hey republicans

[04silverz 10+ year member]

The Dow is up ~60% since he took office.

I'm gonna hope you mis posted or are being sarcastic. That is literally impossible and is still down for the past month. In fact declining each week

 

[double 07 10+ year member]

Article found on Cato @ Liberty.......Talks about Government Efficiency

I recently criticized the idea that policymakers should focus their attention on making government more “efficient.” Instead, I argued that policymakers should focus their reform efforts on reducing government’s size.

Government efficiency proponents make the mistake of viewing the cost of government in the same light as the cost of operating a private business. However, government cannot operate like a business because it isn’t a business.

Private businesses obtain their revenue through voluntary exchange: consumers willingly give a business their money in return for a product. Businesses must control the cost of providing a product in order to maximize profits. A business that does not adequately control its costs can find itself undercut by a competitor offering a like product at a lower price. In the private sector, the market sets the price of a product through the interaction of supply and demand.

Government is unconcerned with “profit.” The “cost” of government is equal to the taxes extracted from the private sector to pay for government activities, plus the economic damage caused by extracting resources from the private sector. Taxes are involuntarily obtained through compulsion and force. Regardless of the value a citizen assigns to the services provided by government, a citizen must pay for those services, and at a price set by government. The price one pays for government is primarily a function of political factors, which are only indirectly influenced by economic considerations.

Therefore, the question of how efficiently government provides services is less important than deciding what services government should provide. For example, it matters little how quickly the USDA processes subsidy checks for farmers. More important is whether farmers should be receiving subsidy checks at all.

To understand why this is so, consider the following example of two policymakers from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Both policymakers support government efficiency as a means to a statist end.

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels has received national recognition as a “pragmatic conservative” who has focused on making state government operate more efficiently. Indeed, I worked for two years in Daniels’ budget office and one of my duties was to try making state programs more efficient.

To the degree my agency’s efforts created savings — a debatable premise — those savings were merely spent in other areas. This is because the Daniels administration was concerned with reallocating savings to other government activities instead of reducing the state tax burden. Net savings would have meant a smaller government to fund, which would have allowed for a reduced tax burden. But taxes weren’t reduced — the Daniels administration merely proposed to spend up (and now down) to the level of revenues the state took in. In fact, Indiana state tax rates have increased under Daniels.

Liberal congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) embraces government efficiency for a somewhat different reason, but the end is the same. In a recent New York Times profile, Blumenauer argues that liberals should actively embrace government efficiency measures in order to sustain public support for an expansive federal government:

Mr. Blumenauer doesn’t argue that government does too much, or that programs like Social Security and Medicare aren’t vital. Rather, in two recent conversations about the nation’s finances, Mr. Blumenauer argued that if Democrats really want to protect a vast array of federal programs from repeated Republican onslaughts, then they need to bring the costs of the programs in line with reality.

Otherwise, he said, liberals only make it easier for conservative critics of social spending to undermine the entire premise of liberal government. And they make it that much harder to propose new and much-needed investments in, say, infrastructure and education.

“We do people no favors if we have systems that leak money and don’t have the credibility they need when they’re under attack,” Mr. Blumenauer said. “People will pay for all this if they’re convinced they’re getting their value. But our challenge on the federal level is to actually deliver, and we can’t just defend the indefensible.”

The Times reporter augments Blumenauer’s position by placing it in the historical context of former Democratic senator Ed Muskie’s effort to make government more efficient:

Mr. Blumenauer may be out of step with his natural political constituencies, but his basic argument here places him squarely in a tradition of mainstream Democratic thinkers. As far back as 1976, in one of the more persuasive, if least remembered, speeches in the party’s modern history, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine made essentially the same case to the Democratic platform committee and voiced his support for a “sunset bill” that would have subjected most federal programs to periodic review.

Mr. Muskie argued that it was hard to persuade voters to accept new programs while they entertained profound doubts about the efficiency of existing ones. Noting that some Democrats seemed to regard budget reform as “a repudiation of the New Deal,” he asked his colleagues: “What’s so **** liberal about wasting money? And what do waste and inefficiency have to do with the New Deal?”

The bottom line is that the road to smaller government won’t be paved with efforts to make government “more efficient.” In its most benign form, government efficiency is a political tool wielded by policymakers who probably aren’t serious about downsizing government. In its more pernicious form, it can lend credibility to activities that government should not be undertaking to begin with.

 

[double 07 10+ year member]

 

[double 07 10+ year member]

The Myth of Efficient Government Service - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily

 

[double 07 10+ year member]

I'm gonna hope you mis posted or are being sarcastic. That is literally impossible and is still down for the past month. In fact declining each week

Ram is correct...Even though the Dow has went up and down...it is up 60% overall since he took office.....The net has several articles about it....Now does that mean his policies are working or does that mean our stock market is tough enough to survive them?

Oh and we have 439,000 NEW jobless claims (78k from Sandy) this first week after the re-election........Has anyone noticed the media questioning our precious government about that?........If this is FORWARD I would sure as hell hate to see backwards!!!!!!!!!!

 

[thevic24 5,000+ posts]

First, I didn't bring up USPS.
Second, it's only losing money now because people don't use mail as much with the advent of email, not because it's inefficient. Before, it used to be a profitable endeavor. If private companies were legally obligated to deliver mail to each and every home in the united states every day except Sunday, they wouldn't be profitable either.

And dealing with red tape, building permits and codes speaks nothing to financial efficiency. You can't deny that theoretically/ideally, government should be able to do things cheaper because of the lack of profit. But, maybe I do have an optimistic view of government. But that's better than a cynical one. If all people do is view government as crap, then it will be crap. How can we expect government to be efficient if we don't vote people in who believe in it? It's like trying to get your car fixed by a guy who hates automobiles and still rides his horse everywhere.

Am I not going to get a response to my last reply to you?

Post #322 ....

You did not originally bring them up but you did try and use them as an example....

 

[thevic24 5,000+ posts]

It seems that some have a very sheltered life.

Everything handed to them....

Not ever having worked for anything or what the currently have on their own...

elitist mentality....

I am actually very glad that I was raised and live/ work in the real world.

Being book smart means absolutely jack in the rear world...unless....

one were to stay with their elitist shelter....

 

[thevic24 5,000+ posts]

Well...

Here is a liberal union hard at work for its people....

now the tax payer will be paying their bills...

Tense moments at Merita after Hostess says it's going out of business

I work for a major car manufacture and, also, have not had a raise in quite some time(4 years??) but at least I have a JOB!

The one guy is mad, and should be......but.....lets do what the "union" says and strike....now your unemployed...

Dam, making Twinkies must be so hard...

 

[DoesDad 10+ year member]

I think Proximity is one of those smarmy little college fucks who is going to get a violent kick in the ass when he graduates from college and this is still Obama's economy. Have fun my man... You're definitely too smart for me to argue with. :laugh:Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

 

[double 07 10+ year member]

post...

 

[kat_black181 10+ year member]

This politics crap is just depressing......

 

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

First, I didn't bring up USPS.
Second, it's only losing money now because people don't use mail as much with the advent of email, not because it's inefficient. Before, it used to be a profitable endeavor. If private companies were legally obligated to deliver mail to each and every home in the united states every day except Sunday, they wouldn't be profitable either.

And dealing with red tape, building permits and codes speaks nothing to financial efficiency. You can't deny that theoretically/ideally, government should be able to do things cheaper because of the lack of profit. But, maybe I do have an optimistic view of government. But that's better than a cynical one. If all people do is view government as crap, then it will be crap. How can we expect government to be efficient if we don't vote people in who believe in it? It's like trying to get your car fixed by a guy who hates automobiles and still rides his horse everywhere.

Am I not going to get a response to my last reply to you?

I didnt say you brought up USPS. I said its a bad example, which you tried to use as a positive one.

What portions of the country does UPS not deliver to? They deliver to private homes, have saturday delivery, etc. And they do it without the advantages I mentioned the USPS having. UPS and Fedex would love to jump into the ring with standard mail delivery, they are legally obligated not to. And even with that monopoly, the USPS is failing financially (and the USPS has that monopoly in and above the same rights/ability to compete directly with UPS/Fedex for package mail delivery).

Me thinking the govt is awesome and efficient wont make things better. Me (and many others) acknowledging its failings will go a lot further towards making the govt clean up its act than will burying our heads in the sand and pretending its doing things right. Its hard to believe that even right now, with our govt showing its complete inability to run on a balanced budget, that you still argue we should all gather round our politicians and praise their competence.

Your horse/car analogy is silly, tbh.

I didnt read much of your last reply, it was too long and I got tired of seeing the same sorts of arguments form you about a 1/4 way through it. But to be fair, Ill read it tomorrow and respond.

 

[double 07 10+ year member]

Liberals believe that a market system in which government regulates the economy is best. Government must protect citizens from the greed of big business.Government regulation in all areas of the economy is needed to level the playing field. This thought goes against what most working Americans want...Noticed I said working..

Liberals believe that higher taxes primarily for the wealthy and a large government are necessary to address injustice/inequality in society. They support a large government to provide the needs of the people and create equality. They believe taxes enable the government to create jobs and provide welfare programs for those in need...Once again ask the average working American not a welfare recipient if they want bigger or smaller government..

Our government today is being used as an instrument of plunder by a lot of Americans to get in the pockets of the rest of the Americans......

 

[04silverz 10+ year member]

Ram is correct...Even though the Dow has went up and down...it is up 60% overall since he took office.....The net has several articles about it....Now does that mean his policies are working or does that mean our stock market is tough enough to survive them?

I see what he's saying now. My bad, I was looking at short term and he referenced long term. Not real sure that proves anything though since we were in a recession.

Oh and we have 439,000 NEW jobless claims (78k from Sandy) this first week after the re-election........Has anyone noticed the media questioning our precious government about that?........If this is FORWARD I would sure as hell hate to see backwards!!!!!!!!!!