He's pushing the guy down into the water! Not a tour guide I want to meet!“Gullible” doesn’t appear in a standard dictionary. Go ahead, look it up.
Hello, my name is Craig and I’m a slacker.
I did my bike ride this afternoon but I did not go to the pool.
On the official govt. site for tracking the stimulus funds you’ll learn that:
Oops.
The govt. site also lists several other Arizona districts that don’t exist, including number 00 and the 86th district, which got $34 million.
Not to worry, Arizona isn’t the only state so blessed. Oklahoma got $19 million for non-existent districts and Iowa comes in at $10.6 milion - and 39 jobs saved - for districts that don’t exist.
But wait! There’s more!
The 1st Congressional district of The Virgin Islands (did you know they’re a state?) got $68.3 million, and 40.3 (yep, .3) jobs were saved in The Virgin Island’s 99th congressional district at a cost of $8.4 million
Connecticut must be doing something wrong because, although they created 25 jobs in the imaginary 42nd district, they didn’t get any stimulus money.
Yes, somebody asked the govt. about these and other apparent problems.
Ed Pound is the Director for the Recovery Board. He explained that they just post the information the states send them and that, “Some recipients clearly don’t know what district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number.”
OK, that’s one possibility - that the people who live and work in local government don’t know what district they live in and work for. But excuse me for thinking there might be another option - that the Federal Government is clueless and/or padding the numbers.
I’ve given this some thought, and, the above aside, either I’m naively ignorant or something is seriously wrong with the people who are running things.
When household budgets gets out of whack, when expenses exceed income, sensible people do one of two things. They either cut down on what they spend or increase what they earn. If the imbalance has gone on for too long and debt has piled up they need to do both things. Cutting expenses may mean no eating out, canceling subscriptions or integrating Top Ramen into the menu plan. Increasing income happens by working available overtime, having a garage sale or mowing lawns. (Ask me sometime about mowing lawns for people to put food on the table.)
Am I missing something, or shouldn’t government respond the same way?
Let’s drastically reduce govt. spending. I’m realistic enough to realize we’d never get some programs eliminated, but if we cut their funding down to a level that would just barely keep them breathing - three staff members and a little stationery - for a specified period of time, we could save a ton of cash. The Union will not grind to a halt if we de-fund the National Endowment for the Humanities for three years. At the end of that time we promise to restore their budget to 90% of current levels. (That gives them plenty of time to figure out what’s really important to them.) The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports? Seems at least non-essential to me.
You get my drift. Nothing that affects national security or public health (using that word narrowly), but let’s cut out anything not essential to the central functions of govt.
That part of my plan should please the conservatives among my constituency. But wait! There’s more!
We need to increase income. That means raising taxes. Not everybody can afford higher taxes, so I’m going to ask those who can afford that service to their country to step up, just like we ask young adults to put their lives on the line in military service. If they can go halfway around the world to die in the desert, someone making $250,000 a year can kick in a little extra to help pay down the national debt. Again, this additional tax will have a definite terminus, say, three years. At the end of that time the tax rates - graduated so that those who make more pay more - will be rolled back to current levels.
How can anyone making that kind of money seriously argue with making a 3-year sacrifice to preserve the country that made them rich?
Note that at the end of our three-year period the budgets of affected govt. agencies will go back to 90% of their pre-cut levels and taxes will be rolled back to current levels. We just gained a 10% permanent improvement.
OK, I pulled all of those numbers out of my hat (or, some would suggest, my rear end) but you get the point. We’ll bring in some good bean counters and give them three hours to work out exactly what the amounts should be in order to get our finances back where we belong. Any more than three hours and they’ll get mired in arguments instead of coming up with answers. Then we’ll put it up for a vote of all the people, with a simple majority determining the outcome. If they vote it down, well, I guess we’re all going to have more kids to bear the massive debt we continue to pile up.
Whew! I’m exhausted after that burst of creative problem solving. I’m headed to the kitchen to see what else I can find to eat.
Hello, my name is Craig and I’m a slacker.
I did my bike ride this afternoon but I did not go to the pool.
On the official govt. site for tracking the stimulus funds you’ll learn that:
- $59,414 was spent in Arizona’s 52nd congressional district, which saved 7 jobs.
- $761,420 was spent in Arizona’s 15th congressional district, saving 30 jobs.
Oops.
The govt. site also lists several other Arizona districts that don’t exist, including number 00 and the 86th district, which got $34 million.
Not to worry, Arizona isn’t the only state so blessed. Oklahoma got $19 million for non-existent districts and Iowa comes in at $10.6 milion - and 39 jobs saved - for districts that don’t exist.
But wait! There’s more!
The 1st Congressional district of The Virgin Islands (did you know they’re a state?) got $68.3 million, and 40.3 (yep, .3) jobs were saved in The Virgin Island’s 99th congressional district at a cost of $8.4 million
Connecticut must be doing something wrong because, although they created 25 jobs in the imaginary 42nd district, they didn’t get any stimulus money.
Yes, somebody asked the govt. about these and other apparent problems.
Ed Pound is the Director for the Recovery Board. He explained that they just post the information the states send them and that, “Some recipients clearly don’t know what district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number.”
OK, that’s one possibility - that the people who live and work in local government don’t know what district they live in and work for. But excuse me for thinking there might be another option - that the Federal Government is clueless and/or padding the numbers.
I’ve given this some thought, and, the above aside, either I’m naively ignorant or something is seriously wrong with the people who are running things.
When household budgets gets out of whack, when expenses exceed income, sensible people do one of two things. They either cut down on what they spend or increase what they earn. If the imbalance has gone on for too long and debt has piled up they need to do both things. Cutting expenses may mean no eating out, canceling subscriptions or integrating Top Ramen into the menu plan. Increasing income happens by working available overtime, having a garage sale or mowing lawns. (Ask me sometime about mowing lawns for people to put food on the table.)
Am I missing something, or shouldn’t government respond the same way?
Let’s drastically reduce govt. spending. I’m realistic enough to realize we’d never get some programs eliminated, but if we cut their funding down to a level that would just barely keep them breathing - three staff members and a little stationery - for a specified period of time, we could save a ton of cash. The Union will not grind to a halt if we de-fund the National Endowment for the Humanities for three years. At the end of that time we promise to restore their budget to 90% of current levels. (That gives them plenty of time to figure out what’s really important to them.) The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports? Seems at least non-essential to me.
You get my drift. Nothing that affects national security or public health (using that word narrowly), but let’s cut out anything not essential to the central functions of govt.
That part of my plan should please the conservatives among my constituency. But wait! There’s more!
We need to increase income. That means raising taxes. Not everybody can afford higher taxes, so I’m going to ask those who can afford that service to their country to step up, just like we ask young adults to put their lives on the line in military service. If they can go halfway around the world to die in the desert, someone making $250,000 a year can kick in a little extra to help pay down the national debt. Again, this additional tax will have a definite terminus, say, three years. At the end of that time the tax rates - graduated so that those who make more pay more - will be rolled back to current levels.
How can anyone making that kind of money seriously argue with making a 3-year sacrifice to preserve the country that made them rich?
Note that at the end of our three-year period the budgets of affected govt. agencies will go back to 90% of their pre-cut levels and taxes will be rolled back to current levels. We just gained a 10% permanent improvement.
OK, I pulled all of those numbers out of my hat (or, some would suggest, my rear end) but you get the point. We’ll bring in some good bean counters and give them three hours to work out exactly what the amounts should be in order to get our finances back where we belong. Any more than three hours and they’ll get mired in arguments instead of coming up with answers. Then we’ll put it up for a vote of all the people, with a simple majority determining the outcome. If they vote it down, well, I guess we’re all going to have more kids to bear the massive debt we continue to pile up.
Whew! I’m exhausted after that burst of creative problem solving. I’m headed to the kitchen to see what else I can find to eat.
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