Posted on 08/19/2008 8:09:07 AM PDT by IbJensen
State and local governments are in a budget crisis. But you wouldn't know it from public payrolls.
They've added 338,000 employees since a credit crunch began taking a toll on the economy a year ago, far more than the 195,000 in the prior 12 months, according to Labor Department data.
The hiring binge comes even as states grapple with budget deficits totaling $48 billion in fiscal year 2009, which started July 1.
Private-sector employers have shed 418,000 jobs in the past year amid fears that the economy was headed for a recession.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Enough!
With HALF of Americans dependent on some kind of government assistance, who says Communism is dead!
We better hope & pray that “if” McCain is elected POTUS,
he starts leading the way to PAYING THE BILLS, CUTTING SPENDING and GASP! BALANCIING THE BUDGET and PAYING DOWN THE DEBT or this country will be bankrupt before you know it!
Mandate that EVERY government employee from top to bottom take a drug test and background check.
I would imagine we could clean house pretty quick.
As a career federal government employee, I know there’s a clear distinction between federal employees and state/local government employees. Federal salaries, pensions, health care, etc., are covered by the national federal government budget and are protected. On the other hand, many states are already running massive deficits and simply can’t afford to maintain their current employment rolls, much less add new employees; same with many cities. There should be an immediate freeze in new hiring by such states and municipalities.
They ceased being our dollars when the IRS mugs us each year and takes it away from us to allow the 535 idiots to throw it around.
Let’s just mandate that they take an IQ test.
I have said for years that the official unemployment rate is far lower than reality because all government employees are counted as employed. I maintain that when the government at any level hires another person we should count that as two or more people unemployed rather than one employed. My basis for this is that, first, they are paid by taxpayers so they increase the burden on the rest of us and two, most government employees are at best non-productive and at worst counter productive so that the more that are hired the worse off we all are. At any rate it seems absurd to count an increase in government employment as a drop in unemployment.
We better hope & pray that “if” McCain is elected POTUS,
he starts leading the way to PAYING THE BILLS, CUTTING SPENDING and GASP! BALANCIING THE BUDGET and PAYING DOWN THE DEBT or this country will be bankrupt before you know it!
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Too late, it is like telling someone who owes ten million and has a part time minimum wage job to tighten up and get out of debt. To get this country out of debt would require making mostrous cuts in spending, throwing millions of government employees out while simultaneously increasing tax revenue and holding down interest rates. It might be possible if everyone returned to old-fashioned American values of hard work and independence but that ain’t happening.
A thought:
Michigan is in dire straits. Lets Look at the Michigan State Police for a moment. The State Police Academy is about 24 weeks long. Troopers can retire after 25 years of service. The last hiring freeze occurred in the eary 1980’s (anyone remember the bumper stickers ‘Last one out of Michigan turn out the lights’?). When the State started hiring again in was 1983-85. Add 25 years to that number and you have 2008. MSP has to hire and run a new trooper school now in anticipation of 300-350 retirements over the next 24 months. It can be argued that the 90 people hired to attend the current school are new employees and in addition to current MSP manpower. But is it really? MSP is already down several hundred from their high in the mid 1970’s yet the population is up as is the crime rate.
Some hiring can be attributed to future planning for vacancies. If the State waited until the next 90 people to retire before beginning the hiring process for the academy they would be several hundred behind.
Personally, while I enjoy the assistance of MSP road officers I don’t really need them. It is their crime labs that smaller agencies cannot do without.
You’re being just a wee bit too negative...
The budget has been balanced and debt paid down before; if we can put a man on the moon, win two world wars AND defeat the Soviet Uniion without firing a shot, we can certainly address these problems successfully... with a 14 trillion dollar GDP and a 10 trillion dollar debt, it might take 10-20 years BUT it can and MUST be done!
BUT it can and MUST be done!
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But it WON’T be done!
“But it WON’T be done!”
Steak dinner says it will and it WILL START NEXT YEAR.
Simple, Midcop.
If the state crime lab is so important, just privatize it. As for appropriate state trooper numbers, I haven’t a clue!
It may seem to start next year but I am 64 and I very much doubt that I will live long enough for the matter to be decided. If I am still around in thirty or forty years I will be happy to buy you a steak if the budget is balanced and THE DEBT PAID!
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