Tag Archives: Private Sector

News

Spanish conservatives defeat socialists in regional and local elections

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Political Map of Europe
Political Map of Europe

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (H/T Bret Baier)

Excerpt:

Spain’s ruling Socialists suffered a crushing defeat to conservatives in local and regional elections Sunday, yielding power even in traditional strongholds against a backdrop of staggering unemployment and unprecedented sit-ins by Spaniards furious with what they see as politicians who don’t care about their plight.Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the result was due punishment of his government for the state of the economy — the jobless rate is a eurozone high of 21.3 percent. But he said he had no plans to move up general elections, which must be held by March of next year, and pledged to press on with job-creating reforms despite the loud outcry of opposition to his party.

The win for the conservative opposition Popular Party puts it in even a stronger position to win the general elections and return to power after eight years of Socialist rule.

In what Spanish media said was the worst performance on record by the Socialist Party in local and regional elections, the numbers reflecting the loss were stunning: the conservative Popular Party won at the municipal level by about two million votes, compared to 150,000 in its win in 2007, and in 13 regional governments that were up for grabs, Zapatero’s party lost in virtually all of them.

One was Castilla-La Mancha in central Spain, where the Socialists have always held power. The Socialists also lost bastions like the town halls in Barcelona and Seville. The conservatives padded their majorities in Madrid and Valencia, in the latter even though the president is under investigation for corruption. Several other Socialist-controlled regional governments also fell. Spain’s electoral map turned largely blue — the color of the Popular Party.

I can see why Zapatero would want to avoid calling federal elections. Spain’s youth unemployment stands at 45% and he is very likely to be thrown out of power completely. I’m sure a lot of the young people voted for socialism, because socialism is so trendy in movies, music, in the universities, and on television . But the young people are finding out now that you cannot cover your nakedness with empty rhetoric, you cannot feed your stomach with feelings of self-congratulation, and you cannot coerce employers to hire you by demonizing capitalism.

Commentary

We’ve become a nation of takers, not makers

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From moderate conservative Stephen Moore, writing in the Wall Street Journal. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida’s ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York’s.

Even Michigan, at one time the auto capital of the world, and Pennsylvania, once the steel capital, have more government bureaucrats than people making things. The leaders in government hiring are Wyoming and New Mexico, which have hired more than six government workers for every manufacturing worker.

Now it is certainly true that many states have not typically been home to traditional manufacturing operations. Iowa and Nebraska are farm states, for example. But in those states, there are at least five times more government workers than farmers. West Virginia is the mining capital of the world, yet it has at least three times more government workers than miners. New York is the financial capital of the world—at least for now. That sector employs roughly 670,000 New Yorkers. That’s less than half of the state’s 1.48 million government employees.

The problem with having a high number of government workers is that government workers don’t actually produce anything to sell. They pay the salaries of their workers by taking a percentage of the money that productive business make when they sell customers useful things like cell phones and laptops and automobiles.

This article is the second most popular on the Wall Street Journal. Recommended.

News

Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party cuts federal spending by 6.2%

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

More news from up north. (H/T Ben)

Excerpt:

Federal government expenditures are set to fall next fiscal year by $16.5-billion, or 6.2%, with big cuts to regional development and environment programs, according to documents tabled Tuesday.

That would leave total expenditures for the 2011-12 year at $250-billion, with the bulk taken up by transfer payments to individuals and governments, and operating costs. Just over $30-billion of that expense is attributed to refinancing Canada’s debt.

The figures, contained in spending estimates provided by the Treasury Board, sees budget increases for departments entrusted with security and law enforcement – such as a 21% boost to jails — but cuts of roughly 20% to Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Government is supposed to be concerned with security and law enforcement, not with environmentalist wastefulness.

Here’s Paul Ryan. He would like to cut our budget by 6.2% – and maybe even more.

If Canada is cutting their government waste, then why can’t we?

There are a lot of programs that we could be cutting.

Excerpt:

The federal government could save billions in taxpayer dollars annually by consolidating duplicative government programs, according to a new report.

The newly-released report from the Government Accountability Office “makes us all look like jackasses,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) told reporters Monday night.

The conservative senator said the report — which identifies redundancies in more than 546 individual programs — reveals why the United States is $14 trillion in debt.

“Anybody who says we don’t look like fools up here hasn’t read the report,” he said.

[…]The GAO reviewed 34 areas (among them agriculture, defense and social services) where agencies, offices or initiatives have similar or overlapping objectives. The report also looked at 47 additional cost-saving opportunities related to more general government efficiency. For instance, the report said, “Improved corrosion prevention and control practices could help [the Defense Department] avoid billions in unnecessary costs over time.”

Addressing duplicative efforts on even a single issue could save billions, the report found. For instance, the GAO says the government could save up to $5.7 billion annually by addressing potentially duplicative policies designed to boost domestic ethanol production. Additionally, the Defense Department could save $460 million annually by making broader changes to the governance of its military health care system.

The report finds that there are 15 agencies involved in food safety, 80 programs involved in economic development and more than 100 involved in surface transportation. There are 10 agencies and 82 programs involved in teacher quality, and more than 20 agencies and about 56 programs involved in financial literacy efforts. There are about 2,300 investments across the Defense Department to modernize its business operations.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said today that in order to foster long term economic growth, “we’re going to deal with the pressing issues of regulatory waste in our agencies, as well as long term issues facing our country with entitlement programs.”

This is why we have to stop giving private sector money to government. They don’t earn any money by making things or helping people – they don’t sell anything useful. They just steal money from the productive workers and businesses and then they waste it and run up trillion dollar deficits. This kind of corruption, fraud and waste would not survive in small businesses, and probably not even in big businesses. Business have to be efficient or they go bankrupt. They have to perform or their competitors will have them for lunch. The consumer is king in the private sector.

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