Comments

1
Maybe we can be governed by wiki.
2
Well, at least we have a firm number to go by if people ask. 71% of the population ARE morons. Hopefully, the 29% of us who aren't stupid have alternatives to educate our kids, take care of our elders, and protect our homes from hordes of criminals and mentally ill people who can't get treatment while avoiding the potholes in the road and not going to all the parks and arts institutions that will be shut down...Sounds like a fun next couple of years.
3
I have to disagree. Delusional connotes mental illness. I'm going with these people ARE just lazy and stupid.
4
I work at a professional services firm in downtown Seattle. And Monday I heard several of our "educated" staffers say that it was liberal rhetoric that lead to the shootings in Tuscon on Saturday and that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are in no way responsible.

My point? Even in liberal Seattle we have a huge portion of the population who are beyond the level of stupid. So to hear 71% think that our budget woes will go way by getting rid of waste and corruption doesn't shock me in the least. Hell, I'm amazed that number isn't in the 90 percentile.

Americans are just stupid; ask anyone in Western Europe.
5
that percentage works nationwide. Go anywhere in the country and you'll find the majority of people convinced that if we get rid of fraud and abuse, quit paying illegal immigrants, and get rid of welfare, we can balance the federal budget while lowering taxes. It's the narrative, even if it is a fantasy.
6
I would suggest that the people who don't like paying for so many services have never actually lived without them. Unless I don't understand where this 71% is coming from, and they are all self-sufficient farmers who home-school their children, and plow their own driveways, treat their own illnesses, and shoot trespassers on sight (I think I'm actually describing parts of Alberta now...), then these people have never lived in a world with no services, and they've certainly never tried to run a business.

Democrats need talking points that have fewer words, fewer syllables, and some catchy, rhyming phrases.
7
Canuck @6: I think you are just the woman to come up with them. Would you send some along, perhaps on an open Slog thread?

(Just make sure to use American spelling, please, so you don't reveal yourself as a commie pinko Canadian.)
8
You call 70%of the population, then wonder why you lose elections?

Now that is stupid. Maybe if the left starting worrying about working people instead of obsessing about bums, dopers, illegals, baby mamas, gang bangers and folks who are confused what their genitals are for, you might win more elections.

But please, keep calling us stupid, morons, racists, what ever......it only helps bury the loony left in the dustbin of history. Identity politics are all you have as you drive off the cliff.
9
Okay, I am ON IT, emma's bee. I will be mulling pithy phrases as I put away Xmas decorations (Jan 11!) today...
10
Btw I woke up this morning and still no signs that it's like Somalia yet in WA state. Will drive down Rainier Ave later and see how things are doing down there, if we'll need to call the Marines.
11
It's a country where anecdotes rule, where the TV news culture knows that any story about government waste is a sure ratings getter. As a municipal employee (for a department that makes money for the city and supports the general fund) I hear it all the time, and I always challenge it - politely but firmly, of course. I'm not about to have some pompous twit talk down to me about something he knows nothing about.

On the other hand, we are a state where we pay people money to make sure gay bars aren't too gay in their choice of videos, and the ferry system is regularly in the news. Not that either of those things would close the budget gap, but when people see things like that they assume there must be rampant abuse.
12
141

F you!
You work for ME!
I'll talk down to you whenever I feel like it!

(ps- those titties look plastic. please tell me they're real....)
13
It's the "independents". You expect the third on the right to irrationally believe everything about government is bad. But the middle, the people who float around, never really believing anything for sure, to believe this nonsense, well, that's just foolishness on parade.
14
Since when does thinking state workers should no longer get defined pensions but should be moved to 401k's make WA state like Somalia? I didn't see any Technicals driving in Seattle yet.
15
People have been hearing this shit for what, two generations, as gospel and verse? With it's height beginning with Reagan? We all know where the blame for spreading the lie begins.
16
Girls, did we mention that your HomoLiberal Socialist Welfare State is collapsing?

It turns out that if you breed and subsidize and foster and promote dependence and helplessness you get a bumper crop.

It turns out that pot smoking Hipster Saps
who expect the government to subsidize
their mortgage
and higher education
and health care
and caring for grandma
and treat their STDs
and provide day care for their out-of-wedlock bastard spawn while they kill a few years in government funded 'job' training cause that degree in art appreciation didn't lead to any job
and did we mention that
they expect The Rich to pay for it all because they are part of the 50% of Americans who pay ZERO Federal Income Taxes....
anyway,
it turns out that there is a limit to how many of those kind of Liberal Leeches can suck at the bloody asshole of the Real American taxpayer before the whole scam topples in bankrupcy.

somewhere in the near future,
as we Skip Merrily Toward Gommorah,
we will be blowing through that limit.

fasten your seatbelts.....
17
Yeah I would say like 71% of Washington is on meth and meth like drugs.

There is a lot of waste in Washington government, I used to love the (Komo, maybe King) reports from that fat curmudgeonly guy (Ken maybe) and he would have a little pithy speech about waste.
18
You know, you chicken littles have been screaming we're gonna be like Somalia for a decade now. Still no signs of the apocalypse here in Wallingford.
19
Of course, "waste" is all spending that doesn't directly benefit me. And "fraud" is all spending that benefits the poor.
20
I agree with Goldy's premise that there is no way that "waste and fraud" elimination exists to the point that we could solve our budget problems. Absolutely.

However, as someone who closely follows Seattle Public Schools, I can tell you that the district does not run like a well-oiled machine. They don't follow regular business practices that you might expect (the State Auditor says this and just recently so did the COO). They can't even properly bill kindergarten parents to pay for their share of full day kindergarten (admitted by the head of accounting). Because of the audit findings in July, the General Fund has to pay back $2M to the Capital fund. So that put operations that much further back (and yes, we will see teacher layoffs).

I think there's a third category and that is woefully mismanagement. It's not waste. It's not fraud. It's people, who for whatever reason, do not know how to do their jobs well and yes, it costs us money.
21
@20. Agreed. We need to provide a high enough salary for these management positions to attract competent motivated talent and also create an effective oversight body to identify and correct mismanagement when it happens. Of course, this will cost money...
22
@20, you're firmly in the 79%.

You're talking about two million when the state is short SIX BILLION.

Perhaps we need a pie chart to get across to people like you the difference between million and billion. Because you're just not getting it.

It's true; the state does not generally operate at maximum efficiency. But a lot of state operations don't really lend themselves to maximum efficiency; a lot of state operations would just immediately be tossed completely by a private company, and we would all suffer for it.

Schools? A private company would pretty quickly decide that educating people was a mug's game, and reduce the entire high school and university system to thirty hours of typing class. Problem solved!

You're also wrong if you think that there's no waste and fraud in big companies. Ever seen "The Office"?
23
Here, here. Corporate or private efficiency is itself an oxymoron. This is especially when you consider that we've divorced financials from actual performance. (Remember how we've privatized KP duty to contractors that get paid $100k/yr to serve slop to our soldiers or teach English. Is that efficient?)
I am sick of this concept being sold and unquestioned when proffered. Also, the whole worship of the management class thing is really annoying.

24
@7 emma's bee: Okay, here are the possible democratic talking points I've come up with so far:

"Your tax dollars allow your community to function smoothly, like a well-oiled gun."

"Snowplows clear the streets so you can get to Applebee's for all-you-can-eat baby back ribs. If the Republicans take away your services, they take away your baby back ribs, and that's like taking away your freedom!"

"A well funded school lets your kids learn more, so they can get a good paying job, and you can move in with them sooner and live off their wages. Don't let the Republicans take away your right to live with your high-wage earning kids!"

"Democrats support full sex ed in schools, because fewer babies being born mean fewer people using public health care. Don't let the Republicans use your tax dollars to pay for a 15 year old's labor and delivery!"

How's that, emma? Heading in the right direction? Still too many syllables, I think...
25
"Schools? A private company would pretty quickly decide that educating people was a mug's game"

Yes, private schools give really shitty educations. Thanks for the laugh fnarf.
26
@24,
"Your tax dollars allow your community to function smoothly, like a well-oiled gun."
A+ Canuck! That could have come right out of The Onion or The Colbert Report. Nice!
27
""Snowplows clear the streets"

They plow the streets in Seattle?

Just walked to my kids school. Still doesn't look like Somalia here in WA state.
28
@25 yeah, University of Phoenix and Kaplan (much higher enrollment than Princeton) are leading lights of higher education.
29
So guys, when can we start calling Seattle the 'mogidishu of the west'?
30
@28 those are schools for stupid people so what do you expect. Of course, I thought you liberals hated high standards and testing to get into college since they didn't test for ebonics. University of Phoenux would be ideal for one of your Ebonics 'success stories'.
31
@30

Was the irony intended?
32
Thanks, urgutha...am now pondering a career change...
34
I guess i'm a moron because i'm in favor of personal responsibility. I strongly believe that if you provide hand-outs you won't have a shortage of people with their hand's out. Hunger is a great motivator and if you never have to worry about where your next meal is coming from you tend to be a little more apathetic about providing for yourself. I have been a homeless, crack-addicted degenerate, but i never took government handouts due to an abundance of pride, but i was a rarity among my peers. It may be hard for some of you to believe but there are people out there that have babies to stay on welfare, people who don't look for better jobs because they don't want to lose their benefits etc. I'm not saying we should cut all social programs, but a little trimming of the fat won't hurt. People with legitimate disabilities (physical or mental) should get help, but subsidizing laziness and complacency isn't helping anybody.
35
@33, private schools are better than public schools because rich white people took their rich white kids out of the public schools, leaving behind the ones who are more difficult to educate. If private schools were made illegal, as they should be, the public schools would get a lot better.
36
@31 I'm pretty sure iPhone keypads don't do irony.

Just going to the coffee shop. Still no sign of marauding gangs of Somalis in Technicals. I guess we have a ways to being Mogadishu on the Sound?
37
Really? My private school had lots of minority scholarship kids. You should check out the Bush School, a huge endowment for poor kids who make the grade.

And when you abolish private schools will you then bring back busing? And you wonder why the far left can't win anything above Mayor of Seattle?
38
I'm thinking one of the things we need to do is to start by taking April back. We need to counter-protest the anti-tax rallies with "I enjoy many governmental services" marches. Throw a "Your taxes aren't even due today because it's Emancipation day!" rally on April 15th. If that doesn't get statewide news coverage we can roll into Eastern Washington and close down a state highway with a "OUR taxes paid for this" march.

Simply put, taxes have been demonized in America for decades and we're going to need to start celebrating them if we want to wrestle the narrative away from the "I've got mine" crowd.
39
@34 but don't you realize a 10% cut will make us like Somalia? It's gotta be true, I read it in Slog all the time.
40
"We need to counter-protest the anti-tax rallies with "I enjoy many governmental services" march"

How hard would it be to organize that many fuck ups?
41
#34:

Move back where you came from.
42
Very impressive, Canuck! According to Word, a Flesch reading ease score of 67.7 and grade level of 8.4. Getting very close to the target audience...
43
We should defiantly abolish public schools because if there is one thing that's great for a service it's got to be absolute government control. It's amazing that private schools succeed at all since the government does such a fantastic job of running their institutions. I mean UPS and FedEx didn't stand a chance competing with the Post Office even though they were subsidized by taxpayers and consistently lost money. It's also a good thing that private industry never took over the phone system. I mean there is no way they could reliably provide coverage to a population the size of America. Man private industry never does anything right.
44
@33,
Private schools can choose who they want to enroll, public schools can't.

If public schools didn't exist, then there would be a large number of private schools that function essentially as Fnarf described... teaching sewing or typing or french fry preparation all day, every day, to students in the most disadvantaged groups.
45
That was (obviously) supposed to read definitely not defiantly
46
@37, minority scholarship kids are not the expensive ones I was talking about. How many Special Ed kids you got? How many disruptive at-risk kids from broken homes?

The Bush School is terrific, sure. It's designed to be terrific. Its whole model is one of taking our good kids away and turning our backs on the problems that exist in the real world. It's simply not a sustainable model for educating the entire spectrum of the citizenry.

@34, you're confused. Very little state spending goes to "subsidizing laziness and complacency". Sorting out the "fat" from the lean in social spending is extraordinarily difficult; social services simply do not lend themselves to "efficiency" or easy solutions. And there's just not that much there to cut without really hurting people who need help. Your attitude is a common one but it just doesn't reflect reality.
47
@41 - What a well-crafted intelligent argument.
48
flounder @34,

Yours is mostly an argument over the proper size and scope of government (although you vastly overestimate the cost social welfare programs). I disagree with you on this, but it's a legitimate debate to be had.

But what is lazy and stupid is the notion that "waste and fraud" amounts to a significant portion of our budget woes, as opposed to spending and revenue policies and priorities.
49
@45 This wasn't necessary as the content of your argument was enough.
50
@46 - I don't think i am confused. The state spends 25 billion on human services alone. That is more than they spend on public schools, transportation and natural resources combined and is by far the largest state expenditure.
51
Why is it that right wingers swear that government can do no right, but the police and the military can do no wrong? I'm confused.
52
@50: Bullshit. Not only are your numbers wrong, they are misleading as well, because the federal government pays for about half of the human services (through Medicaid). Plus, "human services" includes prisons.
53
@50 Um... ~$33bn > ~$25bn.
54
Private schools aren't always the superior school. My sister went to Catholic school and can't spell cat. My parents took a look at her and decided I would be going to public school. And to this day, the Catholic school kids in my hometown have to go to the public school for advanced classes.

But of course Iowa actually funds their public schools.

55
@34:

I don't hear anyone here denigrating the concept of personal responsibility, but that term does not in-and-of-itself define the function of providing government services.

Is there waste, inefficiency, and even fraud in public services? Undoubtedly. But, as others have pointed out, no more or less than would be found in the private sector. When any corporate or bureaucratic structure reaches a certain size, there's a trade-off between efficiencies-of-scale (more services provided to more people for less cost per-person), and inevitable inefficiencies that arise because things have to flow through so many hands, departments, what-have-you. As a general rule, however, the public sector does a pretty darned good job at providing value for investment.

There's always room to squeeze out a little more efficiency, a little lest waste out of the system, but as Fnarf quite correctly points out, our current budget crisis simply cannot be solved by making a few correctional tweaks; it's a systemic problem brought about by the fact that our regressive tax structure ties the government's revenue stream directly to consumer behavior. If consumers can't (or won't) spend money on things that generate sales tax, they're not injecting into the system the amount of revenue necessary to provide the services the public expects (and which, apparently, many believe comes directly out of the shiny, sparkly asses of flying unicorns), and therefore those services must be cut, regardless of the level of need or desire.

And let's face it: a big chunk of that 71% would be just as happy living in squalor in tar paper shacks sans electricity, gas or indoor plumbing, accessible only on rutted dirt roads, if ONLY the big, bad gubbamint would leave them to their own initiative. I think many honestly believe they could actually cut it living a Nineteenth Century rural agrarian lifestyle, even though, if given the chance, I doubt even half would survive their first winter under such conditions, since that's about the mortality rate experienced by pioneer settlers at the time.

But you know, better to die cold, starving and disease-ridden in complete, unfettered FREEDOMZ!!!! than to live a single day under the oppressive yoke of a gubbamint that does NOTHING, but provide roads, sewers, electricity, water, sanitation, mental and physical health services, criminal justice, education, law enforcement - (insert Monty Python's "What have the Romans ever done for US?" scene here)...
56
@34: for the sake of argument, let's buy your anecdotal babies-born-to-stay-on-welfare theory. once those kids are born to their lazy, underserving, grifter parents, do you think the state should assure that they have a place to live and food to eat? for how long? or do we visit the sins of the parent upon the child, the way jesus told us to (this is sarcasm)?

and, please, share your definition of trimmable fat, especially in light of the cuts to TANF, etc., that Gregoire is proposing.
57
Flounder @50,

Yes, you're confused.

http://www.ofm.wa.gov/trends/budget/fig4…
58
They should cut all the waste and fraud in Eastern Washington.

There, fixed it for you.
59
@41 yeah, go back to Somalia or Idaho or where ever you came from!

@55 you're so right, a 10% cut this year and it's Somalia for us! Why just this morning I noticed some uncollected dog shit on the sidewalk; my first thought was, "now I know what life is like in Mogadishu'.
60
But I kind of like "defiantly," gets your point across well, flounder! While I'm sure there are people who take advantage of the system (your earlier comment), it seems to me that the people who are most hurt by budget cuts are those can least afford it: children (their schools, their school lunch programs, etc.), mental health patients, free or low cost clinics offering pre-natal care. If you wanted to trim the budget via those people who are taking advantage of the system (able-bodied people on welfare) I would think that, initially at least, you'd have to spend more money to actually follow up on those cases.

Schools, ah, a conundrum...my parents were both of Fnarf's mindset, that if you take all the more affluent (we were not, but still) kids out of public school, public schools will go steadily downhill. As such, I was one of the kids who went to public school during the bussing experiment of the early 70s in Massachusetts. Best of intentions, I'm sure, but school became a very different place, I got beat up about twice a week, and spent what was then called English class teaching other kids to spell. I did end up in private school for high school, and I'm pretty sure I would have flunked out of college if I hadn't done that. In public high school (where I started) I was getting straight As for handing in papers, when I got to private school, the marks dropped to Cs, and I actually learned how to write (sort of!). Yet here in Canada, where there are far fewer private schools, the public schools are really good, for the most part. I'm completely confident that my kids got/are getting a very good education there.

Interestingly, if I recall correctly, the original public schools taught subjects like Latin and arts (like the Boston Latin School) and parents who refused to send their kids to school saw their kids marched to school by the local militia. I think private schools in New England began as trade schools, essentially, where the children of the wealthy were taught practical things, like how to run their fathers' companies. (Fnarf will jump in here if I'm remembering wrong...I hope...)

PS emma's bee: I'll try to bring it down a grade level or two... ;)
61
Will, you know 55% of King County voted against 1098? I mean if you can't even get a majority in any county to vote for 1098 and against 1053, you realize you lost, right?
62
Very very good work here today, Canuck. Kudos to youdos.
63
Yeah, lost 2010. Btw, the Somalia thing was close to funny for a second and is now old. It takes a long time for Randian libertarian moronicism to subvert the system on which we are coasting; no one is claiming we have reached Somalia level lawlessness.
65
gus, the lengths to which I will go to avoid doing housework simply defy imagination...but thank youdos! And good morning...
67
@64,
Your question isn't black or white though. "Irresponsible" is a subjective term. One of the differences between conservative and liberal is where the bar is set at who does/does not cross the "irresponsible" line.

Conservatives are more likely to label people as irresponsible and liberals are not. Some cases are obvious to both... purposefully cheating on your taxes is obviously irresponsible, collecting disability if you were paralyzed from an accident on the job is obviously responsible... but those cases are few, they're the edges of the bell curve. The VAST majority aren't so clearly identifiable.

I feel it's better to spend a little extra to ensure that nobody gets left behind, rather than pinching the pennies and allowing some people who genuinely need help to suffer.
68
@ 52 53 57 et al - Ok so maybe i just eyeballed the figures and i should have wrote that human services (25.2 billion) is more than they spend on public schools (16.8 billion) and transportation (7.0 billio) combined and not thrown in the 3 billion for natural resources.

Should that make it any less irritating for me as a taxpayer to see the enormous amounts of money thrown at social programs that are by pretty much every account inefficient and frequently wasteful?

I guess it's easier to nitpick a detail than argue the substance of an argument though.
70
""Shit, we as a group need to take care of that person. That shit is not his/her fault"

That's what the march of dimes is for.
71
@ 55 I think your assertion that government has no more waste than private industry is probably not grounded in reality since private industry’s primary interest is the bottom line. Industry is extremely focused on reducing waste because salaries, bonuses and stockholder dividends and profits are all at stake. Whereas with the government excessive spending unnecessary positions and salaries benefit those same agencies so they have little motivation to trim their own fat.

I agree that we have one of the most recessive tax structures out there and it would be nice to have an income tax, but that isn’t going to happen any time soon. The voters don’t want it so we need to focus on the problem that exists and stop hoping for an income tax to come and sweep away all of our troubles.

Yes the government does provide some services and some necessary ones but sewers, electricity, water, sanitation aren’t among those since we pay for those services and if the government would suddenly refuse to provide those services there are a multitude of companies that would be more than happy to get into that business. Why? Because there is money to be made.
72
@60 I think those people that are abusing the system foster more abuse. You learn how to act from where you are born and raised and if you were raised by a single mother that has 8 kids because she didn’t want to lose her benefits you are far more likely to repeat those same behaviors. I say cut the gravy train and let those same kids see what hard work it is to try and support a bunch of mouths working as a waitress and a housekeeper and we will end up with less people becoming parents that aren’t financially capable. Is it cruel? Maybe but one cycle of cruelness would end a never ending cycle of abuse. My grandmother canned fruits and vegetables and sewed her own clothes all her life because of growing up during the depression. It’s the same thinking if you learn early on that your next meal isn’t guaranteed you take a lot more personal responsibility when it comes to feeding and clothing yourself. If you see that all you have to do is crap out some kids or “slip and fall” on the job to get your next meal people will take the path of least resistance. It’s just human nature.
73
@71:

Given the numerous documented cases of waste, fraud and inefficiencies cited recently in the banking, automotive, health insurance and financial services industries, I stand by my original assertion.

And of course there's money to be made in privatizing government services, but the track record also clearly indicates that, once privatized, people end up paying more and generally getting less, because, as you state, profit then becomes the paramount driver, and not providing the service; that just becomes the means to the end and not the end itself.
74
Clearly it's the surplus population that's the problem here - we should find a way to decrease it as soon as possible...
75
@69,
Those two examples are still pretty easy.

Where should the line be drawn at, say, a person collecting unemployment who applies for every available job except out-of-state jobs? Is that irresponsible? Out-of-country jobs?

How about a public school with low achievement scores because almost all the kids have part-time jobs to help support their family? Are that irresponsible?

How about a single mother who has just one kid from a mistake in her youth, but now can't find work because her education and financial situation are poor due to the necessity of raising the kid? Should she be labeled as "irresponsible" for the rest of her life (which will affect not only her, but her kid, and any future generations too)?

It would be better to have more oversight and examine social service cases on a more individual basis... but that costs money, money conservatives don't want to "waste," which then ends up with a gutted system that they complain "wastes" whatever pittances they see fit to fund it with. Conservatives love to defund programs, and then complain that those programs aren't doing their jobs. Well, no shit.

It irritates me to no end.
76
The real delusion on the part of all is that Washingtonians can demand premium Government services (state of the art transit, health care, social services and special education) and not have the corresponding Property Taxes to pay for them.

WA State demands the Government services of an east coast state like New York or Massachusetts, but has per household property taxes that are something like 25 percent of those states!

So, everytime some needed service or project comes up, the whole legislature goes into a tizzy about income taxes, sales taxes, tolls or fees -- all of which are regressive and unfair to the productive people.

(Note that Bill Gates' "Tax on the Rich" included a hefty property tax cut for himself.)

Because of Prop 13 like restrictions, Long Timers in WA State do not pay the same property taxes as newcomers.

And yet you ask why doesn't this get mentioned? Because WA Politics is all about Insiders and Outsiders...not Right or Left. The Insiders are the people who are sitting on multimillion dollar farms and buildings are that are taxed very little. The Outsiders are the typical homeowners who moved here in the last few years that are taxed through the nose.

No politician represents the the outsiders. No politician has the guts to call for fairness in property tax. No politician has the balls to ask for paying what we spend and paying for it equitable.

Therein lies the problem.
77
@73 And how did all that waste and inefficacy work out for WaMu, Lehman, GM, Chrysler, AIG, Fannie, Freddie et al?

Companies can fail but the government won't. They just ask for more money from taxpayers to support their inefficiencies.

Level of service is dictated by the consumer not by service provider. It is the responsibility of the consumer to get the most service for the least amount of money. Don't like AT&T go to Verizon, don't like Waste Management go to BMI. Force the level of service you want by taking your business elsewhere.
78
The far left has been claiming if we give me them more money for 'government services' they'll save us money down the road. And yet, year after year, as WA state's budget ballooned we never saw the savings for bailing out irresponsible people.

Well, the gig is up. 2/3 of the state agrees. Wanna fund a baby mama's lifestyle, set up a charity.
79
@77,

"Level of service is dictated by the consumer not by service provider."

Yeah, this works in the happy land of supposed free market consumerism, a fantastical system which we don't have at all, never have had and hopefully never will. Those businesses will tell you to suck on it if you ask them for more services. The cell providers have jacked up the prices for a service that's basically the same as a landline. Same with cable where I have less choice. If there's a way to dupe people, the monopolies that control the market will find a way to make you buy it. So what's your solution to that one? Withdraw from the market completely, I am sure. These institutions are just as bad or worse than government because they simply have no accountability. You may say we have a contract, but the consumer can rarely, if ever, dictate the terms of that contract and the industry has bought off those who regulate on behalf of those consumers.

The scale of fraud on the part of welfare queens, etc is insignificant next to the trillion dollar theft of those titans of industry and experts at pulling-oneself-up-by-one's-bootstraps. They're intrepid individualists who didn't need the government or the people at all.
80
Jacked up cell phone service? Really? My bill is less than in 2006 and yet I can do tons more stuff with my iphone. What do you think government run telecom would be like? Having grown up in Europe I can give you some splendid examples for the 70s that would thrill a naive fool like you.
81
@72 Oh for fucks sake!

I swear I come closer to losing my lunch each time I see one of these god-damned privileged white guys wax poetic about their Horatio Alger tales of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps from their hardscrabble middle class backgrounds through hard work and determination all way into the wealth and relative ease of approximately the same station, utilizing only pluck, grit and magically avoiding the taint of governmental assistance, including tax breaks, police, fire services, public schools, parks and recreation programs, roads, education and housing grants, GI services, food subsidies, price controls or safety programs, state hospital programs, rural outreach, public libraries, or any of that ilk.

It is amazing how many people have mangled Kennedy's admonition and challenge to the point that don't consider what their country has done for them and only look to see how they can minimize what they do in return.
82
@77,
Have you never worked in a private sector job? There's just as much waste, fraud, and inefficiency there as in gov't work. Some companies run a tight ship, others don't. Some gov't agencies run a tight ship, others don't. Your blanket statement that all private business is superior to all gov't business is simple-minded hyperbole.

Some companies succeed, some fail. Your statement "Government won't fail," doesn't even make sense. Our government isn't competing with rival governments to win us as consumers. Government can't "fail" in that sense. Some gov't agencies disappear (INS and OGC, for example) as their duties are absorbed by others. Government is trimming itself all the time, because it has to, because voters like you pinch every last penny out of it. Show me a private corporation that is just as transparent, just as lean-running, and just as vulnerable to being completely destroyed at any moment by average Joe Nobodies voting it out of existence.
83
flounder @68,

Where are you getting your numbers? Provide a link.
84
"Those businesses will tell you to suck on it if you ask them for more services"

Do you have cable? If so call them up and tell them you are leaving for sattelite and watch how fast your bill drops by 30%. Have Verizon? Call and tell them you are going to Sprint see if you don't get a brand new phone of your choosing or a substantial amount off your monthly fee or both. Just because your too lazy to shop around for better prices doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Oh and private monopolies are illegal in this country.

It's not theft if you volunteer to pay it. Don't like having a cell phone bill..get rid of your cell phone. Don't like paying property taxes...rent a room. Don't like paying 18% for credit...pay with cash. Too stupid to read your contract and end up getting gouged...Take some personal responsibility and get a dictionary (free at the library) and learn what the words adjustable rate and mortgage mean. Or just whine about how big business only wants your money and doesn't have your best interests at heart...i guess
85
@72: at what age are you proposing to cut them off so they learn? 18? 10? 6? 1? birth?

all the available jobs for children sewing soccer balls are taken by Pakistani 3 year olds already.

http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/images/n…
86
@80 Congratulations on your bill being less than in 2006, you solipsist fuck. Also, I was talking about voice, not data. Learn how to read asshole. But, just googling, let's find some info. Ok. Data and voice: Canada and US are still way higher than those very few European companies in that survey. I also never suggested we have government run telecom, did I?Suggesting black and white alternatives--great, who's being naive?
Maybe some real regulation would be nice though, as opposed to the crony capitalism we have now.
87
Fnarf @46, My special ed daughter (white, 8yo, aspergers) daughter was getting mangled & ground in the Spokane public school she attended. No amount of talking w/ administration & teachers about the problems we were experiencing helped. They stonewalled all requests for an IEP and any suggestions for adjustments short of a self-contained behavioral intervention classroom. She hated school and was losing hair from the stress.

We pulled her from public and put her in a private school. We're paying 10% of our gross income after the financial aid package she received to have her in that school. She now likes school again and is a much happier, easier-to-deal with, less-stressed kid. Her private school doesn't specialize in autism spectrum (or any other) disorders...what it does do is deal with kids individually, and well, without all the CYA BS that pervades public school.

The biggest practical difference in how her private school deals with her vs. how her public school dealt with her? In her private school, her teachers can hug her; they give her enough rein to come around on her own rather than trying to force compliance during transitions (same amount of time passes--much happier result); if she does start to have trouble with something, they deal with it before it rises to a level of needing a trip to the office. Her public school would not--or could not--implement any of these strategies.

I am vociferously in favor of publicly funded education. I also firmly believe our schools are effectively broken. Too much time and too many resources are devoted to circling the wagons and dog-and-pony shows. Education funding does not reach the classroom (follow the money to the central administration buildings and their ever-increasing bloat). Teachers have been hamstrung into technicians courtesy of administrators trying to justify their own existence and the rise in power of standardized testing. Math curricula on both sides of the Cascades are royally messed up--all reform, no algorithm. Kids are lucky if they get instruction in grammar.

I believe most peer-reviewed education research in the last 10-20 years supports smaller class sizes and smaller schools as being the biggest (publicly controllable) indicator of an increase in student achievement/performance. Buildings are expensive, but so are ever-increasing administration staff levels.

Public schools are not a panacea for special ed (or 'different') kids.
88
@81 “god-damned privileged white guys” Ad-hominem attacks really? Fallacious ones at that even. I guess maybe I’m not as anit-mertitocracy as you, but I do tend to think you get what you earn in this country and I have what I have because I went out and got it. I didn’t have any body to pay for my education or meals. I had to work shit jobs and go to community college which is probably why I didn’t get the Horacio reference because I was too busy sweating over a hot grill to try to make something of myself. And so yes it irritates me to no end to have to subsidize the laziness of people who are more willing to live in shit than shovel some.
89
@84, are you 12? Do you understand the difference between what's illegal and prosecutorial discretion? Also, if there was ever a big Sherman case, I am sure you would be protesting it with your Objectivist/Tea Party friends like little good worker bees.
90
@82 – I’ve only worked private sector jobs. I have had many a micro-managing boss standing over my shoulder to make sure that no food, electricity, paper or time be wasted. Also I think you may want to try to read a little more closely and not project onto what I said. At no time did I say that ALL private business is superior to government. I was pointing out that private industry has a built in mechanism that is inherently intolerant of waste and that is the bottom-line.

My comparison between companies and government was just that. I wasn’t comparing governments to governments. I was comparing private business to governments and if you are failing to comprehend that it is not surprising that you can’t grasp the fact failure is option reserved only for companies.

Examples of companies that are being destroyed at a moments notice? Um every company that has ever existed or will ever exist. That’s the way it works. If you fail to provide value you fail. Ask the 47% of the staff at Myspace that just got laid off. Oh and businesses are extremely transparent if you want to take a look at their finances go read their quarterly financials they are readily available and free.
91
@85 My suggestion is to cut off the capable but unwilling adults. Children need to be looked after.
92
@89 I do. There was - US v MS. I wasn't. I'm also not a republican or a teapartier or sympathetic to either. I am however firmly against subsidizing laziness.
93
One of the things private industry will NEVER do as well as a collective structure (i.e., government) is build infrastructure. Yes, maybe you can find a private sanitation company that will handle your household sewage. But good luck to you if you live in an out of the way area and there are no sewage lines running to your house. Rural electrification. The National Highway System. None of those things would have happened with private industry, because it would not have been cost-effective to run power to every house, to build a highway that runs through the lonely wilds of Wyoming.

And I am puzzled by those who are freaked that the state spends money on human services. Really? So we should let old people die of hunger and cold, unvisited by health aides? A child born to a drug-addicted mother should just die already, rather than receiving health care? A person too mentally ill to work should just starve already? Parents with a Down Syndrome child should shoulder the entire burden of rearing and educating that child without assistance?

Libertarianism of that sort is sociopathy.
95
@93 I agree that we should take care of those that are unable to take care of themselves. I have never said anything other than that and i can't imagine anybody making an argument contrary to that. My problem is with the able but unwilling.
96
Flounder,

Nothing you wrote @90 indicates you disagree that government is just as efficient/inefficient as private industry, am I to assume that's what you believe?

@91 "My suggestion is to cut off the capable but unwilling adults."
@92 "I am however firmly against subsidizing laziness. "

Determined how? By who? If you want oversight, you have to pay for it. I'm guessing you'd prefer a private company be hired to check out cases of "capable but unwilling" right? And let them decide who is lazy and who isn't? Any private companies we could trust with that level of responsibility?
97
I'm one of the great proponents of reducing government waste and inefficiency, but even *I* know you can't cut $5 billion in costs just from that. The State needs a lot more help than simple streamlining of the status quo.

Since our economy's about to crap the bed anyway, how about eliminating all those tax breaks to WA big business and the rich? That, not the Governor's alleged cuts, would be "bold".
98
flounder @94,

Well, okay. I've always felt that to be pretty crappy document. It claims to be a "Citizen's Guide" yet is fairly incomprehensible to most people, while also lacking specificity.

Scroll down a bit and look at the General Fund... those are the numbers that matter, as those are the state tax dollars being spent. About half of the "Human Services" dollars in the Operating Budget that you were citing are actually federal matching dollars over which state has little control. Furthermore, "Human Services" is a broad umbrella term that includes things like corrections.

Anyway, K-12 accounts for about 43% of the General Fund, and Higher Ed another 10%.
99
@ 96 it should be apparent by the following statement from 90 that i think that public is inherently more prone to waste:

"I was pointing out that private industry has a built in mechanism that is inherently intolerant of waste and that is the bottom-line."

The people that should make the decisions are doctors. If a doctor declares that you have a condition that prevents you from adequatly taking care of yourself you are in. If a doctor won't declare that you are unfit then you get your ass out there and find a job.

100
@84:

"Private monopolies are illegal in this country"

Tell that to Major League Baseball.

And see the problem is: who decides what constitutes "unable" versus "unwilling"? It used to be the norm that, if a mentally-disabled person couldn't earn a living, that is do some sort of menial-level work that would at least make a modest contribution toward their care and upkeep, they were institutionalized. Over decades that bar has been lowered considerably to the point that today, many individuals who simply cannot function adequately in normal society are put out onto the streets, often with very little in the way of any sort of safety net; and of course our current budget crisis only exacerbates this problem as fewer social workers (already overloaded far beyond their ability to provide even minimum levels of service) are saddled with even more cases they simply cannot handle. The net becomes a sieve and people, often the most severely disturbed and most in need of service, simply fall through because we've stretched the resources too far and too thin do do ANYONE, including the general public, any good whatsoever.

The result is that, every once in a while one of these individuals goes completely off the deep-end, commits some act of egregious violence, at which point everybody complains that "something should have been done about this!" But, what is to be done? If we're going to keep moving the goal lines every time some mass of Libertarian/Fiscal Conservatives decide paying for ANY level of social services, for example, is a "waste", because a relative handful have learned how to game the system to their own advantage, then this is what we're stuck with: everybody playing the Lottery, and hoping they're not the one standing innocently on the street corner or in the shopping center parking lot when some paranoid-schizophrenic decides to have-at with an axe or a semi.

Personally, I would prefer to pay a little something to make sure these individuals are provided with an adequate, not just a minimal, level of service, in order to minimize the risk both to myself and to the people I care about. If there's a little waste involved as a result, well, I can live with that. And again, we're NOT talking about rampant, systemic abuse; the amount of waste is negligible, particularly when compared to the larger good providing these kinds of services to the community represents.

But then, I'm more of a "Hey, we're all in this together!" kind of guy, rather than the "Every man for himself" type...
101
It hurts with every fibre of my being to admit this, but Goldy is right. The man who has never been right (no pun intended) about a political view in his life is correct. Having said that, I need to go wash my mouth out with some Ivory.

At least about the facts, waste fraud and abuse being curtailed would come nowhere close to closing the budget shortfall in Washington State, Goldy is right. The tone is typical left wing elitism, but that's another story.

Either more revenue needs taken in to State coffers, or services will need drastically cut, or more likely both if the shortfall is to be made up.

And this means that real leaders, politicians who want to use their respective offices for the long term betterment of Washington State at whatever cost to their political careers (sorry, I just had to pause for a bout of uncontrollable laughter) need to start a dialogue with the folks they represent about how to raise revenue, and which services are expendable. They need to honestly state the effects demands people place have on the expenditure side of government. Folks who respond to any tax rise with red faced anger need to consider the effects of not increasing revenue.

But I'm not holding my breath. Courage and pollitics don't go together.
102
@98 i understand that there are federal matching dollars at play there but to me it matters little since the federal dollars also comes from taxes. It is the amount of public money that is being spent on social programs that I find offensive. Especially when I see able-bodied people buying $6 boxes of cereal at 7-11 with food stamps.

I also get that corrections is placed under that umbrella which is maybe a bit of unfortunate accounting. I also believe corrections is one area that should not be privatized (any more than it already has) because when there is money to be made by putting people in prison there will undoubtedly be people deprived of freedom unjustly.
103
@96 Flounder, the capable but unwilling were cut off in the mid-90s when Bill Clinton overhauled welfare. The state's enrollment fell by over 50% and has a five-year time limit. No more "welfare queens." No more "generational welfare." Find another target.

The Governor proposed eliminating Disability Lifeline for people who are unemployable but haven't qualified for Social security Disability. Half have a mental illness and all will lose their medications March 1st.. It will take only months for many to decompensate, lose their subsidized housing because of behavioral problems and by summer they'll be sleeping outside or in the jail.

The real solution is to share the pain by raising revenue from corporations who aren't suffering. Eliminate the tax break for the Wall Street banks that was given to WaMu. That's waste. The Wall Street banks aren't creating any jobs here with their tight credit policies and fraudulent foreclosures. Take back the tax break for Canadian TransAlta, the biggest polluter in our state, who owns the coal-fired power generator in Centralia. The tax break was for the coal mine that closed seven years ago. That's abuse. Take back the tax break for plastic surgery so we can restore prescription drugs and dental services for the poor. That's waste. There is more that $6 billion in unmerited, nonproductive tax breaks on the books, more than enough to fill a $4.8 billion deficit.

Yes, it will take a referendum to the people in November. Yes, we can.
104
@100 – Ok you got me…There is one exception to the anti-trust law for baseball because of its being declared “the national pastime”.

I also don’t think I could agree with you anymore about social programs being stretched so thin that people that actually need help don’t get it and do heinous things like attack people on the streets with hatchets, crawl through windows in South Park, shoot cops at coffee shops and the like. These paranoid schizophrenics really need help that they aren’t getting while there are women out there getting pregnant so they don’t have to get a job, guys having on-the-job “accidents” so they can collect from L&I, and able-bodied adults not even bothering to look for a job since their unemployment benefits just got extended another six months - and that is really the biggest insult to the people that are slipping through the cracks.

    Please wait...

    Comments are closed.

    Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


    Add a comment
    Preview

    By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.