Romney: We have too many teachers, cops, and firemen. Fire them!

Unabogie said:
That's a straw man. What Obama is talking about and what Romney opposes is that in economic downturns, states can't run deficits, so they fire teachers, cops, and firemen to help cover the lack of revenue.
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Obama is selling this as a jobs program. Nowhere in that ad does it mention any shortages of any of those occupations.
 
Howie Felterbush said:
Agreed.

Sustainable or not, you can't just cut off a guy's only income and expect him to go back to work at age seventy.
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Not cut off, reduce to levels which reflect the investment returns of the pension fund.

The alternative is more of this:
Gov. Pat Quinn is scheduled to sign a package of bills into law Thursday that will slash health care coverage for the poor and hike cigarette taxes by $1-a-pack to help pay for the struggling Medicaid program, his office confirmed late Wednesday.

The $1.6 billion in cuts to the program come amid the state’s ongoing budget problems despite last year’s major income tax increase.
Quinn had warned that without action the health care program would collapse under a mountain of debt.

Opponents argue the sweeping cuts put the state’s most needy citizens at risk.
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96% of Illinois state public workers are now unionized. In some departments it's 100%. So employees and their bosses are often members of the same union!

I can't imagine why the absentee rate on the tollway averages 30%.
 
WildCat said:
Obama is selling this as a jobs program.
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I submit that any jobs program would be a tough sell to this Congress.

Shall we review the GOP response to the American Jobs Act presented before Congress on September 8 of last year, along with the proposals those lawmakers have offerred as alternatives, such as the Paul Ryan budget, which, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute (a non-profit, nonpartisan think tank), would eliminate 4.1 million jobs through 2014?

Is there not a point at which a reasonable person is forced to conclude that Republicans simply don't want better jobs numbers because that would hurt their chances in November?
 
Dymanic said:
Is there not a point at which a reasonable person is forced to conclude that Republicans simply don't want better jobs numbers because that would hurt their chances in November?
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Republicans have said since 2008, their number 1 priority was to ensure Obama is a one term president. The country can go to hell, that's not a concern and as you said, the worse the country is the better their chances.
 
Today, many managers — the people who are supposed to carry out policy decisions, press for efficiency, impose discipline — are in unions alongside the people they supervise:

The state Environmental Protection Agency has more than 1,000 staffers — yet only 16 are nonunion. In the Department of Human Services' Division of Rehabilitation Services, 47 of the 52 field offices have no nonunion staff, according to the governor's office.

Makes you wonder who's in charge. Union work rules now apply to virtually everyone. Disciplining employees, even for minor infractions, gets complicated when both supervisor and worker are in the same union. Managers have divided loyalties.

But why stop with 96 percent union membership? Still more groups of supervisors are in the process of petitioning to join.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-union-0613-jm-20120613,0,3422747.story

Welcome to public union paradise! Government of the unions, by the unions, and for the unions. And flat broke.
 
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KoihimeNakamura said:
... unions are comprised of people, you know.
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Well of course they are. Now explain why people in public unions get first dibs at state resouces, while the 99.4% of Illinois residents who don't belong to public unions have to battle for the leftover scraps.

Does the Illinois government exist to serve the public union members, or the people of Illinois?
 
Unabogie said:
No, you do not have too many teachers. In LAUSD, they will have something like 43 kids to a classroom in high school.

http://laist.com/2009/03/25/lausd_teachers_get_contract_bonus_i.php

That's not too many teachers. They don't make too much money, either. I can't think of a more important job than teaching our kids. My sister in law is a LAUSD sub. She couldn't find work because LAUSD was hiring all their laid off full time teachers to do sub work. That means fewer teachers for more kids.

Do we have too many cops? Again, in Los Angeles, the "austerity" measures took over hundred cops off the beat.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/01/local/me-lapd1

How that doesn't translate to a worsening city is beyond me.

Obama wants to send AID to the states so that those support workers, cops, and teachers are rehired. So kids can go to school with less than 43 kids in their classes and cops can go back out on patrol.

Romney thinks that's a bad idea and wants to cut them further. I'm not sure how you cut the size of government without firing people.
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I was referring to my county not Los Angeles. Forty students per class does sound pretty high. But I wonder why is it so high. How does this compare over time? How much federal money does LA already receive? I believe California teachers are among the highst paid in the nation.

3. California ( C)

> Average Salary 2010/2011: $69,434
> # of Enrolled Students Per Teacher 2010/2011: 21 (49th)
> Average National Assessment of Educational Progress Math Score 2009: 270.44 (46th)
> Average National Assessment of Educational Progress Reading Score 2009: 252.63 (49th)
> Average Daily Attendance as a % of Fall Enrollment 2010/2011: 97.5% (6th)
> High School Graduation Rate as % of Fall Enrollment 2010/2011: 6.35% (31st)


Read more: The Ten States That Pay Teachers The Most (And Why It Doesn’t Matter) - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2011/02/26/the...-most-and-why-it-doesnt-matter/#ixzz1xlt9rB00
 
BenBurch said:
Of course they are, and this shows the stupidity of direct democracy.
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Ahh, brings back memories of when all the lefties were apopletic that Al Gore was not made president because he won the popular vote. You weren't one of them at the time, were you?

KoihimeNakamura said:
... unions are comprised of people, you know.
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So are all those "evil" corporations that all the lefties love to hate.
 
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easycruise said:
Ahh, brings back memories of when all the lefties were apopletic that Al Gore was not made president because he won the popular vote. You weren't one of them at the time, were you?
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And thank goodness we all dodged that bullet, huh? :rolleyes:
 
easycruise said:
Ahh, brings back memories of when all the lefties were apopletic that Al Gore was not made president because he won the popular vote. You weren't one of them at the time, were you?
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Being for a popular vote for an election but not in favor of the referendum process are not exactly the same thing you know right?
 
easycruise said:
Ahh, brings back memories of when all the lefties were apopletic that Al Gore was not made president because he won the popular vote. You weren't one of them at the time, were you?

...
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No, I was one who said that Florida had never been allowed to count its votes, and that was a crime no matter who should have won had they been counted.

What the SC did was in my opinion the worst decision in its history and should even now result in impeachments.

ETA: And I didn't vote for Gore.

ETA2: Primarily because Harry Browne made me a LOT of money long ago by convincing me to put my college funds into Swiss francs just prior to Nixon's devaluation.
 
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