I see where you're coming from. My only comment would be that you shouldn't conflate people who identify with the Tea Party with the anti-government, survivalist, Tim McVeigh nutjobs. The vast, vast, vast majority of people that never cared about politics who finally reached a breaking point with the spending. They don't want no government, they want a smaller government that lives within its means. Sure there are some people in the Tea Party that express their love for the 2nd Amendment, but there hasn't been any Tea Party sponsored violence that I can recall, while I can point to several instances of pro-union people getting quite violent.
Now that is funny. =) I do hear all the time that teachers make too much etc... but seriously... I have two friends who are teachers... and they don't make shit. For having a Master's, it has to be one of the lowest paying jobs you could have.
First, if there's a bigger joke than a Masters of Teaching, I don't know what is. Second, they have a choice of employement. If they don't like the prevailing wages, they're free to find another job.
Are you counting in the taxes that the government employee pays? It's a breakdown of logic to set up government workers as a separate group from the tax-paying citizenry. As a society, we determine what we want to employ government to do and as a society we pay the money it takes for that employment. Government workers are part of that society, as easy a rhetorical device as it is to pretend that they are separate from it.
OK, fine. You have to tax 18 guys making $50K to pay the govt. worker his $90K, and another 2 guys to pay the govt. worker's taxes. And the govt. gets to double dip (tax the same money twice).
In what way is the government worker's taxes being paid by other tax payers? Let's continue to work with your "logic": How many Americans does it take to pay the salary of a $168,000/year general? And how many more tax payers does it require to pay the general's taxes? Why do we allow generals to leech off of American citizens?
Do you have an MA in teaching? Have you taught extensively? In my experience it is much harder than it looks. There is a ton of pedagogy that you need to learn.
One is in the Constitution. One is not. And Congress has to consent to promote and pay each and every single one of those Generals. I don't think that's the case with most other government workers.
Now that government employees won't be allowed to negotiate and bargain as a unit, will their employers be allowed to have personnel departments? Since nothing will be allowed as a group anymore, will companies have personnel policies anymore, or any general rules? All negotiating and bargaining will now be done individually by one side, so shouldn't it be the same on the other side? Like, each boss will negotiate with the 4 or 5 people immediately under him, ignoring any company-wide pay scales. Unions were invented to compensate for the advantages employers have.
So that's your answer to (Denny's) curiosity as to why generals are allowed to leech off American citizens? Obviously, my point was that generals, like other government workers, pay into the system through taxes and happen to be the ones drawing a salary from the entire pool of taxation. It's patently silly to set this up as "tax payers funding government workers (including generals)" as though those government workers are outside the system, drawing money from it.
I'm saying that that's why generals are allowed to "leech off of us". I'm not saying I agree with Denny's premise. I, unlike many, help pay my own salary. As it is, though, Congress could (if they or the people wanted to) cut military salaries by 50%, cut the number of generals by 90%, and take away health coverage. They don't, for whatever reason. However, the state of WI (until the new legislation) couldn't do any of those things without going through the Union, as I see it.
Yeah, I figured. Which is true, but other government employees are allowed to because they are employed within the parameters of the Constitution, by legally elected or appointed officials. Exactly. I wasn't arguing for or against public union collective bargaining. I'm not sure what my position is on that. Just responding to Denny's implication that government employees are essentially leeching off of American citizens, a group that Denny was none-too-subtly setting them apart from.
The government has to tax 18 guys making $50K each 10% to generate $90K in revenue to pay the guy's salary. He makes $100K and pays 10% in taxes, so you have to tax 20 guys to pay his take home and his taxes. The government isn't really paying the guy $100K though, they're (equivalent of) paying him tax free and keeping the taxes of the other 2 guys. There aren't that many generals, they're not unionized, it's mandated in the constitution that we have them, they're forbidden from speaking out on political matters, and so on. Government employees are damned expensive, no matter how you look at it.
Except tax payers aren't paying his taxes. He's paying taxes toward his own salary. Because, as correctly noted before, this government employee is part of the same society that chose to create that job and contribute taxes to pay for someone to fill that job. Not some outsider simply pulling money out of the system. Government and government employees cost money, definitely. Whether they are expensive (in other words, whether they are good value or not) is certainly a matter of opinion. And for society to decide, by what sort of government they build through their representatives.
He's not part of the same society as you claim. In the private sector, the companies paying those $50K employees are making $100K to $150K, each, in revenues. The government has almost never turned a profit.
I see what you mean. Similarly, men urinate standing up, while women urinate sitting down, so clearly they do not share the same society.
