America's Hugo Chavez

All talk. All for the people. Don’t look at the numbers. Don’t look at the results.

Record government spending. What is there to show for it? Record government employment and record government deficits. Record average government salaries. Record congressional paychecks. Record levels of congressional staff levels and overhead costs. Record congressional pensions (watch the hard working servants scramble for the exits and their pension checks.) Record US debt levels.

Forced public ownership of major private and semi private businesses. Forced public ownership of banks that were deemed too big to fail and now are bigger than ever. Forced public ownership of two of the three major domestic automobile manufacturers with even more public moneys being forced into their declining activities. Forced ownership of the major residential lending entities in the United States with no disclosure about the real value of their “asset” holdings. Blank checks to operations that should be bankrupt with any salvageable portions professionally managed.

Record high US population and workforce with growing unemployment and growing failure to offer any form of employment opportunities to the undereducated and the lower socio-economic participants. Large numbers of citizens simply dropping out of the workforce. Where is the reconciliation between the government supporting high federal, state and municipal employment numbers, record high government wages and not providing any assistance to business in the form of reduced taxes, reduced unemployment insurance cost, reduced workmen’s compensation cost and reduced health insurance costs? Instead the chatter suggests new taxes, new fees all camouflaged in anti business rhetoric.

No responsibility or accountability applied to any government agency, any government agency head, any government agency supervisor or employee. What happens when the job is not done at all or not done properly? Why is there never a termination when there is obvious failure; never a demotion; never a reduction in force? Instead we hear, “Systemic failure.” What the dickens is a “systemic failure?” This government is all about employing people – tens, hundreds of thousands of them. It’s not systemic, folks. It’s people. It’s bad management; bad purposes; bad follow-up; bad supervision and no accountability. It’s Venezuela!

When people who never faced being terminated for any reason or no reason (TheFundamentals definition of “real life experience’) run the largest entity in history, the government of the United States, does it surprise anyone that they will not cut back on employment, will not hold managers and supervisors and employees responsible for measurable results and will not apply routine cost cutting processes and efficiency and productivity improvement steps to their activities? Is there anyone on the face of the earth living outside of the Washington DC Beltway who doesn’t know that this government does little more than employ the unemployable? Why should anyone go to work where they might get fired; might have to save some of their earnings for retirement; might have to actually show up when it snows? Can’t we all work for the government? Then no one would work for those nasty private, profit making companies. You know, the ones that discriminate and abuse and don’t pay living wages. You know the ones which pay the taxes that are used to pay the government employees.

Ten short months from now, on November 2, 2010, it would be better to not vote than to vote for any representative, senator or state and municipal official who will not demand, support, introduce and vote for an immediate 5% cut in all government “entitlement” payments; an immediate 10% across the board cut in all government employment; an immediate 15% across the board cut in all other government expenditures and an immediate commencement of a 5% debt repayment program. It’s a simple concept: 5 + 10 + 15 = 5% reduction in debt. Let’s rebuild a strong America with a declining national debt.

The United States simply cannot survive eight years of Bush’s fiscal promiscuity and sophomoric leadership followed by four years of an American Chavez.