Don't Let Wisconsin Divide Us ... Conservatives and Liberals AGREE About the Important Things

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Don't let Wisconsin divide us.

Conservatives and liberals actually agree about the most important things.

In fact, most Americans - conservatives and liberals - are fed up with both of the mainstream republican and democratic parties, because it has become obvious that both parties serve Wall Street and the military-industrial complex at the expense of most Americans.

In reality, all Americans - conservatives and liberals:

• Want to break up the unholy alliance between big government and big banks

• Want to break up the giant banks (and see this)

• Agree that the Wall Street criminals who committed fraud should be thrown in jail

• Agree that the Federal Reserve should be audited

• Are against corporate socialism

• Are against rampant inequality

• Want to stand up to the ruling class

• And are against unnecessary imperial wars

The powers-that-be try to divide us and demonize the "other side" so that we won't realize how much we all agree on. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

Don't let them.

Debunking Myths

Before we can honestly look at what's going on in Wisconsin, we need to dispel some commonly-accepted myths.

People who think that debts and deficits don't matter are wrong. As two top American economists - Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff - demonstrated in December 2009 :

The relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below a threshold of 90 percent of GDP. Above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by one percent, and average growth falls considerably more. We find that the threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies...

As I wrote in January 2010:

Al Martin - former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors and retired naval intelligence officer - observed in an April 2005 newsletter that the ratio of total U.S. debt to gross domestic product (GDP) rose from 78 percent in 2000 to 308 percent in April 2005. The International Monetary Fund considers a nation-state with a total debt-to-GDP ratio of 200 percent or more to be a "de-constructed Third World nation-state."

Martin explained:

What "de-constructed" actually means is that a political regime in that country, or series of political regimes, have, through a long period of fraud, abuse, graft, corruption and mismanagement, effectively collapsed the economy of that country.

Forbes noted in December:

Add the unfunded portion of entitlement programs and we're at 840% of GDP.

Boston University economics professor and former Senior Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers Laurence Kotlikoff says that the real federal debt is $202 trillion dollars, and that the U.S. is bankrupt.

And see this, this, this, this and this.

So we have to reduce our debt.

And yet the government has been spending like a drunken sailor ... while slashing taxes.

Not Liberal or Conservative ... But Redistribution of Wealth Up to the Ultra-Rich

As I noted last December:

Ronald Reagan gave big tax cuts to the wealthy.

So it is dramatic that Reagan's director of Office of Management and Budget - David

Stockman - calls the Bush tax cuts "the biggest fiscal mistake in history".

Specifically, Stockman told Dylan Ratigan that Bush's advisers forecast a $5 trillion surplus over 10 years. But "two unfunded wars and a Fed engineered housing bubble later", we're in a $ 5 trillion cumulative deficit. So Bush made a $10 trillion mistake.

Stockman said extending the Bush tax cuts won't stimulate the economy, the fact that the tax cut extensions will expire on the eve of the 2012 elections will panic politicians and force them to renew them yet again, and that "we're destroying the economy on Uncle Sam's credit card.

Indeed, Moody's and other rating services are threatening to downgrade America's credit rating due to the extension of the tax cuts for the wealthy:

The rating agency said in a report Monday that last week's agreement between the White House and congressional Republicans should bolster economic growth in the next two years – but at the expense of the nation's already perilous budget position down the road.

The agreement to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years and trim workers' payroll tax contributions for one could raise the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio at 2012 to 72-73% from around 62% now, Moody's said. It said that without the tax package, that number might have been around 68% in 2012. [These numbers are low, as discussed above.]

***

"Unless there are offsetting measures, the package will be credit negative for the US and increase the likelihood of a negative outlook on the US government's Aaa rating during the next two years," Moody's said.

The comment comes as the bond market seems to have reached very much the same conclusion. The yield on the 10-year Treasury has soared to 3.32% from around 2.4% two months ago, as investors bet on a stronger recovery and rising inflation.

At the same time, our leaders are spending like they just won the lottery.

As I wrote last March:

Why aren't our government "leaders" talking about slashing the military-industrial complex, which is ruining our economy with unnecessary imperial adventures?

And why aren't any of our leaders talking about stopping the permanent bailouts for the financial giants who got us into this mess? And see this.

And why aren't they taking away the power to create credit from the private banking giants - which is costing our economy trillions of dollars (and is leading to a decrease in loans to the little guy) - and give it back to the states?

If we did these things, we wouldn't have to raise taxes or cut core services.

And see this short video from England.

The same thing is playing out on the state level.

For example, if the Wisconsin governor was proposing cutting pensions because everyone needed to share in the sacrifice, that would be understandable. But as the Washington Post's Ezra Klein points out:

The Badger State was actually in pretty good shape. It was supposed to end this budget cycle with about $120 million in the bank. Instead, it's facing a deficit. Why? I'll let the state's official fiscal scorekeeper explain (pdf):

More than half of the lower estimate ($117.2 million) is due to the impact of Special Session Senate Bill 2 (health savings accounts), Assembly Bill 3 (tax deductions/credits for relocated businesses), and Assembly Bill 7 (tax exclusion for new employees).

In English: The governor called a special session of the legislature and signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it helped turn a surplus into a deficit [see update at end of post]. As Brian Beutler writes, "public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda."

***

Update ... The $130 million deficit now projected for 2011 isn't the fault of the tax breaks passed during Walker's special session, though his special session created about $120 million in deficit spending between 2011 and 2013 -- and perhaps more than that, if his policies are extended. That is to say, the deficit spending he created in his special session is about equal to the deficit Wisconsin faces this year, but it's not technically correct to say that Walker created 2011's deficit. Rather, he added $120 million to the 2011-2013 deficits, and perhaps more in the years after that.

And according to Madison's Capitol Times:

To the extent that there is an imbalance -- Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit -- it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes -- or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues -- the “crisis” would not exist.

The Fiscal Bureau memo -- which readers can access at http://legis.wisconsin.gov/lfb/Misc/2011_01_31Vos&Darling.pdf -- makes it clear that Walker did not inherit a budget that required a repair bill.

The facts are not debatable.

Because of the painful choices made by the previous Legislature, Wisconsin is in better shape fiscally than most states.

***

[Walker] has proposed a $137 million budget “repair” bill that he intends to use as a vehicle to ...

Pay for schemes that redirect state tax dollars to wealthy individuals and corporate interests that have been sources of campaign funding for Walker’s fellow Republicans and special-interest campaigns on their behalf. As Madison’s Democratic state Rep. Brett Hulsey notes, the governor and legislators aligned with him have over the past month given away special-interest favors to every lobby group that came asking, creating zero jobs in the process “but increasing the deficit by more than $100 million.”

Actually, Hulsey’s being conservative in his estimate of how much money Walker and his allies have misappropriated for political purposes.

***

“Since his inauguration in early January, Walker has approved $140 million in new special-interest spending that includes:

“• $25 million for an economic development fund for job creation that still has $73 million due to a lack of job creation. Walker is creating a $25 million hole which will not create or retain jobs.

“• $48 million for private health savings accounts, which primarily benefit the wealthy. A study from the federal Governmental Accountability Office showed the average adjusted gross income of HSA participants was $139,000 and nearly half of HSA participants reported withdrawing nothing from their HSA, evidence that it is serving as a tax shelter for wealthy participants.

“• $67 million for a tax shift plan, so ill-conceived that at best the benefit provided to ‘job creators’ would be less than a dollar a day per new job, and may be as little as 30 cents a day.”

State Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, sums up this scheming accurately when he says: “In one fell swoop, Gov. Walker is trying to institute a sweeping radical and dangerous notion that will return Wisconsin to the days when land barons and railroad tycoons controlled the political elites in Madison.”

State Senator Jon Erpenbach says that the unions have already agreed to cuts:

"The
state employees have talked about the money and giving up the money,
and that's fine. But what they have a problem with - and what a lot of
us have a problem with - is the fact that Governor Walker is taking
decades of union law and throwing it out the window and trying to bust
the unions altogether, and that's just not the right way to go."

***

"The public employees have said you can take the money - the money isn't the issue. The issue is their right to collectively bargain their contracts. And that's where we all have to draw the line."

Economist Menzie Chen argues
that Wisconsin public workers make less than their private
counterparts, even when pensions are included. Pulitzer prize winning
journalist David Cay Johnston says that Wisconsin's governor is really trying to bust unions as a first step in driving down everyone's wages ... both in the public and the private sector.  Mother Jones alleges that the billionaire Koch brothers - the ones who Supreme
Court justices Scalia and Thomas hung out with before deciding to
allow unlimited foreign money to pour into American political races - funded the election of Wisconsin's governor. And Forbes' columnist Rick Ungar claims
that the Kochs are behind the crackdown on Wisconsin unions, as they
have business interests in Wisconsin. Whether or not these claims are
true is beyond the scope of this discussion, and I haven't researched
them enough to weigh in one way or the other.

On the other hand, as James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation argues in the New York Times:

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

That
wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was
George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955.
Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once
thought the idea absurd.

***

When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

***

Government
collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public
policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending
and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic – a
fact that unions once recognized.

But whether or not you think public union workers are whiners and public
labor unions harmful or beneficial, the fact is that the governor of
Wisconsin is trying to do exactly what the federal government is trying
to do: throw money at their ultra-rich friends, and pay for it by
shafting the little guy. It almost appears as if the federal and state
governments are using "shock doctrine" tactics as an excuse for imposing
"austerity measures" which benefit the wealthy at the expense of the
little guy just like failed third world countries.  (Remember, Reuters claims that republicans are trying to bankrupt states in order to weaken unions.)

Indeed, Governor Walker is a true conservative to the same extent that President Obama is a true liberal ... not very much.

Again, if everyone - giant banks and corporations as well as workers -
were being asked to share in the sacrifice, that would be completely
different. I'm all for shared sacrifice (I work for the private sector,
but I'll sacrifice a little if we can also claw back the ill-gotten
gains from Wall Street CEO's. See this, this and this.)

But that's not what's happening. Instead, federal and state policies are making the rich richer and everyone else poorer.

And if you still think that this is a conservative versus liberal issue, listen to what tried-and-proven conservatives (re-read Stockman's statements above) are saying.

For example, Paul Craig Roberts, whose conservative credentials are impeccable - former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, one of the people who most widely promoted "trickle down" economics, former editor of the Wall Street Journal, listed by Who's Who in America as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world, and PhD economist - writes:

Obama’s new budget is a continuation of Wall Street’s class war against the poor and middle class.

Wall Street wasn’t through with us when the banksters sold their fraudulent derivatives into our pension funds, wrecked Americans’ job prospects and retirement plans, secured a $700 billion bailout at taxpayers’ expense while foreclosing on the homes of millions of Americans, and loaded up the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet with several trillion dollars of junk financial paper in exchange for newly created money to shore up the banks’ balance sheets.

The effect of the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” on inflation, interest rates, and the dollar’s foreign exchange value are yet to hit. When they do, Americans will get a lesson in poverty.

Now the ruling oligarchies have struck again, this time through the federal budget. The U.S. government has a huge military/security budget. It is as large as the budgets of the rest of the world combined. The Pentagon, CIA, and Homeland Security budgets account for the $1.1 trillion federal deficit that the Obama administration forecasts for fiscal year 2012. This massive deficit spending serves only one purpose--the enrichment of the private companies that serve the military/security complex. These companies, along with those on Wall Street, are who elect the U.S. government.

***

The U.S. is determined to create as many enemies as possible in order to continue its bleeding of the American population to feed the ravenous military/security complex.

***

With a perpetual budget deficit driven by the military/security complex’s desire for profits, the real cause of America’s enormous budget deficit is off-limits for discussion.

***

The U.S. military/security complex is capable of creating any number of... events in order to make these threats seem real to a public whose intelligence is limited to TV, shopping mall experiences, and football games.

So Americans are stuck with enormous budget deficits that the Federal Reserve must finance by printing new money, money that sooner or later will destroy the purchasing power of the dollar and its role as world reserve currency. When the dollar goes, American power goes.

For the ruling oligarchies, the question is: how to save their power.

Their answer is: make the people pay.

And that is what their latest puppet, President Obama, is doing.

***

These goals [of propping up foreign dictators who serve U.S. interests] are far more important to the American elite than Pell Grants that enable poor Americans to obtain an education, or clean water, or community block grants, or the low income energy assistance program (cut by the amount that U.S. taxpayers are forced to give to Israel).

There are also $7,700 million of cuts in Medicaid and other health programs over the next five years.

Given the magnitude of the U.S. budget deficit, these sums are a pittance. The cuts will have no effect on U.S. Treasury financing needs. They will put no breaks on the Federal Reserve’s need to print money in order to keep the U.S. government in operation.

These cuts serve one purpose: to further the Republican Party’s myth that America is in economic trouble because of the poor: The poor are shiftless. They won’t work. The only reason unemployment is high is that the poor had rather be on welfare.

A new addition to the welfare myth is that recent middle class college graduates won’t take the jobs offered them, because their parents have too much money, and the kids like living at home without having to do anything. A spoiled generation, they come out of university refusing any job that doesn’t start out as CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The reason that engineering graduates do not get job interviews is that they do not want them.

What all this leads to is an assault on “entitlements”, which means Social Security and Medicare. The elites have programmed, through their control of the media, a large part of the population, especially those who think of themselves as conservatives, to conflate “entitlements” with welfare. America is going to hell not because of foreign wars that serve no American purpose, but because people, who have paid 15% of their payroll all their lives for old age pensions and medical care, want “handouts” in their retirement years. Why do these selfish people think that working Americans should be forced through payroll taxes to pay for the pensions and medical care of the retirees? Why didn’t the retirees consume less and prepare for their own retirement?

The elite’s line, and that of their hired spokespersons in “think tanks” and universities, is that America is in trouble because of its retirees.

Too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe that America is in trouble because of its poor and its retirees. America is not in trouble because it coerces a dwindling number of taxpayers to support the military/security complex’s enormous profits, American puppet governments abroad, and Israel.

The American elite’s solution for America’s problems is not merely to foreclose on the homes of Americans whose jobs were sent offshore, but to add to the numbers of distressed Americans with nothing to lose the sick and the dispossessed retirees, and the university graduates who cannot find jobs that have been sent to China and India.

And Ron Paul - who has very strong conservative credentials, and who won the Presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference two years in a row - recently said in his CPAC speech:

We’re going to continue to bail out, we’re going to continue to spend the money, nobody wants to cut. I am sure that half the people in this room won’t cut one penny on the military, and the military is not equated to defense. Defense spending is one thing, military spending is what Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” and we have to go after that.

***

But let’s say government, as you all, I am sure would agree, is out of control, and it’s very hard for us to get a handle on it. So let’s say we even theoretically, and a miracle happens and we balance the budget where we are today, it would be still a disaster because we’re spending too much money. But it wouldn’t change a whole lot. When a crisis comes, guess what happens? Guess who does the bailing out? The Federal Reserve used $4 trillion to pass out without congressional approval and most people say “Oh, well that’s the Federal Reserve’s job to do that.” No, it is our job to check up and find what the Federal Reserve has done, audit them, and find out who their buddies are that they’re taking care of.

***

The Federal Reserve creates money out of thin air, they can loan to banks, central banks of the world, to other governments and international financial institutions and we’re not even allowed to know. They resent the fact that when I ask these questions, that they don’t have to give us information. That’s why the bill to audit the Fed is the first step to ending the Federal Reserve.

***

I think and I believe that we have had way too much bipartisanship for about 60 years. .... It’s the bipartisanship of the welfare system, the warfare system, the monetary system, the challenge to our civil liberties, it all goes through with support from both parties. So there’s way too much bipartisanship. This should be a challenge of the issue of philosophy – good philosophy versus bad philosophy.

***

But where I think we go astray on this exceptionalism is there are some people and sometimes they’re referred as neoconservatives and they’re sort of neo-Jacobins where they believe that we have this moral responsibility to use force to go around the world and say, “You will do it our way or else.” Well force doesn’t work, it never works.

Paul is also against welfare. Given his views on ending the warfare
state, bailouts, and reining in the Fed. I think, on balance, he would
make a much better president than Obama.

Comments

[Milestones]

I got a suggestion ANON. Lets fire all the public school teachers in the USA and you act as the GO TO guy to replace them. You set the criteria, skill levels necessary and fair pay scale and you AND YOUR HIRED MINIONS go out there and get the whole schambag up and running.

In fact I'd like to see all the serious programs that all of you who criticize what we have ( and believe me I have a goodly list) as to how it is to be fixed. (Remember, and I have yet to see one Blog about where in the Constitution is a School Marm designated in the Constitution a Federal Government responsibility.)

So opening that area of exploration, how do we start to solve the problem?   Milestones

[George Washington]

I think Ron Paul would make 10,000 times better a president than Obama.  Does that make me "left leaning"?

[Dyler Turden II Esq]

No, GW, it does not make you left-leaning. But we're ON to you, buddy! We KNOW you're a weenie-whacking commie socialist weasel! DON'T DENY IT!  Yes, yes, you're trying to sew seeds of unity and solidarity. Ha! WE ARE NOT FOOLED!

[AN0NYM0US]

GW I read what you write not the statements that you make.  You are one of my favorite contributors (my favorite) but there is a progressive slant to your writings (not that there is anything wrong with that) - I sense an internal conflict (seriously) and I also think that at the Progressive edges there are many who, while not endorsing Ron Paul would hold to his ideals.

PS some of Baracks harshest critics come from the Progressive base that supported him.

edit (notwithstanding, I am still irritated when GW goes in and alters his original without indicating such)

[kaiserhoff]

Couldn't agree more about Ron Paul, but yes, you are left leaning.  Parasites and producers do NOT agree.  You need to take a good, hard look at the menial wages, soul wrenching work, and complete job insecurity in the productive sector.  This economy is dying, and your urban, statist blather is less than useless.

[SRV - ES339]

The corporations have blown up the economy, are now raping the middle class in America as we speak, and you blame Teachers (schools are a disgrace because the GOP will not fund public education... private education keeps the peasants from getting any "upity" thoughts), Fire Fighters, and Cops?

The Governor is not standing up to greedy unions, he's following the scrip he was given when he sold his soul to the Devil (his corporate masters).

[StychoKiller]

We have been brought up by the Socialist/Progressives that without stealing
from our neighbor, there is no way to help the poor and those that need help.  That is the biggest lie every put out there...and most of the American people have fallen for it.

"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." - James Madison

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald
the end of the republic. — Benjamin Franklin

The Public Employee Unions are indirectly stuffing the ballot box and getting paid off by those that they elect -- it's as plain as the nose on anyone's face!

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Bullshit. Over the past 30 years, public school teachers have made more and more money, and public school education gets worse and worse. Public funding of education is bad enough, because governments suck at running everything. But if you ARE going to pay teachers using taxpayer money, there is NO WAY they should be allowed to organize. It undermines the democratic process when those who suckle at the public tit can organize politically to feather their nests and avoid accountability.

[Lord Koos]

Public School teachers make significantly less than those in the private sector.  If the government sucks at running everything, I guess you never have any use for the postal service, product safety standards, toll-free interstate highways, public roads and streets, food safety standards, the fire department, etc etc.  You think government sucks --have no government really sucks.  Take a vacation in Somalia sometime & see how you like it.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Oh, I have plenty of use for those things. Just because the government sucks at running them doesn't mean I don't like having them.

You are smoking crack if you think that private school teachers make more than public school teachers. Sorry-- you don't know shit, and obviously don't know any private school teachers, who would laugh at your sorry ass for thinking they get paid more. They get paid a lot LESS.

[AN0NYM0US]

LK, my fav is the TSA and its parent DHS I feel much safer knowing they are watching over me

[Seer]

I'm surprised at how most don't get what the educational system really is: for feeding the corporations.  Crap in, crap out isn't the fault of teachers, it's the fault of their mandated programs, which, are heavily driven by corporate needs.

Disclaimer: I'm not arguing/lobbying for ANY side, just sticking of for facts and logic.  That, and knowing that BIG SYSTEMS = FAIL (be they corporate or social)

But... man!  60% of the fed employees are involved in killing and snooping!  Yeah, fucking teachers!

[nmewn]

The public education system was setup to make workers who could do the job required and make "good citizens"...along the Prussian model.

Nothing more, nothing less.

[Ben Fleeced]

Just one century ago, my Grandmother taught English. Towns and cities would advertise for teachers, she would send her CV and then choose from the offers that suited her needs. Sometimes it was housing and food and sometimes financial compensation. Did the Prussian model you speak of destroy this bargaining in the US? Sorry I am way behind the curve on this issue.

[nmewn]

Greetings Ben,

Life is a discovery of what we thought we knew at one point in time.

Please start here and let me know what you think;

http://johntaylorgatto.com/historytour/history1.htm

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Yes, exactly, public education as initially conceived and implemented by Otto Von Bismarck is first and foremost a political indoctrination system.

Time for it to be abolished.

[SRV - ES339]

Glenn would be proud of you.

[nmewn]

"you start your article calling for solidarity, then spend most of it attacking conservatives."

Pretty much how I saw it, meanwhile, the ever present trolls on any of GW's posts go to work junking anyone who dares offer a counter view of what government should be involved in and what it should not...ain't "democracy" swell...LOL.

"The bank bailouts should have never happened. wall street should not be bailed out. pumping stock and commodity prices does not create prosperity."

No, the bank bailouts, GM, FRE, FNM, Chrysler, AIG...all of it should not have happened and the legislative vote totals & regulatary decisions allowing it are a matter of publlic record for anyone who cares to look.

[topcallingtroll]

On that maybe most of us could agree.

[nmewn]

I think so too...for different reasons however ;-)

[nmewn]

Two fundamentally different philosophies of governance.

On Wisconsin...here's the pay scales;

http://dpi.state.wi.us/lbstat/newasr.html

[Buckaroo Banzai]

What the Wisconsin teachers make is irrelevant. Public-service employee unions must be dissolved. You work for the taxpayer, then sorry, you aren't allowed to organize. Don't like it? Tough shit. Get a job in private sector.

[Dr. Sandi]

.

[rwe2late]

 Your zeal to enforce submission to the power of the state,

is not so commendable as you may believe.

[StychoKiller]

Your defense of the SIZE of the State is not so commendable as you may believe!

[Fred Hayek]

There was no right for federal workers to organize until Kennedy issued an order in 1962. 

And some would say that since then, the public sector unions are simply another power player constantly working to increase the power of the state.  What else would one expect them to do?

[Milestones]

"the public sector unions are simply another power player constantly working to increase the power of the state." Really!! Do tell! Lets see the state of WISCONSIN, who is trying to break a union who is a" power player constantly working to increase the power of the state."Hell, I guess it'll make sense to someone I'm sure.   Wow.    Milestones

[DOT]

Gotta go. Don't want to miss sunset down at "little egypt".

[eatthebanksters]

The private sector takes risks and creates jobs...the government spends money and does some things that make our live better.  When employees of the public sector make, on average, almost twice what the private sector makes...when the public sector gets health and retirement benefits that are so far and above the private sector that they are not even comparable, then you have an imbalance.  The world needs to be balanced.  It's funny how everyone wants to hammer the rich, except for the rich people working for the government.  Personally, I would outsource every possible government job to keep the costs competitive...the only problem with that is that public salaries would be halved, healthcare bene's would shrink drastically and retirement bene's would also shrink drastically, AND, employees would be accountable for results (and would be terminated for lack of results)...imagine that, the real world instead of Disneyland paid by the taxpayer! 

[Lord Koos]

School teachers are a tiny percentage of Federal workers, and they make quite a bit less that teachers in the private sector.

Outsourcing government responsibilities has been a financial disaster -- research contractors in Iraq.  

[JustACitizen]

"The private sector takes risks and creates jobs..." Do you mean like Wall St. for example? It seems like they took no risk - they got paid either way (OPM don't ya know) - crashed the economy - and had a direct hand in putting a lot of other people on the dole.

There are way too many cliches and "common knowledge" statements in your post too. Do you think that the private sector is really efficient and accountable? How about when the private sector is on "cost-plus" contracts like:

The arms manufacturers (pick one)

The contractors in Iraq (pick one)

NASA suppliers (pick one)

The contractors in Afghanistan (pick one)

In Chicago - we have tons of private businesses providing services - too bad they are all on the take too. Awarding contracts (outsourcing government functions) is a freakin' circus of bribery and backroom deals - you would like to do more of it? Really? Do you think it would be different in Washington DC?

You have got to be kidding. Can we stick with reality and not talking points.

[Fred Hayek]

Well, come on.  Almost every example you use to rebut the previous poster's lauding of private business as opposed to government is some sort of private business with a symbiotic connection to government.  The problem is still the size and iinfluence of government, isn't it?

[JustACitizen]

If we outsourced government jobs and functions to the private sector - wouldn't they have a symbiotic relationship with government?

I object to lauding one form of human organization over another based upon "well worn cliches". Private business is always better - how do you feel about those bond rating companies?

Was GM or Chrysler not a private business prior to the bailouts? I would say that they had a great many self-inflicted woes - and yet they still needed to be bailed out.

The size and influence of government is a vague cliche in the same manner that private business is always better. Why do supposedly small government folks always want to get involved in other peoples bedrooms?

Why is it that they always want to be protected from something (by the government)? How do you feel about the Patriot Act? I am so proud of the folks that were on the airplane in PA - now those were Americans. When I am feeling down about the stuff I see or read - I think we still have hope because of people like them.

[StychoKiller]

All you've supplied so far, is some d@mn good reasons to CUT THE SIZE OF GOVT!  Read the Constitution and see just what the Govt of the US is responsible for.

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which
granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." - James Madison

"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." - James Madison

[JustACitizen]

Uh huh - now what ever did I post that would make you think that I would like to either:

a) Increase the size of government.

b) Maintain the status quo.

c) Want to pay more taxes - since your quotes seem to be in that vein.

I merely object to the simplistic solutions advocated by people who let others do their thinking for them.

Defense is one of the primary functions as laid down by the founding fathers - how do you think we are doing on that one? How much more money would you like to throw at the Pentagon? Dept. of State? Intelligence Services?

I happen to be a big fan of the function of the FDA. I like to eat food that will not harm or kill me and I know that without oversight - the miracle of the marketplace would produce some casualties - since we have virtually no morality other than the all mighty dollar. Now, since government has been acting as the lackey of industry for at least 10-15 years - I am not a fan of the actual Dept. - but I am sure there are some good and responsible individuals there.

For me - these two examples work. Defense - in the original document - but still a problem. FDA - not in the document - (food manufacturing on today's scale certainly would not have been in their wildest dreams) but very necessary for the common good.

The Constitution was a document written to establish a government for a nation in the 18th century. The authors of the Constitution knew that the structure of that government would need to evolve over time - so they created an amendment process. They did not make it easy to do so - and yet - we as a nation have managed to amend it from time to time - my personal favorite was Prohibition.

[rwe2late]

 Your stats and the grounds for your anti-worker bias are disputed.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/479560/12_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_uprising_in_wisconsin

You should also be informed that 60% of federal civil servants work for the Pentagon, Homeland Security, or the CIA, -  part of the government side of our bloated MIC.

It shoud be no surprise that, at the local levels, police forces have frequently been handsomely rewarded to help keep  the drug-war and prison-industry especially lucrative.

 Demobilising the military-police state constructed by the PTB probably needs to be done first, despite having the greatest potential for backlash.

Also, there is no disagreement that top (politically appointed) government workers have rewarded themselves with exorbitant benefits which should be scrutinized.

But broad generalizations against government workers falsely smears the clerks along with the CIA directors.

The notion that private school teachers teach, but public shool teachers do not teach is absurd. Bankster and war profiteering private CEOs "earn" their money, but public sanitation workers do not? The mistaken assumption seems to be that it is theoretically impossible to collectively pool resources for worthwhile projects through a democratic and open government, but it is possible to do so though a secretive, autocratic, and profit driven corporation.

( I am not an anarchist, as some who post here claim to be. There should be government to regulate water, foods, environment, public parks, public transit,  corporate activities, worker safety, public schools, even some policing and prisons, etc. - but nothing like what is done now.)

[StychoKiller]

Based on what you've written, then why bother to have a private sector at all, why doesn't everyone simply work for the Govt?  Check your premises, because your logic need to fallacious results.

Our work, or their guns:  Choose one, you can no longer have both!

[MachoMan]

Fine, we cut out all that fat AND the lowlie teachers...  not sure what people don't understand about being bankrupt...

[rwe2late]

 Our nation is not bankrupt in the sense of zero income and resources.

 We need to prioritize what we will pay for.

MIC and banksters,

or elderly pensions and public infrastructure.

[MachoMan]

I agree we have income and resources.  The problem is, they've already been pledged to others.  You act as though we can just cut the most obvious fat from the system and then we'll be alright.  If so, this essentially means gutting all entitlements for babyboomers, elderly, etc.  

If you really think that we can keep up with some semblance of our former selves, please enlighten me as to how we account for the extra $80+ trillion in unfunded medicaid, ss, etc. entitlements (welfare, food stamps, unemployment).  I mean, really, I want to know...  your country wants to know...  everyone wants to know...  it is of paramount importance...

[oh, wait...  we already analyzed that scenario and decided to default through devaluation, as best we can, and we'll simply reneg on the rest]. 

[Al Gorerhythm]

Sorry to break your rose colored glasses but if you are living in an underwater, mortgaged McMansion, driving a leased, new Roller and dining on imported Scottish Highland trout and Russian caviar, going on excursions to foreign countries on a $20k income, then the cheques that you write to maintain your opulent lifestyle is beyond your ability to settle. In other words, you're bankrupt.

The picture usually changes when the repo van pulls up outside.

Quick! Hide! Someone's knocking at the door!

[akak]

While there are probably few if any more opposed than I to the whole US military/surveillance/police state complex, and the massive waste of wealth and resources constantly poured into it to "protect" us from boogeymen who overwhelmingly exist only within the twisted minds of sociopathic fearmongers and warmongers, it must be acknowledged that the true drain on our economy and finances is the vastly larger federal so-called "entitlement" programs such as Social (In)Security and Medi(Idon't)care.  Until those red ink elephants in the room are addressed and slain, even the complete gutting of US foreign interventionism and military adventurism would not meaningful stop our financial and economic slide into collective bankruptcy.

[Dyler Turden II Esq]

Entitlement programs are "vastly larger" than the military/"security" complex? No, sorry. Incorrect. Not vastly.  SS+medicare+medicaid is SOMEWHAT bigger than the "defense" budget, narrowly (conventionally) defined. Not vastly.  Using different and very likely more realistic definitions, however, the picture changes markedly, and it seems that the "defense" costs are considerably in excess of entitlements:

http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

[DOT]

Means test the shit out of these horendous boondoggles. If you caddy is not more than 5 yrs. old you get zip.

[Calmyourself]

Yes the Unions have to bear some pain commensurate with what the private sector has endured.  We all made mistakes as a society and we will pay for them collectively.  But, Dammit when do I see bankers taking perp walks, chains, butt fucking prison time..  This pain will not be borne by the middle and working classes exclusively.

[StychoKiller]

Time for a "windfall profits tax" on Wall St and the Banksters -- think Congress/Senators will do anything about it?

[DOT]

Don't read much into the demonstrations in Madison. It has been a revered practice to take to the streets. How many States would allow college students to sleep on the floor of ther Capitol Building ?  I have personally seen people standing on the railings.  The students want to show solidarity with their teachers.  The teachers want to preserve not just the current compensation scheme, but also the political power accumulated over the years of Democrat control of the State. The real irony IMHO is that the status quo is being defended by the unions and their allies. Change is being resisted. A perfect example of classical conservatism.

[StychoKiller]

The students want to show solidarity with their teachers.

If those same students were truly educated, they would understand that these so-called public employees are going to be sucking down the future earnings of these young people, probably for generations!

Think any "teacher" is gonna educate them on the true costs of Socialist/Progressive Govt programs?

To these "Public" employees:  Our work, or your guns (courtesy of Big Brother!) -- choose one, you can no longer have both!

[Fred Hayek]

Students showing "solidarity" with their teachers.  What obsequious little brats.  I know there are a lot of people of scandinavian background in Wisconsin but do the kids have to exhibit the Stockholm syndrome? 

What a pathetic lack of imagination. 

[DOT]

Would the cowards please explain these junks?