Time to defenestrate the mandarin class.
Anybody who has spent time up around the environs of DC and can easily see the largess, growth and excess of ‘activity’ in the local economies that exist SOLELY off the backs of US taxpayers. It is a rarified atmosphere of hustling, bustling, well, HUSTLING and siphoning of resources from the rest of this country. It is disgusting, and it needs to dismantled completely.
Yes, it’s INFLUENCE of the worst kind - as disproportionate as it is. It’s the reason why the national DC media based there, its pundits and all the hangers on have such a terribly wrong view of the drive through America they have been raping for decades.
I have a suggestion: Make Washington DC Detroit Again! Starve them out and treat them like bubonic plague flea-infested rats. Burn it all out.
Make these so-called 'DC pros' chase their money away from D.C. If there is no money to be had by sticking around in D.C., but a lot of money elsewhere, they will all leave, and D.C. will shrink.
First of all, get rid of all lawyers leeching on federal government. I heard a joke that, if you have a fender-bender in D.C., chances are that one or both involved are lawyers.
YES!
It’s TIME to DownSize DC!
Close entire Rogue/Un-Constitutional Departments, including their SWAT Teams.
The only way to remove the embedded subversive leftist who have systematically been destroying the Rule of Law and our Constitutional restraint on Fed. Government.
It's not federal paychecks. It's so-called "private" contractors that rake off the federal bonanza.
I live in D.C. Federal salaries are capped about about $190,000 (SES-III including locality pay) except for the small handful of Undersecretaries and Cabinet positions where the pay goes up to $205,000, scant compensation for having to work 24/7 travel a lot to places you don't want to go to give speeches you don't want to give to folks you don't want to meet with all while dressed in business suits (and at this pay you are not buying a lot at Brooks Brothers). Rank and file federal salaries are significantly lower than that. Two married senior federal employees can barely afford a modest house in a decent D.C. neighborhood.
No, the problem is all the hoards of federal employees who do nothing for the taxpayer in return for this goodly, but not over the top sum of money.
The one's who cash in on the federal bonanza, the folks who are buying the over-the-top mansions in Potomac MD and McClean VA are not government employees, but support contractors, and in particular the executives in contracting firms who skim off the profit on contracts to provide services inside the beltway. These are the guys who, in Eric Trump's words are "doing well while doing nothing at all."
Trump has already provided a couple of high-profile examples, e.g. Air Force 1. But Ash Carter and Frank Kendell burying the report of $125B in excess personnel costs is another example of the D.C. fraud, corruption and cronyism.
The out of control federal acquisition process serves the interests not of the taxpayer or the federal staff, but the support service contracting industry that supports the federal acquisition PROCESS. And it is all process. To manage an actual OUTCOME means to prejudice a process, and that would be UNFAIR. [The Orwellian rot is everywhere].
I’ve lived in and around DC for fifty years now. During that time it’s grown from an easily manageable big town or small city to very much a big, metropolitan city. What used to be a ride out to the country is now a daily commute, within the confines of the limited Metro system.
While so many saw the rest of the country suffer economically, with businesses closing, there were few, if any, similar signs in this area. Shopping malls housing Bloomingdales, Nordstrom and Tiffany continued to bustle, with parking lots full of BMWs, Mercedes and Audis ... and Expeditions. Not only did the denizens not notice, they didn’t care.
It’s past time to create economic growth in spheres and locales other than the federal government and Metro DC.
:Large governments are a cancer to capitalism as they feed on normal economic policies and bastardize the entire system.
I don’t agree with cutting government salaries across the board. Unions are perfectly ok with falling together. What they really hate is individualism.
They should be expected to perform at a high standard and if they don’t they should be fired. If they do better, they have a chance at a raise.
Ratify Article the First! That will fix several problems overnight! (And yes, I realize there will be others, but it will serve notice to DC that they’re irrelevant.)
You can feel the money bubbling-up towards you through cracks in the sidewalks in D.C.
You KNOW the locals did not produce that wealth.
Stolen from the people in Flyover Country whom they deride.
Lambrogini moved their headquarters To Washington DC a few years ago.
This report mentions DOD accounting systems as a potential source of savings.
I work in the space. A consultant for government entities, in the accounting arena.
Accounting has become expensive in government, ironically to protect against fraud and abuse by allowing auditors to drill down into transactions. Systems like SAP and Oracle, implemented by KPMG and Accenture are very expensive. This expertise is provided by expensive contractors. The Pentagon could save some by directly hiring the expertise but they do not. It’s like NASA, as they hire contractors to build space vehicles. They don’t attempt to do it in house either.
That said, it is well known in my circles (Oracle accounting systems) that Federal Government gigs are the best paying, and highly prized. The Pentagon and other agencies may do well to scale back rates and expense allowances, perhaps by 15%. Still significant savings, but probably not $125 billion.
Lots of embedded Rats, unfortunately. But, I'm figuring that fair number of them will get scattered by the Trump administration.
Move the capital of the United States to Omaha, Nebraska, and turn Washington, DC. into a museum town!
This has many advantages:
-PJ