If we cut spending, 'pet projects', how will those people survive if they don't have a job?
Not the Mayor's problem. They get to do what every other AMERICAN has to do when they get canned. They find a new job. They cut back. They lose their house, their car, their six TV's. Who cares? They're doing a job that shouldn't be paid for by taxpayers. That means when the country is facing economic crisis, they get to be patriotic and their lives, their fortunes, or their sacred honor (hahahahaha) for their country.
That's why they're working for the government, right, to do good for country?
Hmmm?
What if the pet project is like you said, a 'government check' that would stop them from landing in the streets.
Then we the taxpayers much MUCH prefer to cut the hammock strings than chop down the tree.
It makes no sense to drive our people into squalor,
You're absolutely right. It makes no sense to drive the working and productive people of this nation into squalor to keep shipping money to the hammock dwellers.
Oh.
Who were you talking about? The Mayor is concerned with the people who make this country work, not with the people dragging it down.
which will result into crime, drug addiction, mental illness and likely if not turned around quick enough could metastasize into a troublesome and even radical sub-culture haunting our children years far into the future.
No.
Haunting THEIR children.
The children of the taxpayers will be better prepared for the future if their parents' paychecks are relieved from the unasked duty of supporting freeloaders.
I find that unpractical and lazy and unbefitting of a real leader who should be leading us away from such ideas while maintaining sustainability.
Cutting the dead weight is the first step towards getting the balloon to go up, lad.
Skimming incomes with taxes I think is better than selling out to ideas that will create third world neighborhoods.
You mean stealing more. There's not enough money to do the task, nor is it moral to make the productive people support freeloaders forever.
If cuts are to help, I think they must be accompanied with a guarantee of basic housing, food and medical support.
Fine.
Government issued FOOD, not food stamps or any other cash equivalent.
The food will be served in cafeterias, not distributed for home-cooking.
The food will be served to people with valid ration cards, held by people who pass a monthly drug screening.
Government housing will be government housing, not housing mixed in with the productive people. Yes, the Mayor can say "projects", and too damn bad for that. If people don't like them, they should work really really hard to get out of them, if they want to insist on being on the dole, they're not going to do so in comfort. The State DMV will be cross checked periodically to see if any resident of government housing owns a car younger than 8 years old. If so, the vehicle is confiscated and sold at auction to defray the costs of the owner's stay in government housing.
No cable TV in government housing. Internet is available at public libraries. No drugs in govenrment housing. No juveniles playing hookey or gang member in government housing. There's this place called "reform school", ideal for the budding young thug who dislikes learning things of a practical nature. No prositution, no crime of any sort.
Getting the picture? WE STOP TREATING OUR MENDICANTS AS OUR EQUALS. 'Cuz they're not.
Which isn't to say we violate the Fourteenth Amendment. All people insisting on getting government housing should be treated the same way.
And, to put everything in persespective, every resident of government housing MUST participate in Obamacare.
We will have lowered that person's consumption and at the same time maintained their dignity.
DIGNITY is a luxury people who can afford to feed their own families can afford. If someone is begging strangers for alms, they can damn well shove their dignity up their ass.
I can understand downsizing government to improve it's efficiency.
Do you understand the concept of downsizing government to get it back inside it's Constitutional limits? (Hint: That means no handouts.)
Those downsized will still have the option of challenging others for the existing jobs that pay better, but still have a guaranteed safety net that doesn't have an expiration date.
As that Mayor said, make government housing the basement. That's the "safety net".
Those in such a situation should have the willingness to work if asked when they have not found work on their own. We should all jump at the opportunity to pay our fair share,
The Mayor and millions and millions of Americans are anxiously waiting the time when they'll be paying their fair share.
Right now they're paying their fair share, and someone else's, too.
I think we should tax some big business too and only give them a break after the tax for downsizing in a similar manner to encourage an increase in productivity.
Absolutely....of course, there's no such thing as a tax on business. All businesses subject to tax do nothing more than fold the tax into the sale price of their product and expense the tax itself as part of the cost of doing business before computing the year's income. After all, income is defined as the difference between revenues and expenses.....didn't the Mayor just state that taxes are expensed? How convenient for the businesses. Their customers are paying their taxes for them.
We should drive less, it's probably the biggest energy sucker we have, if we look at it in Joules, not in relativistic market value. With those autos we weight four thousand pounds heavier than any of our ancestors. Lot of excess ass we are dragging around now. These mechanical beasts consume a lot of energy too, eats up the farm, eats us out of house and home. We should position ourselves better to ride mass transit, walk or ride bikes.
Your choice. Don't even think about enforcing that on the Mayor. His relationship with his two ton 10mpg van is more than decade long and won't be ending any time soon.
That can be encouraged with a gas tax that increases with consumption and decreases with lessened consumption.
You see anything in the Constitution allowing the Congress to tax people to alter behavior? No? That's because it's not there. Because that kind of power leads to the abuses that have brought this country to the fiscal straits its in.