Posted on 04/13/2010 3:14:12 PM PDT by Maelstorm
We also did not provide free homes, food, education, medical care, etc.
For over 150 years we seems to beat the heck out of every other country.
It has simply been in the last 50 years we have tried to duplicate the failure of every society before us.
LOL. The article says that there will be rapists and muggers because of lack of Street lights. We live in a subdivision just outside of the City limits.
People who think street lights are a good idea, put up their own. Others just put out sidewalk lights, and some see no need for lights.
Been living here 44 years. Never had a mugging, or a rape in the neighborhood yet. (knock on wood). Course we do tend to cling to our guns and religion. Most houses have guns, but no one is sure who does and does not.
When the taxpayers refuse to pay more, the government has to adjust. Our city had the employees vote on serveral options. Everyone took a cut in pay and hours, so that no one had to fired and go on unemployment. It works fine here. We have a very small government anyway.
I used to drive my own garbage to the town dump while living in a rural community. Didn’t hurt a bit and the taxes were half of what I moved away from with no other discernable loss of services.
It's a fine place, but it's not a city. You can't really use the Broadmoor as a good example for running a city ... after all, he doesn't need to provide things like water, fire, ambulance, police, street maintenance, and any number of other services. He hasn't got federal and state mandates to service. He doesn't need voter approval to increase his prices.
What he does have, is the City of Colorado Springs to provide him a whole lot of services.
Poor example. Garbage collection in Colorado Springs has been provided by (competing) private companies for at least the past 50 years.
Many of those things make a lot of sense, since they benefit virtually every citizen, and thus can reasonably fit under the "general welfare" clause. In this era, ad hoc armies would be useless against well-organized standing armies funded by other countries' large governments. And police are generally a good way to bring an objective third party into conflicts that really do need intervention. Government currency is basically the same issue as a standing army -- if no country of significant size had a government-issued currency, we might be able to do fine without it, but that isn't the case and isn't going to be, and we'd be economically screwed if we didn't have one. Interstate highways are also great promoters of commerce, benefitting everyone, not just those who drive on them. I really like being able to order something from the cheapest online source and have it arrive on my doorstep quickly and at very low cost, and the manufacturers and sellers of those items likewise benefit from this. And people in rural areas or towns far from big cities greatly benefit when they need an ambulance to ferry them to a distant hospital for treatments not available locally.
But yes, the goofy ordinances and building code provisions are insane and totally out of control (not to mention the insanely complicated and intrusive federal and state, and increasingly local, tax codes). These aren't just interfering with basic freedoms, but also interfering with commerce and the overall economic strength of the nation, as people are forced to spend money on, and other people are thus induced to focus their labor on, things which provide no real benefit to anyone. Worst of all, they're pushing a lot of people into economic dependency on government, who would be perfectly able to support themselves if they were allowed to do things like build their own shelter as best they can and live in it, just like the pioneers did. Instead, we actually have government forcibly removing people from homes that pose no actual danger at all, and putting them in taxpayer-subsidized public housing. And landlords are bullied by government under threats of huge fines and property liens and even arrest, into "updating" rental units to meet all the latest building codes, thus driving the rental price they must charge out of the reach of many people who need affordable rental housing.
Of course he does, but that isn’t the thrust of his letter.
Like most governments, the city is wasteful. For example
“Per employee cost of $89,196 - It is doubtful you can find any private employer for 500 or more people in the state of Colorado or practically the nation that has a per employee payroll cost that high. Our per employee cost is $24,460, which includes seasonal and part-time people which we use a great deal as there are no benefit costs associated with these”
Just one of many examples he cites in his letter.
Repeal the 17th Amendment for a start.
They'll be an endangered species if citizens were encouraged (rather than discouraged by threat of prosecution) to do their duty and shoot them.
Bartolin for President.
I didn’t see any hint of using the Broadmoor as a model for the city, but I did see some good pointers to help the city become more efficient.
Very good analysis. Public sector employees are living like kinds over there and will retire like monarchs
Once you factor in insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and other taxes, and the administrative overhead required to "own" an employee, that's not an unusual value -- it's about $43/hour. It's a lot, but it's not all that unusual for an organization that employs a lot of professional and admin staff.
Our per employee cost is $24,460, which includes seasonal and part-time people which we use a great deal as there are no benefit costs associated with these.
With all due respect, that's a bullshit number that includes maids, lawn care, window-washers, and such. It doesn't apply to a city government. Try paying that much for a qualified police officer or firefighter (neither of which he has to hire because Colorado Springs does that for him).
If you look at a comparable private employer that employs a lot of professionals (as the City does), they often run much higher per-hour rates. Engineering firms can charge upwards of $75/hour, for example.
It's not to say that the City couldn't reform its employment picture to some extent -- but Bartolin is too smart for this to be a simple oversight; he's trying to make the best possible case, but in this instance he's stretched his examples to the point of being dishonest.
All those examples that begin with "Our" (as in, "Our IT department...") are just that.
It's not that his ideas are necessarily bad ones -- they work great for his hotel. But a hotel is not a city, and sometimes the examples for hotels simply do not cleanly carry over to government functions.
IT is a good example -- the Broadmoor's IT needs do not include 911 connectivity, requirements to interface with federal, state, and local law enforcement, and so on. They don't have to extend over hundreds of square miles. He doesn't have to figure out how to collect meter readings from 400,000 customers and feed them into the computerized billing system; and so on. It's IT on a much different scale than the Broadmoor has to deal with.
You’re right. The CEO for the Broadmoor had no ideas to offer and should have been flogged for opening his yap.
In fact, governments all run so well that private business should learn from them.
And anyone offering advice to to government should be flogged.
But somehow I still think that the Broadmoor’s CEO is smart enough to know the difference between offering his RESORT as a model of CITY GOVERNMENT and offering advice.
Charges can run MUCH higher. I had only six employees doing R&D on high tech equipment. They were MS and PhDs.
All the salaries were six digits. I had low overhead but still charged $100 per hour or over.
>>for the longest time we had no standing army, no police force, and no government currency, let alone highways, utilities, setback variances, and ordinances about everything under the sun
>
>Many of those things make a lot of sense, since they benefit virtually every citizen, and thus can reasonably fit under the “general welfare” clause. In this era, ad hoc armies would be useless against well-organized standing armies funded by other countries’ large governments.
I disagree. The general citizenry could [and should] have the basic firearms training needed to function in an Army, the larger/heavier/more-specialized equipment could be trained on in the sort of one weekend a month National Guard schedule.
Do you think that Obama would have buzzed New York city in Air Force One if the community had it’s own anti-aircraft guns? [Remember the scare there.]
>And police are generally a good way to bring an objective third party into conflicts that really do need intervention.
Perhaps, perhaps not. There are a lot of things the police are used for; raising revenue for their city is one. {Quick trivia: when the traffic laws (speed limits) were being debated the police were against it because “it would unnecessarily create an adversarial relationship between the police and the people.”}
>Government currency is basically the same issue as a standing army — if no country of significant size had a government-issued currency, we might be able to do fine without it, but that isn’t the case and isn’t going to be, and we’d be economically screwed if we didn’t have one.
If you’re referring to paper-money I disagree here as well. If we had gold and silver coinage we would NOT have any sort of fear about hyperinflation, as the money would be made of some material that has an intrinsic worth (and therefore has a lower limit on value).
>Interstate highways are also great promoters of commerce, benefitting everyone, not just those who drive on them.
Roads [highways] are, traditionally, one of the things governments do provide. There could be justification for the federal highways via the commerce clause, as the highways regulate [make regular] commerce.
>I really like being able to order something from the cheapest online source and have it arrive on my doorstep quickly and at very low cost, and the manufacturers and sellers of those items likewise benefit from this.
Indeed. One of the reasons you can get those good deals is because of the [relative] lack of government interference in the transaction.
>And people in rural areas or towns far from big cities greatly benefit when they need an ambulance to ferry them to a distant hospital for treatments not available locally.
Actually that’s getting down to state-level government.. which, along with the people, have ALL the rights not relegated to the federal government... meaning if the federal government doesn’t have highway-building rights, then States surely do.
>But yes, the goofy ordinances and building code provisions are insane and totally out of control (not to mention the insanely complicated and intrusive federal and state, and increasingly local, tax codes).
The tax-codes would be infinitely easier with a flat-rate, no exceptions/deductions, income tax rather than the progressive income tax we have now.
>These aren’t just interfering with basic freedoms, but also interfering with commerce and the overall economic strength of the nation, as people are forced to spend money on, and other people are thus induced to focus their labor on, things which provide no real benefit to anyone. Worst of all, they’re pushing a lot of people into economic dependency on government, who would be perfectly able to support themselves if they were allowed to do things like build their own shelter as best they can and live in it, just like the pioneers did. Instead, we actually have government forcibly removing people from homes that pose no actual danger at all, and putting them in taxpayer-subsidized public housing. And landlords are bullied by government under threats of huge fines and property liens and even arrest, into “updating” rental units to meet all the latest building codes, thus driving the rental price they must charge out of the reach of many people who need affordable rental housing.
Agreed. There’s a problem, somewhere, when you need to obtain permission to cut down a tree that is on your own property...
>>for the longest time we had no standing army, no police force, and no government currency, let alone highways, utilities, setback variances, and ordinances about everything under the sun
>
>Many of those things make a lot of sense, since they benefit virtually every citizen, and thus can reasonably fit under the “general welfare” clause. In this era, ad hoc armies would be useless against well-organized standing armies funded by other countries’ large governments.
I disagree. The general citizenry could [and should] have the basic firearms training needed to function in an Army, the larger/heavier/more-specialized equipment could be trained on in the sort of one weekend a month National Guard schedule.
Do you think that Obama would have buzzed New York city in Air Force One if the community had it’s own anti-aircraft guns? [Remember the scare there.]
>And police are generally a good way to bring an objective third party into conflicts that really do need intervention.
Perhaps, perhaps not. There are a lot of things the police are used for; raising revenue for their city is one. {Quick trivia: when the traffic laws (speed limits) were being debated the police were against it because “it would unnecessarily create an adversarial relationship between the police and the people.”}
>Government currency is basically the same issue as a standing army — if no country of significant size had a government-issued currency, we might be able to do fine without it, but that isn’t the case and isn’t going to be, and we’d be economically screwed if we didn’t have one.
If you’re referring to paper-money I disagree here as well. If we had gold and silver coinage we would NOT have any sort of fear about hyperinflation, as the money would be made of some material that has an intrinsic worth (and therefore has a lower limit on value).
>Interstate highways are also great promoters of commerce, benefitting everyone, not just those who drive on them.
Roads [highways] are, traditionally, one of the things governments do provide. There could be justification for the federal highways via the commerce clause, as the highways regulate [make regular] commerce.
>I really like being able to order something from the cheapest online source and have it arrive on my doorstep quickly and at very low cost, and the manufacturers and sellers of those items likewise benefit from this.
Indeed. One of the reasons you can get those good deals is because of the [relative] lack of government interference in the transaction.
>And people in rural areas or towns far from big cities greatly benefit when they need an ambulance to ferry them to a distant hospital for treatments not available locally.
Actually that’s getting down to state-level government.. which, along with the people, have ALL the rights not relegated to the federal government... meaning if the federal government doesn’t have highway-building rights, then States surely do.
>But yes, the goofy ordinances and building code provisions are insane and totally out of control (not to mention the insanely complicated and intrusive federal and state, and increasingly local, tax codes).
The tax-codes would be infinitely easier with a flat-rate, no exceptions/deductions, income tax rather than the progressive income tax we have now.
>These aren’t just interfering with basic freedoms, but also interfering with commerce and the overall economic strength of the nation, as people are forced to spend money on, and other people are thus induced to focus their labor on, things which provide no real benefit to anyone. Worst of all, they’re pushing a lot of people into economic dependency on government, who would be perfectly able to support themselves if they were allowed to do things like build their own shelter as best they can and live in it, just like the pioneers did. Instead, we actually have government forcibly removing people from homes that pose no actual danger at all, and putting them in taxpayer-subsidized public housing. And landlords are bullied by government under threats of huge fines and property liens and even arrest, into “updating” rental units to meet all the latest building codes, thus driving the rental price they must charge out of the reach of many people who need affordable rental housing.
Agreed. There’s a problem, somewhere, when you need to obtain permission to cut down a tree that is on your own property...
Yep... I agree.
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