Political Roundtable/Black hole of doom Part Deux

[montestewart]

^
Or, that DC citizens' fortunes are controlled by a congress whose members may come from 3000 or more miles away.

[DCZards]

Do you not understand that a local government is going to be more in tune with it's citizens than the Federal government who may be located 3000 miles away?

I don't expect the "federal govt" to be in tune with citizens 3000 miles away, but I do expect their elected representatives in Congress to be in tune with them---whether they're in Wash., DC or in the home district office outside Portland, Ore.

[nate33]

There is no point discussing this further. You are being deliberately obtuse. You are too smart not to grasp the concept that local representation is more likely to be in tune with the needs of the local community rather than a congress 3000 miles away having just 1 local representative out of 435 people.

[hands11]

If government cuts are possible, then those government jobs couldn't have been that important. The salary those people were being paid was therefore essentially a welfare payment. We were paying them to dig ditches and fill them up again. Any elimination of jobs like that is GOOD for the economy, not bad, because it frees up additional capital to be put to productive use.

If you consider government jobs lost to be bad, then it logically follows that government jobs added is good. Why not have the government employ EVERYBODY to dig ditches and fill them up again? Problem solved, Right?

Please explain how that even starts to make logical sense.

And since you hate the way we do it here so much, where is the model you respect ? What country ?

My second paragraph clears things up a bit. The point is, government jobs are paid for by the taxpayer, which means they are a net drag on the economy. They may show up in GDP, but they aren't real jobs that add to the real economy. As my second paragraph states: if government jobs are good, then why not hire every unemployed person to dig ditches and fill them up again?

Hmmm.

So everyone that works for the government do not contribute to the economic environment ? They provide services. Just like the company you hire to do your gutters.

Lets break that down.

So would you prefer there are no police ? You think that would provide for a stable economic environment ?

What you seem to be missing it the EOS. We choice to unit as states and it provided us an advantage.

As always, nothing is black and white as you are painting it. Sure there are government jobs that we don't need. But I like interstate highways. That play a huge roll in commerce. We would not have the economy in this country if we had roads like Costa Rica.

I also like the space program. I like clean air and water. I like that we have national parks. That are great for the people that live here and they attract tourist. That is good for the economy.

I also like safe food. I would prefer we have a better FDA, not worse. Even though I would like to make some changes to the agency.

Hey, I did sales for years. I know the mind set. Its all because of me because I closed the deal. But I couldn't do what I did without quality shipping and receiving, integration and tech support. Those are not revenue centers but they support the revenue centers.

Again, you want no government, move to Afghanistan.

[pineappleheadindc]

Just housekeeping announcement.

Someone soon....new thread please.

[pineappleheadindc]

Just housekeeping announcement.

Someone soon....new thread please.

[hands11]

Do you not understand that a local government is going to be more in tune with it's citizens than the Federal government who may be located 3000 miles away?

I don't expect the "federal govt" to be in tune with citizens 3000 miles away, but I do expect their elected representatives in Congress to be in tune with them---whether they're in Wash., DC or in the home district office outside Portland, Ore.

That is kind of why they come to DC then go home. Planes make that a lot easier then before.

Anyway, like you are saying, there are local codes. States, Cities, Counties, Town.

They all have local law, codes, etc.

You can shut a gun or burn a fire in your back yard in some place and not other.

They system is set up to be self correcting. It will never look perfect in a snap shot.

[pineappleheadindc]

Ok, here's a plan:

2) Create a mechanism that makes it possible to fire Federal workers who are incompetent, while preventing them from being fired for political reasons (don't know if this is possible, unfortunately).

Zonker - space purposes, edited most of your original post - but those are pretty good plans.

But for this one, above. There is a mechanism to fire incompetent Federal workers. I know. As a Federal employee and manager, I've done it. Twice.

To be fair, the frustration, headache, and stress of the process really ruins your life. You no longer want to be a manager. Essentially, two verbal warnings (documented) with granular things to do to improve; two subsequent written warnings (120 days apart) with granular things to do to improve; a 120 day formal PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) with specific tasks to do to achieve minimum performance levels and stave off firing. After that, if you can't manage it, you're gone.

But if you're the manager, you're faced with like a year of some out-of-control employee subverting your entire unit, creating chaos, the EEOC was called in on me for discrimination against a minority (I'm a minority), the union, the lies...Jeebus, I'm frustrated just typing this.

But it *is* possible.

(I note that during both processes, as my frustration and stress were at its worst, somebody decided to make the political talking point about how government employees were useless and didn't do anything. For every 2 a.m. justification writing session I had to undertake on my own, I wanted to throw a pie in the face at every politician that demagogued civicl servants.

<sigh>

Oh, and despite what politicians hint at. The problem among public servants isn't at the clerk, specialist, manager, or worker bee level. You know where it is? It's in the burrowers. The guys who get an appointee position in an agency and after a bit, apply for an "open to all applicants" new civil service job at the GS-15 level that magically appears and then they continue to exercise their lack of expertise (too many appointees lack the expertise of career senior staff - "Brownie, etc") in policy-level positions. Making decisions based on "expertise by job title" and frustrating any semblence of cohesion at the senior career staff level.