February 7, 2008
By: Sid Riley
This column presents a non-partisan, conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items which are impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and that it occasionally influences your opinions and actions. Now, on to the subject of the week:
"Just Who Is The Server and Who Is The Servee In Our System of Government?"
We often hear our beloved politicians and assorted varieties of "crats" brag about how many years of devoted "public service" they have given in their careers. Their statements once impressed me and built an emotion of gratitude for what they were doing.
Those feelings have long since evaporated as I aged and came to realize what was really going on.
This past Friday the usually liberal sided USA Today newspaper had a front page feature titled "Public Jobs See Pay Gains" written by their staff writer Dennis Cauchon. I found this article to contain some revealing information worthy of presentation in this column.
Their article described how state and local government workers nation wide are enjoying tremendous gains in compensation and benefits, while the private sector struggles and lags far behind. They stated that the bureaucrats now earn an average of $39.50 per hour of combined wages and lucrative benefits, as compared to only $26.09 for workers in the public sector. They stated that benefits are the biggest portion of the growing differential.
Companies have been forced to ask their workers to trim pension benefits and to pay an increased share of medical benefits cost due to increased international competition, government regulation, and taxation. No reductions ever occur for government workers. The 2.7 million federal workers are not included in the data. The unfairness of the overall situation would be shown to be even more significant had the data included the federal "fat crats".
In my opinion, the same unfair situation exists here in Jackson County. The figures might be somewhat different, but the condition presented is essentially the same. Our State and Local Government workers total compensation would be significantly higher than that of our local workers, and the gap is growing.
Folks, that’s just not the way it was intended to be. They have enacted laws, regulations, and rules that protect their interest at the expense of the public. They have access to our pocket books and continue to dig deeper and deeper as they expand their numbers, activities, and influence on our lives……It is wrong!
In this case the "servant" has become the "overlord", living high and well while the public is exploited. It has evolved into a situation not unlike that of the poor, exploited sharecropper who does all the work and then sees the rewards go to someone else. We are expected to just pay our assortment of taxes, hundreds of assorted fees, licenses, fines, penalties, and surcharges and keep our mouths shut.
Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worthy of Mention-
♦ The front page story about the eighteen month struggle by James Grant trying to get bureaucratic approval to build on four lots he owns is revealing. What is truly ironic is that he was one of the initial building inspector "code-a-crats" and is today struggling because he has been forced to relinquish his property rights to the whims of the bureaucracy. I would imagine he feels he initially sponsored a program which was intended to provide protection to the public from unscrupulous builders, a program has since turned into a bureaucratic monster.
♦ It would appear the maze of "codalistic" terminology which contradicts and counter-contradicts itself has allowed the "crats" in charge to engage in individual interpretations and self directed actions in some instances. Our building codes and comprehensive plans and Florida statutes are overlapping and combining to create a situation similar to the tax code used by our most benevolent IRS.
♦ Many citizens are getting involved with the issue of our Commissioners spending $18 million tax dollars on a new county administrative building while suitable and much less expensive space is available. I agree that some action should be taken to accomplish the needed consolidation of the various functions in order to improve efficiency, eliminate lease costs, and to improve accessibility and service to the public as they pay their fees, taxes, and purchase the many licenses and other requirements placed on them by county government. For the commissioners to do nothing and merely hide their heads in the sand would also be a demonstration of poor judgment and lack of ability to make decisions. It would appear to me that they should get serious about the vacant facilities at hand, such as the Wal-Mart/Sallie Mae building.
♦ At the chamber’s First Friday breakfast Rep. Coley and Rep Brown eased the concerns of our local bureaucracy by stating the net reduction in Jackson County’s funding levels because of Amendment One would be very slight. Government just refuses to consider tightening its belt and cleaning up its waste the way industry does when recessions and slow downs occur. Please reread the portion of this article on the growth in wages for the bureaucracy and then consider the bureaucratic approach to tough economic times.
♦ Well, we are moving closer and closer to electing a new president. The choices we make will have potential for moving our nation deeper into socialism if we do not evaluate the candidates very closely. Vote wisely this year, it is critical. Do this, stay involved in local issues…..and you will be "Getting It Right!"
"Just Who Is The Server and Who Is The Servee In Our System of Government?"
We often hear our beloved politicians and assorted varieties of "crats" brag about how many years of devoted "public service" they have given in their careers. Their statements once impressed me and built an emotion of gratitude for what they were doing.
Those feelings have long since evaporated as I aged and came to realize what was really going on.
This past Friday the usually liberal sided USA Today newspaper had a front page feature titled "Public Jobs See Pay Gains" written by their staff writer Dennis Cauchon. I found this article to contain some revealing information worthy of presentation in this column.
Their article described how state and local government workers nation wide are enjoying tremendous gains in compensation and benefits, while the private sector struggles and lags far behind. They stated that the bureaucrats now earn an average of $39.50 per hour of combined wages and lucrative benefits, as compared to only $26.09 for workers in the public sector. They stated that benefits are the biggest portion of the growing differential.
Companies have been forced to ask their workers to trim pension benefits and to pay an increased share of medical benefits cost due to increased international competition, government regulation, and taxation. No reductions ever occur for government workers. The 2.7 million federal workers are not included in the data. The unfairness of the overall situation would be shown to be even more significant had the data included the federal "fat crats".
In my opinion, the same unfair situation exists here in Jackson County. The figures might be somewhat different, but the condition presented is essentially the same. Our State and Local Government workers total compensation would be significantly higher than that of our local workers, and the gap is growing.
Folks, that’s just not the way it was intended to be. They have enacted laws, regulations, and rules that protect their interest at the expense of the public. They have access to our pocket books and continue to dig deeper and deeper as they expand their numbers, activities, and influence on our lives……It is wrong!
In this case the "servant" has become the "overlord", living high and well while the public is exploited. It has evolved into a situation not unlike that of the poor, exploited sharecropper who does all the work and then sees the rewards go to someone else. We are expected to just pay our assortment of taxes, hundreds of assorted fees, licenses, fines, penalties, and surcharges and keep our mouths shut.
Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worthy of Mention-
♦ The front page story about the eighteen month struggle by James Grant trying to get bureaucratic approval to build on four lots he owns is revealing. What is truly ironic is that he was one of the initial building inspector "code-a-crats" and is today struggling because he has been forced to relinquish his property rights to the whims of the bureaucracy. I would imagine he feels he initially sponsored a program which was intended to provide protection to the public from unscrupulous builders, a program has since turned into a bureaucratic monster.
♦ It would appear the maze of "codalistic" terminology which contradicts and counter-contradicts itself has allowed the "crats" in charge to engage in individual interpretations and self directed actions in some instances. Our building codes and comprehensive plans and Florida statutes are overlapping and combining to create a situation similar to the tax code used by our most benevolent IRS.
♦ Many citizens are getting involved with the issue of our Commissioners spending $18 million tax dollars on a new county administrative building while suitable and much less expensive space is available. I agree that some action should be taken to accomplish the needed consolidation of the various functions in order to improve efficiency, eliminate lease costs, and to improve accessibility and service to the public as they pay their fees, taxes, and purchase the many licenses and other requirements placed on them by county government. For the commissioners to do nothing and merely hide their heads in the sand would also be a demonstration of poor judgment and lack of ability to make decisions. It would appear to me that they should get serious about the vacant facilities at hand, such as the Wal-Mart/Sallie Mae building.
♦ At the chamber’s First Friday breakfast Rep. Coley and Rep Brown eased the concerns of our local bureaucracy by stating the net reduction in Jackson County’s funding levels because of Amendment One would be very slight. Government just refuses to consider tightening its belt and cleaning up its waste the way industry does when recessions and slow downs occur. Please reread the portion of this article on the growth in wages for the bureaucracy and then consider the bureaucratic approach to tough economic times.
♦ Well, we are moving closer and closer to electing a new president. The choices we make will have potential for moving our nation deeper into socialism if we do not evaluate the candidates very closely. Vote wisely this year, it is critical. Do this, stay involved in local issues…..and you will be "Getting It Right!"
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