And I’m all for them.
For the first time in recollection, I APPLAUD the words of Barack Obama. Yes, yes, ABSOLUTELY…slash unwarranted, inefficient, wasteful, capricious AND discriminatory spending.
HOWEVER, comma, all that spending is associated with agencies and programs that are STAFFED. With the cuts in spending, logically, come layoffs of federal employees.
The federal workforce is bloated? The Federal Workforce is its own CITIZENRY. Let us lighten the load by jettisoning complacent Paper Pushers before we start ADDING jobs. Or are these among the Saved portion of Obama’s two-and-a-half million jobs that deflated from “new” to “saved or created”?
I applaud us turning our attention and resources to our own infrastructure instead of infrastructures that we blow up in far off lands and re-build to our own market specifications. HOWEVER, comma, AGAIN, these are taxes that have ALREADY been levied and bonds that have ALREADY been issued. Agencies and programs ALREADY exist, presumably with personnel. It sounds to me very much as though Barack Obama proposes to hire people to do jobs that people already on the payroll aren’t doing.
For similarity, I draw attention to an Only Under Villagairossa espisode in Los Angeles, where EXTRA funds are being diverted to pick up trash that otherwise accumulates in…how shall I put it?…high-risk neighborhoods. Someone is paid to pick up trash in those neighborhoods and…understandably, I suppose, if they fear for their safety…certain portions of assigned routes are simply skipped. The trash accumulates. Also, Big Guys dump illicitly. Finally, in the spirit of the fantasy that more money can dispel the appearance of discrimination, the City resolves to spend more money to do the job that someone else is being paid for not doing.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/01/local/me-dumping1
I urge us to become acquainted with our True Unemployment before we launch a bunch of ad-hoc, stop-gap, finger-in-dike, duct-tape-and-heavy-administration programs that treat symptoms rather than ills.
President Elect and Attorney Barack Obama, married to an attorney, will want to have a care about advocating methodologies that are apt to lavish MORE billable hours upon Big Law.