Posted on 02/27/2010 10:37:59 PM PST by AnotherUnixGeek
Keli Carender has a pierced nose, performs improv on weekends and lives here in a neighborhood with more Mexican grocers than coffeehouses. You might mistake her for the kind of young person whose vote powered President Obama to the White House. You probably would not think of her as a Tea Party type.
But leaders of the Tea Party movement credit her with being the first.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I believe that the only way for this country to move forward with strength is to reduce the tax and regulatory burden on its citizens. This will require reduced spending across the board, even on non-discretionary and defense spending. Call me a Paultard, if you want.
In past elections, I thought Ron Paul was a joke, but the more time goes by, I’m not sure I see a better solution.
Just to be clear, I don’t think we should withdraw from the world militarily, but I do think we could find a way to exert influence a little less expensively.
An amazingly fair and balanced article. Perhaps NYT just got bored with calling us all fat, white, old angry people?
Must be they finally sent some actual reporters out to actually see what was going on and who was participating.
And I guess they took an interest in her because she should have been one of them.
“Let’s see. Some days I’m very Randian. I feel like there shouldn’t be any of those programs, that it should all be charitable organizations. Sometimes I think, well, maybe it really should be just state, and there should be no federal part in it at all. I bounce around in my solutions to the problem.”
I agree with that. I will add there are some things that even the federal govt should do but should contract the job to private contractors. One shouldn’t be too ideological in this case. The govt is still ultimately responsible for results and if the private sector isn’t doing their job, the govt should fire them and give the job back to govt employees. But nobody should think they can sit around and do the same old thing and still get paid.
On everything but foreign policy, I’d be with Ron Paul all the way.
But we can’t retreat to fortress Amerika, pull up the drawbridge and say to hell with the world.
That didn’t work in 1941 nor 2001, and it won’t work ever.
I agree that probably would not work. But sometimes I wish I had an “alternate realities” machine, just to see what would happen. Maybe Europe would be forced to step up for a change, for instance.
Do you really stand by that?
Whoever wrote and approved this article for the NY Times is going to be in their next round of layoffs.
” it is not uncommon to meet Tea Party advocates who say they have never voted “
!
This is just the opposite of what Liberals say about the Tea Party. I think it’s wishful thinking on their part. They hope it’s artificial, like Astroturf, but their biggest fear is that IT ISN”T!
Go, Tea Party! Scare a Liberal today!
Like Ms. Carender, I’ve spent the last year re-evaluating my conservatism. There are many facets to it, but there is one over-arching conclusion:
I am most opposed to “insider-ism”.
At every level of government, we are now ruled by a gang of insiders. For decades they’ve taken advantage of their inside status to sneak self-enriching clauses into non-germane bills...tiny changes with enormous payoffs for themselves...at taxpayer expense.
Example: In the NY legislature, some pol inserted a one line provision that said something like, “in the amendment to Section 78 of Article VII in Senate Bill 2o9u89 the word ‘three’ is changed to ‘one’.” When one followed the thread, it turned out they had changed the pension formula for safety workers...pensions would now be calculated on the ONE highest year’s salary rather than an average of three years. Because pension changes require an actuarial assessment, the committee paid for such a report. Who did they hire? The labor union’s actuary, who wrote a report saying the provision would cost NOTHING.
That’s the kind of “insider-ism” I’m talking about. An unholy alliance between pols and public labor unions whereby they’ve enriched themselves and their members...and we get stuck with the bill. They’re now our Privileged Class, owners of irrevocable benefits you and I get to pay for despite our not being able to afford them for ourselves.
Another facet of insider-ism is the control of information. As their power over us has grown, this Privileged Class now gets to set the terms of debate. Global Warming is settled science. Obamacare will reduce the deficit. EPA mandates will create jobs! Blah, blah, blah. All with one distinctive element: they increase the insiders’ power.
Talking with “moderates”, I find they sense these things, but they simply haven’t formed their opinions on it. I use this metaphor:
Suppose you worked in a large company where non-union employees felt they weren’t getting a fair shake from management.But it’s a “one company town” so you don’t have other good job options. Management proposes a Compensation Committee, comprised mostly of your fellow employees. At first it appears to work. But as time goes by, the committee becomes corrupt and self-serving. You and your employees find out they’ve assigned themselves “extra” pensions for “volunteering” their time on the committee. Worse, they gave the same sweeteners to management to entice their approval of the measures. None of them contributes anything more to their pensions. The money is coming out of a common pool: the pension fund (your money). But their reports are now written in gobbledegook that looks like one thing, but results in another. They approve each others’ travel to lavish resorts for “seminars”—on company time. They award themselves and management Cadillac health plans. Their annual reports hide the related costs, until one day-—voila!-—they just have to take more out of YOUR paycheck to pay for the “unanticipated” costs. Meanwhile, they never do anything to help you...you’re worse off than before. You and fellow employees try to replace the committee. But you discover they’ve incorporated rules that guarantee their spots and lock out anyone they don’t approve. And, believe me, there are plenty of employees who will corrupt themselves to get a slot on the committee. They’ve all become “insiders”. THAT is what our “public servants” have done to us.
I then say to that moderate: “Notice how many ordinary, middle class people go to Washington-—whether as politician or bureaucrat-—and leave years later worth $$$ MILLIONS. Al Gore. Clintons. Terry McAuliff. Duke Cunningham. Murtha. The list is endless, especially when one considers all the bureaucrats who leave (with pensions) to accept high-paying jobs in the very industries they regulated. Well, whose money do you think that is in their bank accounts? It’s YOURS. By this point, the moderate has almost always come over to my side.
It’s going to take a sustained, concerted push back from taxpayers to overcome their power. They make it practically impossible to defeat their self-enriching provisions becaue there’s an unholy alliance between them and the pols (who just happen to benefit from the same provisions). Heck, most of the time it’s done long before we even find out about it.
And once done, their benefits are enshrined in law. That leads me to my FIRST proposal: at every level of gov’t we must institute reforms, even if it takes a constitutional amendment: No public employee benefit is guaranteed by taxpayers. All benefits are subject to future adjustment by voter initiative. Any new provision, including labor contracts, must be approved by voter initiative.
Just a start. I would also freeze total public compensation until it is on par with average private sector pay and benefits ( probably decades). Many positions would see pay cuts now. I would require public retirement AGE to equal the rules for Social Security. I would cap public pensions at a given dollar amount ($100k would be very generous). I would require 10 years for vesting.
And that’s just pensions. There are lots of other “work rules” I would change, not to mention the sheer number of workers. No office ever downsizes...how realistic is that?!
So there’s my rant. I’m sick of being ruled by self-enriching, secretive, lying scumbags who preen before us expecting us to admire and appreciate their “public service”. They give away OUR money, then tell us how generous and compassionate THEY are. Well, I don’t apprciate it. I’m sick of it. And that’s why I’m a Tea Partier.
All-Righty Then......
I think that we should not have ANY pensions for elected officials. This would discourage them from staying on for decades and would create a more truly “citizens legislature”.
It is supposed to be public “service” not just another job.
This is simply called "bureaucracy" and the priests of this system are called "bureaucrats". It's nature is practically the same for every government! It is what the opportunist politician (Dem, 'Pub or whatever) drools over - a guaranteed constituency. The self-interest of the bureaucrat will trump the mission of the bureaucracy.
I agree with you, but it’s bigger than the “bureaucracy”. It requires compliant politicians to pass the agenda. And the pols enjoy the same privileges granted in the agenda.
That’s what is so insidious. And it’s why, in my metaphor, I included the self-serving collusion between management and the Compensation Committee members.
I don’t think we should have pensions for any public employee, not just elected ones. Let them have 401k’s like the rest of us.
There are two many ways for them to game the system.
AND, it isolates them from market consequences of their business-killing agenda. Their pensions are guaranteed regardless of market performance. The rest of us are subject to market forces.
That was really stupid of me. I plead guilty of posting while under the influence of Nyquil. (Fighting of the Flu this weekend.)
Next time I do something dumb@ss like this ask me if I am feeling alright.
I have survived many ridiculous statements I’ve made. It’s a risk when cold medicine is involved. :^)
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