Have any of you had to have an encounter with one of your county/city/township government officials or support personnel? Have you ever noticed that sometimes they act as though you're interrupting their nail-filing session to make them work?
That is how it looks to us, Jane Q Public, on our side of the counter. How it looks to them is like this:
“I've had this job for 20 years. I am going to get a raise. When Lucy retires, I'll get her job. They owe it to me. I hope our new contract gives us Black Friday off. These stupid citizens think they're going to cut the budget and eliminate my position? No way! I will make my job essential. Maybe I'll even work it so Lucy has to retire early, just so I can get her job and sit in her chair and get her money and benefit plan until I can retire, with even more of a benefits package that I have now. No sir, no one is gonna take my job, my position, my prestige or my package away from me!”.
Ok, take off the small-town-ness of the above. Pretend it's anyone who is high up in the gov’t. They want their money and their recognition.
Trump's proposed changes threaten all of them. He could say “we don't need 40 park rangers in BFE, let's just cut that program. Or, maybe I'll fire 20 of them and their boss, and send the other 20 to another park and another already there boss.”
People get awful territorial and protective and squirrely when they think their position might be on the line. Some of them get up to some mighty scurrilous activities to protect their place. It is, after all, all about the money.
Well, I haven’t run across anyone like that here - not really. However, we live in a high poverty jobless area. So most people are just grateful to have a job, and it’s a small town of around 3000. The school system is consolidated, and has more students than the town population.
During the Obama years, we had unemployment of over 25% in the area. A lot of people drive around 150 miles round trip to a job in the city. There’s the school, a telephone office, Walmart, the hospital, shoe factory as major employers. Mayor is a part-time job with few benefits.
Good post. I worked for a public employee union for years and that is how they operate. Any proposed budget cuts, which is not a cut, but a smaller rate of increase, and they aggressively threaten the public that they won’t be safe, their children will go hungry and won’t get an education, fires won’t be put out, hospitals will close, etc. The reality of the situation is that the unions won’t get as big salary or pension increase they want, or the members might have to pay a few bucks for their health insurance cadillac plans. Their attitude is, who do these taxpayers think they are, treating public employees like lowly private workers?
I would say you can generalize that situation all the way from the corner store to the executive suite. All bureaus operate the same way, and it’s a fascist way. Do what I say or I’ll fire you, underlies everything.