Fishman wrote:I've not heard smaller government would decrease prostitution but it does seem self evident with Six's post that a smaller government would certainly reduce GSA partying on your dime Vision. Thanks for the insight.
The irony is that the GSA is a whole level of bureaucracy that serves the other bureaucracies -- and it's intended to *save* money. Maybe on the aggregate, they do. But maybe privitization would be better for something like this.. GSA is the "office supplier" to the federal government, they lease buildings handle cubicles and pencils and paper and water coolers and flat screen TV's on and on. This is one case where I'm sure you could privatize the whole thing out and the taxpayers would save a lot of money even after fat profit for the private contractor. Government is just that inefficient.
Stuff like the above.. a million dollar Las Vegas convention complete with penthouse parties and hired magicians.. that just doesn't happen in the private sector world. Not for rank and file employees, anyway.
How much productivity was lost over the buildup to this Vegas party? Looks like each district or whatever made their own music videos / skits. Apparently done while on the job. They must not be too busy at work, if you can make a rap video in the middle of the day in jeans with your feet up on the desk playing a ukulele.
To be fair, the million dollars spent on this regional gov worker convention is an infinitesimal drop in the bucket in terms of the gargantuan federal budget. I imagine the government wastes billions on overpriced toilet seats. I'm a liberal, but sometimes it's a tough call -- gov-provided service versus private. With private you've got the profit set-aside, but by their nature private corps are extremely efficient and you don't get the massive waste and bloat you do with government. With government, there's no pressure for efficiency.
On the other hand, the private sector isn't treating its employees well enough certainly not on par with their government counterparts. The real answer here, are mandated better wages and benefits for everyone and then you get the best of both worlds, good middle class jobs whether private or gov plus the efficiency of privatization (some things should never be privatized though like local water and police, but something like the GSA well ya I think a contractor could handle office supplies).
My overall concern here is what seems to be shaping up is an America of three classes -- the rich, then the government workers and gov keeps growing regardless of party in power, and lastly the private sector working class is left out in the cold. Private sector workers have all the stress of competition and insecurity and layoffs, forget about a Las Vegas party with magicians and clowns private sector cube workers have a mountain of stress and insecurity that gov workers never experience plus they're paid less.
As it stands, situation evolving right now is advantage for the rich and then advantage for government workers. It's not good.. the economy needs to be based upon a solid private sector with good middle class jobs. If the only good middle class jobs left are government jobs, that's the road to socialism and communism and it's not sustainable.
