I have worked in government in the past
I saw with mine own eyes how stupid, lazy, dumb, government workers can be
Sat alongside a high profile pair of women while they were discussing ways to make a bunch of money on property "deals"......one of them went to prison, the other should be but isn't because of, simply put she is better known. Not giving any names, but I was there in person listening to these two people make illegal decisions. About 30 some years ago mind you. I have seen decisions made by these hard working people that would make most cringe. Illegal, no. Frowned upon absolutely.
Lets look at something a different way. For an example, I worked 30 years at a Kubota dealer. Made about $50k/yr when I left including bonuses. Every single day was a huge challenge, who am I gonna make mad today because people don't walk in the door happy and as someone who worked in a shop with no air conditioning, in the summer (busy) months, I was always hot, sweaty, and generally in a poor mood. My pay was enough to pay my bills. The benefits left a lot to be desired, I had a boss who at any given time could unpredictably fire anyone for any reason (and yes I was fired twice in the last 2 years or so). In this state you can get fired for whatever reason they want, or no reason at all. Now compare that to the job I did at the capital. There were people working at the capital that were do-nothings. They would run letters back and forth between the governor's mansion and the capital. There were people who did nothing but answer the phone. There were people who, basically didn't do anything, even though they had official job titles that sounded "important". Take into consideration that these folks got paid as well as I did, and they had MUCH better benefits, and didn't have the nervousness of having a boss that would terminate them at any given moment for any particular (or no) reason. They were, government employees. One of them....you'll like this....had one of those important sounding official job titles. Well that job really didn't amount to much, was only required to be at 'work' one day out of 5 every week. The other 4 days? On the lake. He got good at fishing and with the job he did came good consultation with higher-up's in government, so he learned the in's and out's of how to get what he wanted. So he bought a $84,000 "bass" boat (brand new) and he uses it 4 days a week, every week, 12 months out of the year while he's "on call". He is a crappie guide and tournament angler locally. I know him well. Mind you his 'job' pays him for 40 hours plus any overtime he might get from a phone consulation while on the water. So while he's out there fishing he might get a call from someone who needs to know where to buy 2x4 studs (or whatever). 2 min phone call, the rest of the day catching slabs. Your (or our) government is paying for it. And by the way, this gentleman, I know him well. We grew up together.
Also government employees get all these days off that most of the rest of us don't. Paid vacation for MLK day, columbus day, every weekend off, this holiday that holiday....and the rest of us pay for it, while we are working on those same days.
An old girlfriend of mine whom I stay in contact with is an assistant to the governor. She is home every day. Running errands, doing things for herself like getting the hair done, nails, sit around the house a lot, she's even been fishing a bunch of times with my friend. Government job. Must be nice; I'll never know because I don't work for the government and don't have plans to. But to her, it's cute "hey look at me I'm fishing on government payroll".....
When I said if the gov would spend my tax dollars wisely, I'd have no problem with a tax increase, this is the kind of wasteful spending that I was referring to. It might not happen everywhere, but unless you actually know what's happening, you just don't.
Another kind of wasteful spending. When gov't buys somethign they usually buy on bids. Same for paving roads, which I will use for an example. They submit requests, then get bids whoever gets the lowest bid gets the contract. The lowest bid means the cheapest work, cheapest materials. I live out in the county (thank goodness) and they've been doing some pavement work on the highway up the road from the house. The work consists of filling in some holes. Filling in the holes means let's grab a pickup truck from the impound lot, toss some asphault in the bed and take a couple guys out with shovels and fill in the holes. And that's exactly what they do. The repair is piss poor! Toss some asphault in, run it over with the truck a couple times, and then call it "done"--while collecting a good bit of money for doing it. In less than 24 hours the "repair" is falling apart again. Wasteful spending. Just a couple examples of many.
