Public Employee Unions, Greece here we come!

[sgreger1]

Now as always there are exceptions: (which is probably responsible for this crap in the first place...ahh, If I were king of the world. Ha!)
I think that if you were a US Soldier, CIA & FBI (honorable), Police officer, Fireman, or President/VP of the United States then you should be taken care of for the rest of your life providing you served in this capacity honorably and with a proper vesting period. Other than that, performance rules IMO.

Even in the army it is (well sort of) performance rules. Crappy soldiers do not gain rank quickly. They will eventually if they stay long enough but there are plenty of people that retire after 20 years as an E-6 (Staff Sgt), yet people like my brother who are shit hot at their job get to E-7 in less than 9 years like he did. If you are an asset, you will gain rank quickly. I got in trouble when I first got to my unit and lost all my rank, back to e-1, not even a rank on my chest but just the fuzzy velcro where rank WOULD go if one had some. After I served my punishment I made myself the best in my team and was promptly given a waiver to skip 2 ranks to E-3. So even in the military it is somewhat performance based (you mess up they take your pay and demote you, you do good you get a raise immediately), and I imagine a similar system is in place with police or anyone with a rank structure.

[WickedKitchen]

They also fight for a greater portion of public funds. Lets use school teachers as an example. They try to get as much funding for public education as possible. They're looking out for the workers, but that in turn helps the schools, and the children. Without a strong organization, the teachers would get walked on, and more money would be funneled to the politician's pet projects. I'm surprised you, of all people trust the government to do the right thing.

This takes into account that the schools are actually spending the money appropriately. I can confidently state that there is ridiculous spending in the public school system that doesn't go to teachers and though it might help some kids the help is far from proportional to the amount spent. I think that's because the money keeps coming in and if someone can come up with a good argument as to why we should spend it then it gets spent.

I think things would work themselves out, at least in theory. You'd initially get a dumb population (some would argue we're already there) but in the long run I think national pride would right it. Currently it would be a disaster, if not an impossible situation to rectify this way. We've got to utilize our teachers to change the mentality of the kids when they're young. I know many teachers who try to do this and are frustrated when the kids go home and fall right back into the mentality that their parents have. Human nature. Our mentality as a nation needs to change for us to prosper again. Thankfully there are people that have the right mentality but they are currently being overrun by the rest.

[lxskllr]

This takes into account that the schools are actually spending the money appropriately. I can confidently state that there is ridiculous spending in the public school system that doesn't go to teachers and though it might help some kids the help is far from proportional to the amount spent. I think that's because the money keeps coming in and if someone can come up with a good argument as to why we should spend it then it gets spent.

You have to remember that every governmental organization has to spend money, or lose out forever. If you have a $1,000,000 budget, you have to spend $1,000,000, or you'll lose out the next year. If people acted in good faith it could go into a slush fund for use as necessary. If you only need $750,000, the other $250,000 goes into the fund, and you still get your $1,000,000 the next year. If you have several surpluses like that, you can buy some nice things when it's accumulated, all without raising taxes. That's better than squandering it out of fear of underfunding in successive years. All that relies on people doing the right thing, and I think we all know what I think of people by now :^D I don't know how to change that, but that's the way it should work.

[sgreger1]

You have to remember that every governmental organization has to spend money, or lose out forever. If you have a $1,000,000 budget, you have to spend $1,000,000, or you'll lose out the next year. If people acted in good faith it could go into a slush fund for use as necessary. If you only need $750,000, the other $250,000 goes into the fund, and you still get your $1,000,000 the next year. If you have several surpluses like that, you can buy some nice things when it's accumulated, all without raising taxes. That's better than squandering it out of fear of underfunding in successive years. All that relies on people doing the right thing, and I think we all know what I think of people by now :^D I don't know how to change that, but that's the way it should work.

And hence there lies the true problem. Government is a race to see who can spend the most money. Corporations care about improving their bottom line year after year (money they make) and gov entities only care about inmproving their budget next year (money they take from taxpayer). This is why I am opposed to expansion of government and unionization in the public sector.

[Jwalker]

Public sector unions have the ability to exert more pressure. No one wants a police or firefighter strike so it's not allowed. It used to be coal miner couldn't strike because the country would shut down now it's not an issue because they're not as vital and not unionized. I live in bellevue and the teachers were on strike for three weeks so we didn't have school. When the strike was over they had to fire teachers and cut programs. Mukilteo had a strike for 4 months of school and the test scores which weren't great went down like 30 percent just crazy.

[truthwolf1]

I worked as a Jesus Framer for a couple of years and can say the construction unions grossly inflate salaries.

[sgreger1]

I worked as a Jesus Framer for a couple of years and can say the construction unions grossly inflate salaries.

A Jesus framer? There has to be a jew joke in there somewhere....

[truthwolf1]

A carpenter.