Posted on 12/20/2010 6:51:03 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Except for those on Social Security and Medicare, government for most middle-class Americans consists mainly of schools, police, fire protection, roads and ambulance service. It's states and localities. How are they faring in the present economy? Conventional wisdom holds that they've been crushed by dramatic declines in tax revenues and have resorted to deep cuts in public services. Well, not exactly.
To be sure, there are cases of severe cuts. Newark recently dismissed 13% of its police force. For two straight years, University of California has raised tuition sharply for its 220,000 students to help offset reductions in state aid: a 32% increase adopted in 2009 and another 8% increase this year. Hawaii shortened its 2009-10 school year by 17 days. But these and other similar cases, though real, exaggerate the situation.
Overall, national changes have been modest. In 2008, state and local spending totaled $2.19 trillion. It was almost identical in 2009 and, in the first three quarters of 2010, is running at an annual rate of $2.23 trillion. Employment tells the same story. State government jobs peaked in August 2008 at 5.2 million and dropped about 1% to a low of 5.15 million in mid-2009; at last count, they were 5.18 million. Somewhat larger losses for local governments - which employ most teachers, police and firefighters - are still mounting. Since a high of 14.6 million, also in August 2008, their jobs have dropped 360,000 or 2.5 percent.
True, state and local governments were expanding before the recession. Spending typically rose about $100 billion a year and employment, 100,000 to 200,000. Against those routine increases, the recent stability presents more of a contrast. Still, compared with many sectors that have suffered grievously from the slump - housing, automobiles, finance - state and local governments have been relatively sheltered.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearmarkets.com ...
If there was any fairness, then no one under 40 should be paying any social security or medicare taxes, as we will never see those benefits.
Means test all future payments. Raise the retirement age to 72 for people under 40. Social Security is a welfare program and a Ponzi scheme.
Once we admit that we can begin to alter and eliminate it.
For people under forty let them keep their portion of SS and place it in a never to be taxed retirement fund accessible after they turn 65.
As the wealthiest nation the world has ever known we’re not going to get away with letting our elderly rot in poverty. We need a better, sounder program that reflects work, liberty and honest American compassion. In our modern age, force and government aren’t ever going to be the solution.
Get teachers off the government teat - vouchers.
Privatize firefighting and EMT/Paramedics. We don’t need these to be provided by government.
Privatize police forces, leaving only sergeants and above to act as the interface between elected government and private police forces.
Privatize public works and bid the majority out, go with skeleton crews for day to day issues.
Inspections can go private and let the market take it over. Who’s going to buy an un-inspected house? Do you really trust government inspectors to keep you safe?
BUT BUT BUT
WE MUST HONOR THE CONTRACTS!
THOSE ARE SOLEMN OBLIGATIONS!
even though they were entered into by the most corrupt.
- - -
Those contracts should all be struck-down as void for being outright breaches of fiduciary responsibility.
With regard to state governments, each one has its own problem and I will only comment briefly on the state problem. If a state finds that it is unable to fulfill all the promises it has made, it must be fair to all its creditors in reducing its debt to what it can afford to pay. Some people out there are thinking states can or should deal with bond holders differently than retirees. Going way back, to the 1840s, when numerous states defaulted, several did discriminate against “foreign” bond holders, in a manner similar to the way some are arguing that states can or should today discriminate against retirees. As the 1840s dragged on, all but a few of the states owned up to their debts. But, here’s the rub: they then enacted constitutional reforms. The constraints on spending and on debt worked pretty well for a long time. Obviously, not forever, but what works forever.
As to the federal government, it should recognize all of its promises, funding them all with Treasury bonds. Then, it, too, should be fair to all its creditors. The thing with the federal government is that it has a lot of assets the sale of which might entirely pay off the full national debt. This means, for example, opening up development of the great holdings of natural resources of the federal government and a policy of selling-off buildings and land holdings which would be surplus to a slimmed-down federal government and which could fetch a decent price in the market. Then, the federal government should reform all its entitlement programs so as to make them actuarially solvent.
The idea that the current generation of workers should pay S.S. and Medicare taxes at a multiple (about 2.5 times) of the rate that current retirees paid when they were working AND not qualify for retirement until 67 or even older is just not fair. It is not the solution to paying the benefits that have been promised. But, current retirees are not well able to deal with changes to their retirement plans. So, we have to be creative.
I guess class warfare and racial warfare are not good enough for them, they want to instigate inter-generational warfare as well
No Legislative body is bound by the acts of a previous legislative body. With this ABSOLUTE SUPREME COURT PRECEDENCE in mind, Wouldn’t ALL contracts entered into by a Legislative Body Immediately be VOIDED upon the End of said Legislative Session?? Does a Legislative Body have the “RIGHT “ to enslave future generations in debt after their legislative session ends?? I SAY NO. Seems to me a lot of problems could be fixed overnight if we simply had an Amendment to the State Constitution of _________, to read
ALL PUBLIC DEBTS SHALL BE NULL AND VOID AT THE END OF THE LEGISLATIVE SESSION THAT AUTHORIZED SAID DEBT.
I take that to mean that the terms of any pensions can be changed every two years.
In any case, the pensions already being paid retired government workers and the pensions promised those currently in service, MUST be reduced. There is, as Governor Christie says, simply no money available to pay them.
WHAT IT REALLY MEANS IS THAT all contracts are null and void AT THE END OF THE LEGISLATION SESSION THAT CREATED SAID CONTRACTS... period. None of them have to be honored or renewed EVER. Now if only we could find a way to make the US CONSTITUTION the LAW OF THE LAND, one that supercedes all other laws, we might have a chance
Right. Let’s see.
Boomers paid what, 50k for a house? We pay 4-5x that amount.
Boomers had plenty of jobs when they started.
Boomers worked for a summer and could pay for their entire 4 year tuition, assuming that they didn’t get in on one of the many programs that paid their tuition for them.
We. Cannot. Afford. Gold. Plated. Pensions. I’m sure boomers would LOVE to cut everyone else but themselves off of the benefits, which is why they do just that with new hires.
Good luck being in your 20’s and getting a job with pension benefits. Let alone medical.
Preach it bro!
Funny thing is that the Federal Retirement system was reformed back in the 80s. The new system for civil service employees is not out of line with many private sector retirements. It’s the Sates, Counties and cities that have entered into impossible contracts. There is no moral justification for enslaving private sector people for the benefit of lazy worthless govt time servers. Since, theoretically, a pension is something that is earned for years of valuable service one could argue that govt employees deserve no pensions at all. Tax agency employees are so evil that they should be forced to pay the public back. I would never lift a finger to help anyone who works for any tax agency. They could all die of leukemia for all I care.
I’m not going to play the Lefts game of class, race, sex or generational warfare.
What you say is partly true. Much of that increase is inflation, though.
We need a two pronged effort. One is to cut government by dollar cost, size and scope and stop it from growing too big again.
Two is to grow the pie. There isn’t a reason why the United States cannot grow at 6%/year, other than that our government restrains it, not just on the federal, but the state, county and local level.
The Boomers, so called, are the largest demographic cohort and you can expect that politicians will try to please them. We can’t blame every one of them for today’s debacle.
Excellent.
What am I supposed to think as a young man trying to enter the workforce when these same unionised pensions are unavailable to new hires?
Why should my taxes go to pay their benefits when they are unwilling to extend those same benefits to us? It makes no sense.
They have broken the social contract, and are perfectly willing to destroy our future for goodies today.
You are right, it is a rip off. You won’t get the votes you need to reform the system, though, if you blame every Boomer.
We’ve got plenty of them on our side and we need to persuade the rest. It’ll take several steps to get us back to liberty.
As you likely know, it’s easy to gum up the works and hard to fix em.
Have you ever considered getting trained?: http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/training/
We’ll need to win plenty of elections and always need more and better candidates. Let’s get busy!
Merry Christmas and keep the faith.
Thanks for the link. I’m not trying to demonize boomers, just I really get sick of them complaining about pension and unemployment, when they are much better off than young folks.
Someone has to pay for all this debt, and it’s not going to be the boomers. They’ll take as much as they possibly can, destroy the system, and leave us to pick up the pieces.
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