Forget Islamic Extremism, There is a New Life or Death Threat in Town
What is the biggest threat to restoring America to its Reagan era awesomeness? What threat eats away at our Toby Keith-like purity and goodness more than unmarried women having sex? What threat unites the craziest Republican teabag with the craziest Republican blue blood?
It is the devious and fully committed to evil….state worker.
I think that we all kind of know how evil state workers are. We know how committed the librarian at the public library to exposing your children to the word “tits” in the dictionary. Who among us has not met a public High School math teacher that is not a yellow fanged monster with a closet full of human heads?
Now Republicans like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are here to let us know that STATE WORKERS not only indulge in overt acts of treason (like the guy who plowed Rt. 13 last weak in order to help usher in the ACORN/WeatherUnderground Caliphate), but they are using a secret means to undermine ‘Merica.
Their devious plan can be summed up in three words: “wanting” “to” “get” & “paid” Okay. Four words. But seriously, it is enough to make you puke isn’t it? Even here in Delaware we have STATE WORERS who have the nerve to want to get paid, when they know that every dollar paid to them is a dollar less in job creating tax cuts we can give to AstraZeneca executives.
Luckily, we have Republicans (along with some right thinking Democrats) who are willing to fight the STATE WORKER menace. We have Florida Governor, Rick Scott, who is attacking his state’s unemployment crisis by slashing 7 percent of the state’s government jobs. That’s is 6,700 state-worker on the street, and stripped of their power to wreck America.
It has to be the state workers who have caused this recession. Getting rid of them (while cutting taxes on the wealthiest, most job creating-est corporations and individuals) will fix everything.
I have trouble keeping up with the GOP’s list of evil. They seem to live in a constant state of fear and negativity. Seriously, they have completely abandoned anything positive, which strikes me as an odd platform from the “shining city on a hill” group.
It is all about simplistic, dumbed down, black & white choices. It is a scientific fact that the conservative brain cannot deal with complexity or nuance, so every time a conservative feels pain or uncertainty there needs to be a handy cause.
It’s not only state workers, it’s Federal workers, too. These asshats are coming after all civil servants.
That’s true. The teabagz house budget is an all out attack on the notion that the Government has any legitimate function other than writing huge checks to defense contractors.
You forgot the best part. Gov. Walker has the state national guard ready in case state worker try to strike.
Oh yeah. We need to be locked and loaded to take on this unmitigated evil.
American workers in the private sector are the best and most productive in the world! Until they are fired by the job creators. Then they instantly turn into lazy deadbeats with outdated training sucking on the goverment teat.
This War on Public Sector Workers is just one more way these Governors are kicking the really tough decisions down the road. And especially this asshole Governor from Wisconsin. Smaller government=fewer employees. Just let people go, shut down departments and tell taxpayers what services they can’t have any more. Instead of having the courage of their own smaller government convictions, they want to turn the entire government sector into Walmart workers.
If I recall, until recently, state law enforcement agencies (State Police were exempted, of course) couldn’t bargain for salary and aren’t permitted to engage in any form of strikes. At the time, the only issues on the table were safety and working conditions. Since there was no real leverage, negotiations were mostly like going through the motions.
Having worked on both sides of the negotiating table, when I became management we were *assisted* by some irritating douchebag sent from the State Personnel Office to make sure we didn’t give away the farm. So, I ended up coaching my officers on their strategy (away from the table) so we stood a better chance at getting some of the things they needed. Slightly seditious behavior at the time, but it seemed to work.
“Instead of having the courage of their own smaller government convictions, they want to turn the entire government sector into Walmart workers.”
Truth! One doesn’t even have to leave Delaware to see that happening.
I applaud this posts willingness to satirically state the obvious. When there is a recession that drives unemployment there is a natural uptick in demand for necessary government services to provide a safety net that will enable families to survive. This inevitably leads to a need for more state employees, not less, to administer these survival packages. Another point is the certainty that cutting these indispensable positions that provide necessary services will add those layed-off personnel to the roles of people needing those same services, deplete an already dwindling PIT revenue stream, increase the demand on a near-insolvent unemployment fund and throw more families unto the roles of uninsured/medicaid eligible/emergency room using population. This would cause an enormous increase in need and demand for social services. This type of economic conjecture would lead to a further downward economic spiral in Delaware that would prohibit any jobless recovery from happening and in fact delay any substantial recovery fueled by some miraculous infusion of jobs. Stability is the watchword here and any economist worth his parchment will tell you that revenue has to increase to soften the recessionary plunge and recovery possibilities. That revenue has to come, albeit temporarily, from those parties that can afford it without debilitating their ability to progress. (eg: increasing corporate franchise tax caps (affecting only the richest of the rich), more brackets for higher level income earners) Cutting borderline livable paychecks or implementing benefit co-pays on barely above poverty level families (a majority of state-worker supported families) results in a decrease in spending capabilities that will disaffect the private sector businesses’ revenue stream. This erosion of revenue will inevitably result in personnel adjustments (layoffs) that will further exacerbate the situation and delay any economic recovery.
I urge you to continue the discussion with a keen eye to guarding against the unfair demonization of a class of people (government workers) who are not as expendable as the short-sighted may think. I also hope this sites focus is not limited to other states travails without consideration to what is being proposed here at home in Delaware.
John Kowako
Well said, John.
If last year’s budget is any sign, the wealthiest, most job creating-est corporations and individuals don’t have much to worry about.
And the taxpayers who are getting the wink and a nod on the “shared sacrifice” stuff still get pretty much all of the government they can eat without ever being confronted with the objective fact that a life that is more expensive for you and your family is more expensive for the government too. It is well past time for an adult conversation about paying for what you want or being very clear about the services that go away. John and Mis are right that this is happening right here in Delaware too.
I think that you can have that adult conversation in less racially and economically heterogenous countries and states. Here that fact is that racism and classism comes into play. There is a voting block in this state that lives in absolute terror that their tax dollars might go to African Americans or unworthy whites.
Cassandra,
Digby nails the downstream impact of these cuts on Republican thinking:
I don’t think that just applies to repubs — it looks like part of the strangling it in a bathtub BS. EVERYONE sees service cuts as evidence that government doesn’t work, when in fact, they are getting the government they agree to pay for. This is why I’m asking for the adult conversation. The kind that families have around the kitchen table when times are tight (to use the predominant metaphor) — telling everyone that there will be food, there will be shelter, but there will not be iPods or HBO. That isn’t a discussion of incompetence, it is one of priorities and just whacking away at public employees doesn’t do much in terms of setting priorities.
And one more thing while I’m at it — there isn’t a government in the US that isn’t hugely dependent upon consultants for various services and support roles. It would be a very interesting exercise to take a look at the State of Delaware’s top 5 largest professional consulting contracts and see how they are being reimbursed. Multi-year, indefinite quantity contracts typically have provisions for escalating labor rates, labor burdens, G&A expenses and (occasionally) profit. While the State is busily asking its employees to be the proxies for shared pain, I’m wondering if the State is asking these consultants to forgo charging them for increased labor costs. Or — even better — asking *them* to work for their 2008 or 2006 labor and overhead rates?
There’s ample evidence that at every level our Country is broke. In spite of decades being among the worst tax burdened States in the Country Wisconsin is nearly $4-billion in debt. There is no alternative. No family, no community, no State, no Country can long endure if it continues to dig itself into debt with reckless abandon. This is where we’re at.
It’s time to be adults, make the sacrifice and work for a better future. Quite simple…not easy but simple!!