The right loves to accuse the left of promoting class warfare. "Tax the rich, they're the bad guys, they can afford more taxes, those greedy bastards, etc." But...(you knew there'd be a but), all I here from the right is "government workers bad, teachers bad, Unions bad, etc...overpaid, to many benefits, the same job pays less in the private sector...etc." That isn't class warfare? If being a teacher is such a great gig, apply for the job. If being a government worker is such a great gig, apply for it. As you can probably guess, I am one of the bad government workers. I retired at 49, and the pension check started right up, along with my health insurance. I'm special? My job was advertised in the local paper, anyone could have applied for it. ANYONE. 127 did, and at 23, I got the job as a manual machinist. I had no "In" at the company, no Dad, Uncle or Cousin pulling strings to give the job to me. As a matter of fact, I beat out people with an "In". I aced the written and the practical. The tester was going to leave me alone to do the practical, I told him to stick around, it wasn't going to take long. Now don't tell me my health insurance was/is free, I just never held or saw the money. I got the pension and health insurance in lieu of wages. My(every) employer had a hard number that was available for me, let's say that number is $20 an hour. That number had the cost of funding the pension and paying the insurance in it. For round numbers, let's say they knew my pension and insurance were going to cost $5/hr. That means they could only afford to offer me $15/hr. They could have said we only can pay you $20/hr, and go and buy your own pension and insurance, but they chose to play on the uninformed and make people think they aren't paying for their own pension and insurance, but they are, they just don't handle the money. Don't tell me my insurance and pension was/is free, I paid for it, I just didn't handle the money.
Those who feed themselves and their families on the back of taxes extracted from the private sector workers need to be kept to the absolute minimum, and the wages for these tax payer funded "jobs" need to be no greater than a comparable real job in the private sector. The military would be exempt from my above remarks. Government has grown too large, intrudes into areas that it shouldn't be, and has become a class of people unto themselves. Instead of slashing the size of government, they instead figure out ways to extract more income from the real workers, to protect the government class. "..Still one thing more, fellow citizens -- a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities....." Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address , March 4, 1801 "...Nothing is so galling to a people, not broken in from the birth, as a paternal or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read and say and eat and drink and wear....." Lord Macaulay
Everyone in the military has a tax payer funded job...so I assume you would have the same contempt for them...if you were logically consistent of course. ...and firefighters, policemen, etc. Say, why is it that we don't have a military, police force, etc. working in the private sector...instead of living off a tax payer paycheck? Surely if the private sector is always superior, and if greed is the best possible motivator, why not have these government agencies converted to a contractor status?
No, the military is one function of government best accomplished in the collective. The military is one of the few functions of government where the output potential is greater than the input. The other 70% of government that is only concerned with the pursuit of government income, control of the populace, counting purple tailed snail darters and keeping Nancy Pelosi's taxpayer jet filled with liquor, consumes more private revenue than it provides benefit to society.
"No, the military is one function of government best accomplished in the collective." ...and why do you believe that?
No offense Z, but I think the logic of that statement is self evident. Government is best at its closest point of contact to its master, the private citizen. In order of righteousness it would be listed as follows: 1) Town and city 2) County or Parrish 3) State 4) Federal The citizens of this Republic have allowed the order to become reversed.
For the life of me, I don't understand why the right wing doesn't understand the concept of a united states who sacrifice for the good of the union. It is the small minded provincial klannish mindset that puts the Town and city above the welfare of the Union.
Well, with due respect, I don't see the nobility in sacrificing private rights, property and income so that some person can feed themselves by counting chipmunks or bottles of booze for Nancy Pelosi or any other politician. If that is "klannish", then I proudly will wear the title.
Do you really believe that everyone in the military is beyond sponging off of the tax payer? I am all in favor of personal responsibility for a job well done, but that has nothing to do with working for the private or public sector necessarily.