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What would you be willing to give up to reduce the size of government?

What goverment service that benefits you would you give up?


  • Total voters
    53
Overpaid? They are tasked with overseeing a government in charge of 300 million people, and you think a couple hundred thousand dollars is too much?

The fact is that Congress already has plenty of millionaires. If you eliminate the salary, it would basically eliminate the possibility of anyone who ISN'T rich becoming a lawmaker. It would also further drain the talent pool, as smart people would prefer to make money in the private sector instead of serving the public.

And needless to say, while it might feel good to do it, the effect on the size of government would be approximately nil.

The problem is that this isn't a monarchy or a nation where the president has supreme power. So no he or she doesn't rule 300million people and no they are not in charge of us.

WE are in charge of them.

And really it's not only the senators and congressman and women that are being paid too much for a job well done<---that was sarcasm. It's the fact that there are one to many government employees getting a better salary and pension then the private market employees do and that causes a problem.
 
The problem is that this isn't a monarchy or a nation where the president has supreme power. So no he or she doesn't rule 300million people and no they are not in charge of us.

WE are in charge of them.

I'm not sure what your point is...I don't "rule" my company, I work for it. Yet my company still pays me a salary. :confused:

stalin_was_a_nice_being said:
And really it's not only the senators and congressman and women that are being paid too much for a job well done<---that was sarcasm. It's the fact that there are one to many government employees getting a better salary and pension then the private market employees do and that causes a problem.

There are very few government employees who earn a higher salary than they could in the private sector. Certainly not the ones in Congress.
 
I'm not sure what your point is...I don't "rule" my company, I work for it. Yet my company still pays me a salary. :confused:
Yeah, so you work for the nation? No. You work because you have to survive because the leader(president) is not going to feed you nor should he we don't live that type of nation. We eat what we are worth.

There are very few government employees who earn a higher salary than they could in the private sector. Certainly not the ones in Congress.

That is just not true. There are many teachers who earn over a 100grand just for teaching and they get 70% of their highest salary as pension. There are one too many high earners in government, especially for jobs that are menial at best.
 
Yeah, so you work for the nation? No. You work because you have to survive because the leader(president) is not going to feed you nor should he we don't live that type of nation. We eat what we are worth.

I really have no idea what you're trying to say.

stalin_was_a_nice_being said:
That is just not true. There are many teachers who earn over a 100grand just for teaching and they get 70% of their highest salary as pension.

100K is hardly the norm for teachers. And at any rate, that wouldn't necessarily be unreasonable in the private sector for a college graduate with 30+ years of experience in their job. No one becomes a teacher because they think it pays well.

stalin_was_a_nice_being said:
There are one too many high earners in government, especially for jobs that are menial at best.

There are a few. But at any rate, Congress is hardly a menial job.
 
I picked federal education, homeland security, Federal Reserve, regulatory agencies, cultural grants, and earmarks.
I would add a side note; I agree that we should end all foreign military aid.
 
I don't agree with Oftencold very much, but he's right in this case. Think about what the world would look like without the US military. Not a pretty picture.

Some of those obligations are obsolete. We have too many military bases abroad and too much forward presence. If we slowly reduced our foreign presence by about 10% it wouldn't affect global stability in the least. Regional stability, perhaps, but that shouldn't be our concern. And if you think it should be our concern, you're more than welcome to risk your own life "stabilizing" foreign countries.
 
Some of those obligations are obsolete. We have too many military bases abroad and too much forward presence. If we slowly reduced our foreign presence by about 10% it wouldn't affect global stability in the least.

I certainly agree that there are places where we have plenty of troops that we don't need. Germany, Iraq, and Cuba come to mind.

Ethereal said:
Regional stability, perhaps, but that shouldn't be our concern.

Depends on the region. In some places it is very much our concern, due to our trade/security ties with certain nations or the risks posed by rogue regimes or lawless places.

Ethereal said:
And if you think it should be our concern, you're more than welcome to risk your own life "stabilizing" foreign countries.

I'd rather pay someone else to do it for me in the form of taxes.
 
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