I'm afraid for the Republican Party

[stella]

If I were a republican, I wouldn't know what to think! Carson was never qualified to hold office in the first place, but now he's just come out as having zero credibility.
Trump is a bigoted buffoon.
Carly Fiorina has problems with separating facts from her opinions
Rubio's credibility diminishes ever time he opens his mouth. Really? We need more welders? Have we checked the unemployment number for the trades recently?
Kasich: Too much God and not enough reality
Christy is a criminal
Cruz .....well, he's just weird. Sorry. He's got some odd ideas. Way too Tea Party
I'd like to like Rand Paul but he seems like such a puppet for the Tea Party.

IMO their best hope is if Jeb! really does fix it.

[nightlace]

I'm afraid for the United States, if one of the far right-wing Republicans gets elected.

By the way, Rand Paul has told me that he will NEVER compromise. His way or the highway. He is in favor of shutting down the Federal Government is he doesn't get his way. He doesn't care about the billions it costs the economy, small businesses, individuals, and the Federal Government because getting his way is most important.

Another interesting Rand Paul fact: He advocates selling all the national parks and federal lands. Wonder what Yellow Stone would look like with oil drilling equipment and oil wells all over it? Wonder what the Grand Canyon will look like with shopping malls conveniently located within the old Park borders?

[Chancellor]

So am I stella....so am I. And I AM a registered Republican.

[WheresMyWhite]

I'm not so sure any president can get away with NEVER compromising. They may say that won't but there is still congress unless that president wants to rule by executive order and that could get, IMO, extremely nasty and ugly in pretty short order.

Rand Paul may say he wants to sell national parks and federal lands... don't mean he can just put up a For Sale By Owner sign...

At the moment, POTUS is not a supreme ruler and I sure hope that never happens...

[boots-aregard]

The problem that the Republican Party has is the Tea Party. The Tea Party isn't (yet) a *real* party insofar as it doesn't seem to have an approach to actually governing other than "Oppose everything! Cut government to zero!" neither of which are a forward-moving, future oriented strategy. But the Republicans haven't figured out how to deal with them.

Newt Gingrich started the whole scorched earth policy that has winnowed their top field into firebrands (and nothing more). Now they are suffering the backlash of that bad idea.

The Republican Party ideals -- the 'old' ones, if you will allow me to designate them that way -- are not bad ideals in and of themselves. A focus on industry, small government, a strong defense... But those ideals have been turned inside out by the Tea Party, and the Republicans either need to corral those folks or cut them lose. You can't govern by refusing to govern.

[M&M]

I do wish we would have a smaller government by cutting ridiculous waste, rather than programs.

[boots-aregard]

I do wish we would have a smaller government by cutting ridiculous waste, rather than programs.

Virtually every politician for the last 30 years has said this was tops on their agenda. Either (1) why is it so hard to do? or (2) most of it's been done.

[Spiritpaws]

I am afraid for both parties. The democrats may not be as splintered or dysfunctional as the republicans, but the dems also are really lacking in vision.

We have to get money out of politics. Really can't move the country forward when it is controlled by corporate and special interests.

[nightlace]

I do wish we would have a smaller government by cutting ridiculous waste, rather than programs.

Virtually every politician for the last 30 years has said this was tops on their agenda. Either (1) why is it so hard to do? or (2) most of it's been done.

Many years ago, a friend took over managing the dental facility at a major military installation in Europe. After carefully evaluating the services offered, he increased services and outreach to soldiers. But he cut costs $500K by carefully monitoring orders of equipment and dental materials. He was very proud of his accomplishments.

However, about 2 months before the end of the fiscal year, his Commander called him in & berated him for not spending his budget. His Commander ordered him to spend all the money in his budget and to request a 20% increase in his budget for the next year.

I think this demand to increase departmental budgets probably occurs throughout local, state, and federal government. It's a protective mechanism to make sure the department has enough funds and power. Bloated budgets are no joke.

[Tabby]

I do wish we would have a smaller government by cutting ridiculous waste, rather than programs.

Virtually every politician for the last 30 years has said this was tops on their agenda. Either (1) why is it so hard to do? or (2) most of it's been done.

In Canada, we just emerged from 10 years of rule by a government that is very much like your republicans with a touch of tea party. They ran all their election campaigns on smaller government and less regulations. What they actually did was eliminate a variety of public services (most environmental sciences, oceans and fisheries, food inspectors etc.) but increased things like security and the Prime Minister's Office (aka the people that control messaging). They also deregulated all kinds of industries - removed environmental protections, safety protections, labour protection etc., all the while increasing regulations on individuals (many of which proved to be unconstitutional and many more just haven't made it through the system yet). The end result was 10 straight years of deficits, huge debt (they inherited a surplus), loss of services, food borne disease outbreaks, environmental disasters, train derailment disasters (including one that destroyed an entire town days after the gov't said it was ok for them to run with one engineer working 20 hour shifts), boycotts on our meat from the US (because we didn't have food inspectors), increased retirement age, increased hours of the work week, union-busting laws and on and on and on. It will take us twice as long to repair the 10 years of damage that they did.

I ask you - do you really understand what they mean by small government? Because it truly isn't what you think it is and it doesn't save the money that you think it will.

[WheresMyWhite]

However, about 2 months before the end of the fiscal year, his Commander called him in & berated him for not spending his budget. His Commander ordered him to spend all the money in his budget and to request a 20% increase in his budget for the next year.

I think this demand to increase departmental budgets probably occurs throughout local, state, and federal government. It's a protective mechanism to make sure the department has enough funds and power. Bloated budgets are no joke.

If there is a mandated balanced budget, this will occur much less frequently. I reviewed a county budget (along with others) every year for 6 years (until I moved). The budget was mandated by state statute to be balanced. I don't think I ever saw a department or office asking for more $ than previous without an explanation or justification for the increase. And every year I reviewed the budget, there was often one-time expenses that were not approved because there were no dollars to spend.

Get the Feds to balance their budget and I think many issues with waste would go away.

[WheresMyWhite]

I do wish we would have a smaller government by cutting ridiculous waste, rather than programs.

They are, IMO, one and the same... I would venture that almost every "program" has some amount of waste. Of course politicians are going to say this is a top priority because the population wants to hear that. Once they are elected, they have other fish to fry and congress to deal with...

Back to my balanced budget.

[Chancellor]

Yes, a balanced budget would be nice.
In what real world scenario do you get to say, Oh I need more money....and tax the people you are governing? It's just plain wrong....
Interestingly, taxation without proper representation is what this country started on.....I don't feel like I am properly represented in Congress!

[WheresMyWhite]

Chancellor... I can only speak to my former state, CO, the home and origin of TABOR (TAxpayers Bill Of Rights). There are aspects of TABOR I do not like but it requires every tax increase to go before the voters (state and local).

Colorado already, I believe, had the balanced budget in place before TABOR.

Jurisdictions have gotten around "tax increases" by calling them "fees" but whoever tries this often gets called out on it.

Something else that I found very helpful before general elections was what was referred to as the Blue Book which, among other things, had each proposed amendment or law with actual language, an easier to read version, pro's/con's and financial impact... what it would cost to implement and any proposed income from fees.

What often wasn't covered well was changes at the state (or federal) level placing the onus on local government for implementation without any associated funds expecting the local entity to figure that out.... the 'unfunded mandate'.

[Chancellor]

States are required to have a balanced budget (So Jeb Bush stating that he has balanced budgets etc is really no big deal). But I am talking about the federal level.

[M&M]

Cutting waste and cutting programs are so very much not the same. Cutting programs = the small government Tabby describes.

Before I used this as an example, I tried to find information verifying it's veracity (see what I did there? ) but I believe that the $640 toilet seat and the $37 screws were a true story. It was a military supplier that charged them that, but on the one hand, there are so many people doing little, tiny jobs (by which I mean truly limited job descriptions, with lots of overlap with the person in the next cubicle, but never the twain shall meet) and yet, no one caught this ridiculous pricing.

All the jokes about filing paper in triplicate and excessive paperwork and underutilized employees came from somewhere.

[WheresMyWhite]

M&M, IMO those $640 toilet seats and $37 screws come from lack of a balanced budget. I used to work in an area that sold equipment to the feds... saw lots of the 'spend your whole budget this year so you get as much or more next year'. Never really head of an incentive to actually spend less $.

The feds can just go into debt and print more $$... something that state and local governments and individuals don't get to do (they can go into debt but not print $$).

A candidate can say all they want that they will force a federal balanced budget. I don't see it happening as congress loves to spend $, particularly on their favorite programs and those programs that benefit their electorate.

If I was queen for a day, I'd state with a mandated, enforceable (no idea how to do that) federal balanced budget.

[Chancellor]

I know someone (not going to say who) who said that he likes government jobs the best. They can screw around and then get a TON of overtime for doing the rest of the work to finish on time. Why? Because they can.
THAT is a big part of the problem.
There seems to be no controlling that kind of thing. The Big Dig in Boston? The one we paid a fortune for? They are having so many issues which should be covered by warranty. But they are not. The government just pays out more. If I put a tunnel in my yard and the light fixture bolts weren't holding up appropriately, would I be expected to just eat the cost of new bolts? NO! But apparently, the government IS

[Tabby]

I can speak a little about government budgets. I worked 3 years for the US Federal government and 13 years for my provincial government in Canada. There were differences in the details but the underlying problems are virtually the same. For both countries I worked in a lab so my views may be different than that of an office worker but I'm sure they illustrate some of the difficulties.

When I was in the US, we had a phenomenal budget. It seemed unlimited except that we couldn't make a single purchase over $1000. That might seem like a lot of money but most analytical lab equipment costs far more than that, as do many of the specialized reagents. It meant finding creative (and more expensive) ways to buy them. There was also a push at the time to support small companies so even if a big distributor sold it for less, you had to buy it from the small company. Actually, I'm not opposed to that practice at all and wish my current employer did something similar, but it did cost more. Also, we could only buy from lab suppliers. There are an unbelievable number of common, household items that are required by laboratories: microwave ovens, dish racks, batteries, nuts, bolts and other hardware etc. Most of these things are pretty cheap in the retail world but if you buy them from a lab supplier, the markup can be 5000% or more. It's pretty disgusting, actually. These were all policies set by someone higher up. They were designed to make purchasing fair and to ensure the government got what it paid for. Except it didn't work when you got down to the details like nuts and bolts. I wasn't involved in purchasing major equipment or approving travel but I'm sure there were some equally asinine rules there.

Here in Canada we have similar policies that end up costing taxpayers. We have to get 3 quotes for everything. One guy spent half a day getting quotes for flints for the bunsen burner lighters. The flints cost $0.50. He was making roughly $40 an hour including benefits. So that's $160 spent on purchasing under $5 worth of supplies. When they did lay-offs back in 2010 - these were mandatory layoffs because some politician promised the public to reduce public service - they laid off all the secretaries. Now menial tasks such as answering the phone and filling out co-op student time sheets is done by the assistant director who makes about $130K per year. Scientists have had a bunch of administrative tasks downloaded to them. Their hourly wage far exceeds what the laid-off secretaries used to make. And they're doing less science as a result. The worst is travel requests. We did a brief survey in our branch and the average travel request takes about 72 hours of the requester's time, plus something equivalent of someone in the approver's office. Often travel requests don't get approved until a day or 2 before the event when flights and hotels are 3 times the price that they were when the travel request was first submitted. Another great waste. This is all thanks to various government big wigs taking advantage of travel (they guy that got the military helicopter to take him fishing and the woman who bought orange juice for $16). They tell the public they've closed loop holes but all they've really done is tighten up on underling travel. Peter McKay has taken that helicopter out again since he was caught and probably will again even though he's no longer even an MP. I never ever had authority to take a military helicopter yet they've put the restrictions on me. It's all politics.

Anyway, there's a lot of ways that budget gets wasted and it can make you sick to your stomach. But it's still a drop in the bucket compared to the corporate bailout checks and back room deals that go on in both countries. We scrounge around to save a couple of hundred dollars but the government signs billion dollar secret deals with companies who end up declaring bankrupsy, firing all their employees and screwing their pensioners whilst paying their CEO millions in bonuses (google US Steel or Caterpillar for this story). So you can "balance" all you want but until you get the corporations out of the government chambers, there will be no such thing as a balanced budget and taxpayers are essentially paying, indirectly, for the right to be screwed over by their employers.

[stella]

As Trump becomes more and more frightening, I continue to hope for a knight in shining armor for the Republicans to throw his hat in the ring. What are your thoughts on this guy?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Baker