6/6 How many voted for prop 82? Did you see the bit about having a
parent tax if the income tax doesn't generate enough revenue yet
no one will be denied access for lack of ability to pay? So where
does the shortfall come from? The general fund? A bonus tax for
everyone?
\_ The fact of the matter is, our government is poor. We don't
have enough money in the education system and everyone has to
suffer more crime and somehow make it up, like paying for more
jails. We're freeloaders leeching from our past social projects
such as our transit systems and power grids. We no longer build
anything these days, thanks to our tax-cutting loving Republicans
who have two things in mind-- privatizing everything that our
government can't afford, and cut even more tax. Thanks to them,
we have to suffer from sky rocketing crime rates much of it
due to the lack of education our kids have. We are forced to
build one of the largest jail systems in the world, and the quality
of living has been going down since the 80s when conservative
movements became popular. Fuck all this tax-cutting conservative
movements. Stop thinking about yourself and just raise the fucking
tax. It'll be better for everyone.
\_ Where do you keep pulling this "sky rocketing crime rates"
line from? Everything I've seen has crime dropping for the
last 20 years.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime
\_ Interesting theory since CA has some of the highest taxes in
the US but worst education system, bad jail system, and as you
say is living off the public works of the past. How do you
justify more taxing going into what we agree is a broken syetem?
How will throwing good money after bad make anything better?
Also, are you ok with hidden taxes like prop 82 creates? All
those parents who think they're getting free day care at the
expense of the wealthy will end up paying for it in the end.
That's a crappy way to write law or a proposition.
\_ How do you fix the system when you don't have enough
money to fix it? The only other alternative to not
taxing is privatizing everything and let the
free market take its course. Is that what you want?
\_ CA is 15th in state tax burden.
\_ 21st if you count only state taxes...
\_ 1 in 5 US workers is employed in some form by the government.
This giant mass of leeches, who demand anachronistic pension
and benefit plans and only ever grow in size, is a worthless
drag on the nation. I'm in favor of privatizing every public
school in the nation, and the postal service.
\_ Ah yes, fuck the system that attempts to give a flatter level
of playing field because survival of the fittest is how
the world should work. Let the free market take its course
because everything in life is be measured by efficiency,
profits, and making stock holders happy. I get it now.
Thank you very much!
\_ Ah yes let's make unfounded assumptions! The current
field is not flat. Privatising the schools wouldn't
necessarily make it worse given a voucher-like
system. In fact, odds are good that things would
be improved. Everyone would have more choice.
There would be more competition among the different
private schools with voucher money making them
more affordable for people. The private school I
had for 3 years was soooooo much better than any
public school I ever saw. And no, not everything
in life is measured by efficiency etc. That is
a stupid statement. Schools would be measured
the same as otherwise. Thanks for playing.
\_ This monolithic government that supposedly employs 20% of
working Americans does not exist. Each level of govt. (city,
state, federal) has its own system of employment benefits;
within those, different departments and branches have their
own systems and even different unions. Note also that govt.
jobs not tied to political appointments pay roughly 10-20%
less than equivalent private sector positions. I agree with
you that there is room for reform, but your sweeping
generalization does not do the situation justice.
\_ Actually, even political jobs pay less. For an example,
look at the pay of the President. However, the government
is also a lot more inefficient and wasteful than the
private sector. That is, in many positions (except the
most prestigious and for things like nuclear physicists
which depend on the DOE), the government is also
getting what it pays for - or often not even that.
\_ Yes the government is inefficient, there is no doubt
about that. Take the firefighters in New Enland
for example. Prior to the 1900s people paid private
firefighter insurance and when there were blocks of
homes on fire, the firefighters would extinguish fire
nearby homes that had special signs that they paid
for, while letting everything else burn down. It was
profitable and efficient, but it obviously didn't
provide a consistent service to everyone. It is NOT the
goal of the government to be profitable, it is to
provide everyone a consistent service at some monetary
loss which hopefully will benefit everyone in the
end. Most of the tax-cut loving conservatives will
never understand this, because their world is entirely
measured by efficiency and profits.
\- also plenty of "tax cut loving
conservatives" are ok with "mercantilist"
inititatives like: import-export bank,
subsidized research in their area of
interest, making private interests matters
of public policy [RIAA], or changing
more natural priorities of govt resources
allocated to things like trade negotions
in IP, agricultural subsidies, govt
allocating public resources without seeking
to maximize the return to the public
[sketchy ways of selling rights to say
airwaves, frequency, western grazing lands,
mineral rights etc].
\_ It is not the goal of government to be profitable,
but it should be efficient. The amount of red
tape that doesn't even make any sense is
staggering and constantly growing. It's why this
country produces more lawyers than the rest of
the world combined. Example from NASA: I want to
buy a supercomputer. The vendor agreed to provide
3 years warranty on the quote. However, one of
the five tasks funding the computer ends in one
year. (The rest continue past three years.)
Regulations say that we cannot accept the three
year warranty, as that is longer than one of the
funding tasks will be in existence (or maybe
not, because it could be extended perhaps).
Therefore, we had to ask vendors to provide only
one year of warranty, essentially throwing away
two free years. This is highly inefficient and
as a taxpayer, too, I am horrified. --dim
\_ Having survived the dotcom bubble and govt. jobs at
the city, state, and federal level, I respectfully
disagree with your assessment insofar as I think you're
being much too generous to private sector employees.
\_ <DEAD>Dot.com<DEAD> was just a big party. To be fair,
compare to *profitable* companies.
\_ What, like Enron? WorldCom?
\_ Are you suggesting the employees at Enron
and WorldCom were not hard-working and
efficient? I would guess that most were.
\_ I don't think there's any real evidence that
private companies as a whole are more efficient
than government as a whole. Good private
companies are more efficient than bad government,
and vice versa. If Orange County had been a
corporation, it would have laid everyone off,
bilked its investors, and sold pieces of itself
out for pennies on the dollar, as Enron and
WorldCom did. That's highly inefficient. -tom
\_ Private companies are efficient at maximizing
***PROFITS*** without regard to anything else
such as the quality of service, unless of
course there is enough competition to drive
them to be less profitable. Government
services on the other hand have initial
noble intent of creating services for the
people but many fail because of a lack of
accountability (FEMA, CIA, etc). In the end,
neither pure free-market nor strict government
controlled programs work well on a
consistent basis for a long period of time.
\_ "In particular, studies of garbage collection,
water utilities, electric utilities, office
cleaning, firefighting, and transportation
(airlines, railroads, buses) found that
private providers were more efficient under
conditions of competition and accountability
(Donahue 1991; Spann 1977).
Notably, though, in several instances public
provision was more efficient than private
provision, even under competitive market
conditions (Donahue 1991)."
There are instances where it doesn't make
sense to privatize a service (e.g.
duplication of infrastructure involved in
electricity transmission) but I think it's
obvious that in most cases the private
sector is more efficient because it has an
incentive to be. What incentive does the
government have to be efficient?
\_ Civilian and press oversight; not something
corporations generally need to worry
about in this country. -tom
\_ The point is not that it has no incentive
to be efficient. The problem is that
lack of competition and choice is less
efficient. The government can just do
stupid things and there is no market
to punish their stupid decisions.
They just get more money when they
squander what they have. They set up
idiotic and corrupt contract deals.
Oversight doesn't prevent mediocrity.
It doesn't really do anything at all,
just generates discussion when something
particularly egregious comes up, or
laws are broken. Corporations do still
obey laws in this country.
\_ You think competition is inherently
more efficient? Tell me, how many
programming languages does your
company's main product use for
development? Would your development
be more efficient if you had two
different groups, one using Java and
one using Ruby, competing to develop
the same product?
Competition between companies doesn't
prevent mediocrity. And there is
a market that punishes stupid
governmental decisions; it's called
"voting." -tom
\_ Voting can't handle this. Voters
are worried about gay marriage.
They don't have the time nor
inclination to dig through stuff
and analyze... and even if they
did, it still doesn't help. A
real market, at least ideally,
selects the best performers.
I read about govt fuckups all
the time and never hear about
heads rolling. Everything is
aggregated. If you try to punish
poor performance in one area it
is lost in the noise. And you
have small way of knowing if
the new guy is any better than
the old.
\_ And even if he is, term
limits mean he won't be around
long. This helps when there's
an idiot like Bush in office,
but it's bad when there's
someone sincere and capable. |
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