Tag Archives: Big Government

News

Obama wants 23 billion more from taxpayers to bailout teacher unions again

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Story from Fox News.

Excerpt:

Despite President Obama’s pledge for honest budgeting and billions of dollars in stimulus money spent to save teachers’ jobs, the Education Department is asking for off-the-books emergency funding to keep local districts from laying off school teachers next school year.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent Democratic lawmakers a request Thursday to pass a $26 billion emergency supplemental to fund up to 300,000 teachers’ jobs that he says will otherwise be lost in the fall.

[…]The request comes just a year after an unprecedented $100 billion in federal stimulus money was allocated to school districts as part of the $863 billion recovery act. Of that amount, $48 billion was designated for saving teachers’ jobs and investing in educational programs. Another $31 billion in stimulus funds were sent to states for Pell grants, competitive funds and programs helping disadvantaged students.

[…]An Education Department spokesman acknowledged that the stimulus funds have already saved roughly 300,000 teachers’ jobs once, but an additional $23 billion more is needed to preserve education jobs, along with $1 billion in funds to save early childhood education jobs and an additional $2 billion to support public safety.

Yet another bailout from productive private sector taxpayers, for yet another unproductive Democrat special interest group.

Oh well, at least the teacher unions are happy with their bailout. And the Wall Street bankers are happy with their bailout. And the auto unions are happy with their bailout. And the public sector unions are happy with their bailout. And so on, and so on, and so on.

I would expect that the left-wing media will getting a bailout soon. And then the left-wing trial lawyers. And then the left-wing illegal immigrants. And then the left-wing prisoners. That should about cover it, I guess.

Who else is left?

Hey Obama! Where's my bailout?

Oh. Of course.

News

CBO raises Obamacare cost projections to over 1 trillion dollars

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Story here from center-left Politico.com. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.

The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to over $1 trillion.

[…]The CBO released the estimates in response to a request from California Rep. Jerry Lewis, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee. A spokeswoman for Lewis said the inquiry was filed before the House voted on the bill.

“[L]arge sums of discretionary spending in both the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bills have not yet been included in estimates by the CBO, rendering it impossible to make informed decisions regarding the outcome of this legislation,” Lewis wrote in a February letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking her to postpone votes until the discretionary spending analysis was complete.

Isn’t that why so many people people voted for Obama? So that he could make us more like Greece?

News

Can government be as greedy as corporations are supposed to be?

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Very popular editorial from Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

Nowhere has liberalism gone further than in San Francisco. And few, if any, other cities can boast such a well-heeled work force. Is this what “spreading the wealth” is all about?

We have seen the future and it works — for certain people. Take San Francisco municipal workers. The San Francisco Chronicle recently detailed just how overpaid the city’s employees are. Their average yearly salary is $93,000 before benefits. A third of them made more than $100,000 in 2009. A newly retired deputy police chief (not even the city’s top cop) made $516,118.

[…]Also in 2009, 28 city employees made more than the mayor, Gavin Newsom, who pulled down a respectable $250,903. Firefighters in San Francisco have a base salary of $102,648, while even lowly payroll clerks start at $54,314.

[…]Unions, particularly public-sector unions, leverage their money and membership to stock legislatures, city councils and county boards with friendly faces. Those faces, in turn, lock governments into contracts (particularly where pensions are concerned) that are extremely difficult to break.

The problem with this is that the private sector is the only part of the economy that actually has to please customers in order to get paid. Government workers don’t have to provide good service in order to get paid. They don’t compete with anyone, and individual workers have no incentive to work harder – their raises are based on union bargaining, not on pleasing customers. So then why are government workers making more money than the productive private sector workers when San Francisco has a $483 million budget deficit? Why isn’t this greed?