many," said Bill Brandt, the recently retired chair of the Illinois Finance Authority, which funds economic development projects. "But knocking out a local government is easier than it sounds. It requires legislation, and a lot of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle come from local government."

And it isn’t only the number of authorities that is a concern. Illinois has about one sixth of America’s public pension plans – 657 out of almost 4,000.

Local authorities in Illinois are mandated by law to keep the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, with 400,000 local government members, fully funded. They had to contribute $923 million in 2014, up from $543 million in 2005.

However, there is no such requirement for the local pension funds. The result: Many of these funds throughout the state are woefully underfunded, and some have less than 20 percent of what they need to meet obligations.

“Pension costs have been going up and up, so pension contributions have been going up and up, and property taxes are the single largest source of revenue to pay for them,” Brandt said.

Townships alone provide a striking example of duplicated and costly services.

In a rare instance of local government consolidation, officials in DuPage County, west of Chicago, managed to pass legislation in 2012 giving them the power to cut waste. Since then, they have abolished defunct sanitary and fire protection districts, cut duplicate staff and reduced benefits. Officials estimate savings to taxpayers of $100 million over 20 years.
Note: Dupage is where Republicans live

The multiplicity of local governments also affords opportunity for nepotism. Looking at the database of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, the main pension system for local government workers, Reuters identified nearly a dozen instances where husbands employ wives, mothers employ daughters, and fathers hire sons.

In Collinsville Township, in southwestern Illinois, the elected Highway Commissioner, Larry Trucano, employs his son James as a laborer, earning $71,000 a year, plus pension and health benefits, according to the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund database. An official at Collinsville confirmed that James was employed by his father. Four telephone calls to Larry Trucano went unanswered.

In Venice Township, Andrew Economy, the township supervisor who earns $46,300 plus pension - he also runs a local auto repair and tow service - employs his wife, Debra Economy, as administrator. She earns almost $62,000 plus pension.

Andrew Economy said his wife does the jobs of two employees who retired in 2003 and 2008, and does them efficiently.

In the Village of Rosemont, population 4,000, which services Chicago's O'Hare Airport with hotels and a convention center, eight relatives of Mayor Bradley A. Stephens are village employees, including the police chief.

socal2 says

You simply can't allow a person to work 35 years and retire at 90%+ pay and live for another 40-50 years

If you think about it, there really should be a pension system that combines worker contributions with employer contributions that can do this. Although, maybe it should take 40 years at least, rather than 35 (which is really just cops, firemen, and military). The fact that this does not exist, or only exists sometimes in the public sector is a part of that inequality we've been hearing so much about.

socal2 says

It is just simple math. No economy can support that kind of benefit........especially now when people are living longer and birth rates (future tax payers) are reduced.

What's the alternative ? Maybe we can have a special welfare program for people that live too long ?

marcus says

What's the alternative ? Maybe we can have a special welfare program for people that live too long ?

Raising the minimum age for retirement benefits. Duh.

marcus says

there really should be a pension system that combines worker contributions with employer contributions that can do this

It's called a 401K.

zzyzzx says

It's called a 401K.

But if a 401K can build enough equity to pay for retirement, then a pension could too. The only difference is the pension is forced savings and forced employer contribution. Salary is going to be less.

What you're missing, is that is it's left to the individual, and they don't plan well, the govt is going to have to pay some minimal cost of living for these folks betweensay age 75 and 95 (if they live that long) anyway. Better to include it in their pay, as something the worker can't touch.

marcus says

What you're missing, is that is it's left to the individual, and they don't plan well,

And the government does???

Freedom = responsibility.