IMO public employees are going to be the BIGGEST stranglehold on getting budgets under control especially that so many of them are unionized now. Look at the public teacher fiasco in NJ. These people are driving states into big black holes budget wise, and often times they are paid 2-3X as much as the private sector. Just the average Fed gov wage is almost TWICE that of the private sector.
Also to these loons debt reduction = higher taxes. That is the way this goes. Massive public spending with massive taxes on the private sector. They will never fire people, lay off unnecessary workers, reduce wages, etc. The public sector grows, spending grows, and the answer is always higher taxes.
Also public spending has never in history proven to improve the private sector because that money comes out the private sector one way or another to begin with. If its debt spending (like it is now) that is money that has to be repaid, and that will come out of the private sector in the future at some point thus reducing future growth. By the time Obama is done he is going to leave us with a 10-15 TRILLION dollar egg to pay back, and we still are going to be in a shitty economy with much higher future responsibilities to pay for in Federal spending.
The ONLY way to fix all this is:
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Cut public employee numbers.
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Cut their wages.
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Cut mostly all but vital services.
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Cut taxes (especially for businesses).
No matter what they say public spending, and public debt spending is not going to do a damn thing. It never has, and never will. Even go back to the Great Depression era, and the only thing that really did anything to get us in a boom was WW2. Prior to that things were going up but very slowly, and it was mixed with a couple recessions in the mean time (besides the GD in the early 30’s).
Not only are Obama’s policies failures but they couldn’t have come at a worse time with 2 wars, and the economy in the state that its in. We got through not as bad Clinton during the 90’s because of the computer age coming to a boom. We don’t have anything like that now to fall back on. Theres no huge growth industry at all right now.
[b]WASHINGTON – President Obama is pressing Congress to approve emergency aid money to support economic recovery and help avoid widespread layoffs of public workers, the Washington Post reported Saturday.
Congressional leaders received a letter from the president asking for almost $50 billion for distribution to state and local governments, saying that increased spending is “urgent and unavoidable,” the Post reported. The money would protect the jobs of teachers, police and firefighters.
“Because the urgency is high—many school districts, cities and states are already being forced to make these layoffs,” Obama wrote, “these provisions must be passed as quickly as possible.”
Obama’s plea comes despite last year’s $787 billion economic stimulus package, which worked to stabilize the failing economy, but did little to help the country’s high unemployment rate. At 9.7 percent, unemployment is nearly the same as it was a year ago.
Many economists are optimistic that packages such as this one could lower unemployment, but member of neither party seem eager to allow further spending; Republican concerns over record deficits are making Democrats think twice about approving more of Obama’s costly initiatives, the Post reported.
Obama, however, expressed that spending and national debt reduction could go hand-in-hand.
“These measures to jump-start private sector job creation, avoid massive layoffs at the local and state levels and help the unemployed are critical and timely ways to further that economic recovery,” the president wrote, adding that “robust economic growth is essential for achieving deficit reduction.”Lawmakers remained skeptical.
“Democrats are showing either that they just don’t get it on this issue of the debt, or that they just don’t care,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in a reaction to the letter. “You can understand the American people’s skepticism when they’re told that simply adding more government
is the solution to government’s previous failures."Click here to read more on this story from the Washington Post.[/b]
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/13/obama-appeals-congress-billion-emergency-aid/