Is there a Successful Government Program, Anywhere?

The BREAK room does seem more appropriate for BROKEN programs (wink,wink)

If you clearly define your criteria for qualification as successful, replies that qualify as successful in their own right might also be easier to find.

It's like a control system. Private enterprise has a good connection between feedback and control. If I don't satisfy my customers, they will go to a competitor. In government programs, if the connection is there at all, it has a latency measured in years (the next election).

Stop shouting!

Post this in the breakroom so I don't have to reply to it!

But to be honest the tax programs are always very succesful.

The question is for who!

Capitalization of a title is not considered shouting.

"Sorry, I had intended for this to be posted in the Break Room and started out there, only to have it end up in the general section. Go figure.

Tax programs are successful not for the government, nor the common man, but only for those who can afford to pay someone else to game the system for them. (Layers and accountants) Like Apple.

How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes - The New York Times

The question is for me. For you to try to answer.

Please include examples and charts and graphs.

Actually, that chart cannot be on its (not it's) side, unless time is allowed to reverse.

Yes, but as the axes aren't labeled, no one's the wiser. That's actually a chart of Beers Consumed versus Trips to the Loo, if you must know.

Re it's: I made this e-card back in the day when I were a engineer. These days I have more time with which to attend to such minutae whilst having even less inclination to do so.

Yes, but as the axes aren't labeled, no one's the wiser. That's actually a chart of Beers Consumed versus Trips to the Loo, if you must know.

Either that or the vertical axis ranges from 100 to 102 or some such. It ought to be illegal to make a chart that doesn't start at the origin.

Don't be fooled: that's not really a chart, but a clever (and effective) diagnostic tool used by DARPA psychologists to flush out Obsessive/Compulsives in online engineering forums.

"But to be honest the tax programs are always very succesful."

Nope, the IRS wasn't very successful trying to destroy their drives.

"Sorry, I had intended for this to be posted in the Break Room and started out there, only to have it end up in the general section."

You must be government!

"You must be government!"
Nope! Non-profit. On time and under budget. I work for a municipality, they did it!

Well, given your error in where you tried to post this thread I would say you could use that as a resume for a government job. :-)

I'll just say that the question refers to the present (is) not the past (was).

Some of the programs were indeed beneficial, for their time.

Times have changed.

Pony Express? Really?

"Pony Express? Really?"

You haven't seen the mail delivery here. Pony Express would cut our mail delivery time in half.

You, obviously have not considered the environmental impact of horse poop all over the place.

The government agencies who will now have a stake are, at least:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (horse poop)

Employee Rights (Training to ride horses, training for displaced employees, training for American saddle makers, training for displaced drone operators)

Clean Air and Clean Water Acts (horse poop)

Consumer Product Safety Commission (slipping on horse poop)

Cooperative Extension Service (horse feed and distribution)

Environmental Protection Agency (horse poop, water pollution, personal liability for slipping on horse poop)

PETA

I grow weary just thinking about the implications.

Looks like you got it covered.

Maybe they could ride their superior's @ss instead?

Yes, but just think of how many more grants can be given out to study all the ramifications, and add to the boondoggle and lack of reports. I am sure that would make all the beaurocrats a happy bunch.

YEEEEHAAAAAWW.....

The original FedEx. Decades after they disbanded the Pony Express still held the record for the fastest mail delivery: St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in 7 days, 17 hours, including 'Pony Bob' Haslam's March, 1861 record that wouldn't be beat for another 50 years.

"Because of the importance of making fast delivery on President Lincoln's 1861 inaugural address, elaborate preparations had been made to speed the address from St. Joseph to Sacramento. A fresh pony was stationed every 10 miles along the 1,966 mile route. 'Pony Bob,' whose regular run was from Friday's Station to Fort Churchill, Nevada, was selected to make the ride over the trails from Smith's Creek to Fort Churchill, an especially hazardous section, as the warring Paiutes had been attacking travelers all through that area.

One story tells how Pony Bob received the mochila (the mailbag) with President Lincoln's address at Smith's Creek, Nevada and sped west, making the fastest run ever to Cold Springs, Nevada, one of the major stops along the trail to Fort Churchill. He had seen no Indians along the way, and this seemed too good to be true. At Cold Springs he asked for 'Old Buck,' not the fastest horse, but one noted for fighting against the Indians.

Mounted on Old Buck and on his way to Fort Churchill, Pony Bob found himself charging through a series of ambushes. Finally, Old Buck pointed his ears forward and snorted a warning as Haslam cocked his two guns and rode on. Indians came at him from all directions.

Dropped flat on his horse, Bob raced on as Indians boiled out of the brush, firing bullets and arrows from every direction. Soon he was surrounded by mounted warriors, several on stolen Pony Express ponies.

Old Buck could outrun the Indian ponies, but not the swift Pony Express ponies. Bob had no choice but to shoot the ponies as they approached him. One by one, Haslam got the Indian ponies until there were only three left. As these dropped back, an arrow struck Bob's left arm, hit the bone and remained there quivering. Haslam managed to get the arrow out and rode on through a narrow ravine that forced the Indians following him to fall into single file. He was able to shoot down two more Indian ponies, but the third escaped.

Tossing away one empty revolver, he took out the other one and turned to fire at the oncoming Indian. An arrow tore into his cheek, knocking out five teeth and fracturing his jaw. He did not lose consciousness but turned and emptied his gun at the remaining Indian. Old Buck carried him to Middle Gate Relay Station. There, Bob spent a few minutes caring for his wounds, but he insisted on finishing his run to Fort Churchill. In this remarkable episode, the famous Pony Express rider, badly wounded, had gone 120 miles in eight hours and 10 minutes under circumstances that make today's Wild West stories seem tame."

Excerpted from The Pony Express Rides Into History, USPS, 1970

I did not see the repeal of prohibition!

Nor did I see Congressional recess.

The Federal Reserve is a private (enterprise) company like McDonalds. It is not run by or controlled by the US Government. In fact, we don't even know which individuals own it. They don't have to tell us.

They have been given a charter to control the US money supply, much like you have been given a license to drive a car. That's an awful lot of power and control.

On the upshot, if this 3D printing technology continues to mature, I can see McDonalds (like the Federal Reserve), someday soon printing trillions and trillions of hamburgers. Maybe calling it Quantitive Eating III.

That's too funny.

"...The Federal Reserve is a private (enterprise) company like McDonalds...."

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The Fed is not Government Controlled, but it really isn't like McDonalds either.

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One important distinction is that it is not run as a for-profit company.

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Another important distinction is that it does not have individual owners and the stock cannot be traded. Member banks are required to invest funds to create Reserve Bank Stock, and that stock returns a flat 6% per year, but it is more like the shares you get when you become a member of a credit union. It is a set amount that establishes membership in that reserve bank.

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There is far too little oversight of the Fed. They have far too much unchecked power. That is a problem that is sufficiently dangerous to warrant efforts at correction. The other stuff is just ancillary, a distraction that makes it easier to paint as conspiracy nuts, anyone trying to work towards correcting the real problems with the Fed.

"One important distinction is that it is not run as a for-profit company."

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Really?

Yes, really.

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Your link doesn't provide any evidence to the contrary. It merely notes the opposition of noteworthy influential people in American history.

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I happen to share their opposition to the Fed, but not because it is secretly run my some vampiric foreign banking clan, siphoning off American greatness by operating the Fed as a for profit business. To claim such is a distraction obscuring the size and form that the real problem takes.

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The slight of heavy hand as well as the phosphorous smoke and one-way mirror illusions used to maintain value in the American dollar haven't tilted the playing field to the disadvantage of Americans...at least not short term. The significant efforts to those ends have allowed the experiment to continue.... testing how far the old maxim can be taken....'keep them overwhelmed with choices of cheap consumer goods and they won't notice/resist their actual liberty being curtailed'.

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No vampires needed.

IMHO - there is waste in any program (Government or private) where there are opportunities for fraud, duplication of effort, or abuse. These are all a function of a failure of management oversight and poorly constructed and enforced spending guidelines. I know from personal experience that expense accounts get padded, and programs do duplicate things. The bigger the program/project, the greater the waste to be found. The proudest moment for any program/project manager is when they come in ahead of time and under budget!

There are indications of bad politics in this thread. I'm not going there.

It's very easy to throw stones and recognize fraud, waste, and abuse in any organization whether public or private. Spit on soldiers much?

The soldiers are the ones perpetrating the waste fraud and abuse?

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I think it is more disrespectful to soldiers to attempt to use their sacrifices to shield from ridicule those who are actually responsible.... btw, you aren't going to find those actually responsible in the line of fire or making those kinds of personal sacrifices.

Soldiers, sailors, and airmen are all government workers, too. The topic is too broad.

I would call the military, in general, a very successful government program.

Bernie Madoff probably had a few secretaries and maybe a receptionist, but when I speak disparagingly about his operation I am not talking about those people, even though they worked there as well.

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I have to agree with you, this topic is far too broad.

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Even just using the term 'successful', without more specificity, is too broad.

Really!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This statement is ludicrous, misleading and completely misses the point of the thread, "soldiers, sailors, and airmen are all government workers".

I remind you of the topic: Government "Program".

We could have a discussion about wasteful, lazy, inept government workers, but this thread is about Government "Programs".

Were you unhappy with your military experience?

Your own #47 mentioned the DoD budget...overall. Really...do you even remember what you posted?

I am still enjoying my military experience.

I'm happy for you.

When the government messes up, there are millions of people to see it and condemn it. When a private enterprise messes up, it may never become public unless a disaster forces it into the public view. Government is accountable to the people, and in principle they can fire their politicians if things get bad enough. You can't fire the local PG&E facility that is leaking Chromium 6 into your water supply. But you might be able to get your government to arrest the people who do, or at least get them to stop. If you look at the difference between the food supply in the US and that in China being poisoned by cadmium, (Google "cadmium rice") it becomes clear that we cannot survive with modern capitalism without governmental regulations to prevent them from killing us all.

The first link in the subject blurb, about the Social Security system, is merely about spending 300 million on a computer system that it not yet ready, and Tom Coburn complained in the third link about the Obamacare website. If that were private enterprise, nobody would care. The CEO would write it off as a bad investment, or just say it is behind schedule, and that would be the end of it. But let the government do it and all of a sudden it is grounds for impeachment.

Don't kid yourself.

No successful, well run corporation would let $300 million dollars fly out the window without reining the responsible parties in long before that point.

Closer to home, for me, "The Department of Homeland Security on Friday canceled a project to build a technology-based "virtual fence" across the Southwest border, saying that the effort - on which $1 billion has already been spent - was ineffective and too costly."

From: Homeland Security Cancels 'Virtual Fence' After $1 Billion Is ...

Or,"The Homeland Security Department currently estimates that the virtual fence will cost about $8 billion through 2013, although the agency's inspector general wrote last November that the cost could balloon to $30 billion.

From: Boeing virtual fence: $30 billion failure | ZDNet

Whether a private company would let something like that slide may depend on whether it became public or not, and the actual size of the budget. If you had a company with a 4 trillion dollar budget, you may be excused for a failed "Edsel" costing only 300 million.

Companies write off R&D costs for failed projects all the time, and the most successful companies have had very large R&D costs. So the government tried a project that failed. You think that just because it is the government it should be immune to failure?

Seeing the government as some sort of panacea, or even as hope for improvement, is difficult to understand.

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The government is actually the thing that is hard to fire. Even if you change the management, you haven't 'fired' the organization. The local PG&E can be 'fired' in a number of ways without profound civil unrest.

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The belief that that we need the government to protect us from all the bad stuff is a dangerously bad idea. The worst things that have happened to the people have been government initiated. Private enterprise would really have to step up their game to begin to rival things like the 30 - 40 million deaths from starvation brought about by 'improvements' implemented in China's Great Leap Forward.

Seeing capitalism as a panacea is similar folly. There's few things more financially rewarding as high seas piracy. (It's good to remember that the blessed founding fathers hired pirate privateers for our early naval warfare. [Ironically Jefferson later moved on the Barbary pirates, but that's a different song.]) Many a historian attributes the slave trade to the Americas as promoting business profits. Every novel of Charles Dickens reveals the shriveling of a businessman's soul. Al Capone and Whitey Bulger were just trying to make a profit the old fashioned way, they stole it. Bernie Madoff.

My point is not what you think.

When anyone tries to defend a perspective by citing the most egregious acts of another perspective then it becomes obvious to me that a mind has closed.

Please, do not bring atrocities to the discussion.

The mention of the atrocity is just to note that nothing a private company has done even comes close to the harm that government initiatives have done.

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You are mistaken in the assumption that because I am critical of recommendations we see the safety of governments warm embrace that I believe capitalism is a panacea. I don't think capitalism can be fairly judged by what we have today, but I also know that the end game for capitalism, even if there were far fewer market distortions is pretty bleak. There is simply no avoiding the eventual point when efficiency gains have created a condition where workforce production capacity of goods services and all supporting elements exceeds the capacity to consume. Where in a communist model, this would mean more time off, in a capitalist model, this mean under employment, unemployment and a deflationary spiral. Don't jump to the wrong conclusion here, I am not a proponent of communism in large part, because i don't think it can get to that end game.

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Al Capone was made possible by the misguided ideas about the role of the government which lead to prohibition. It doesn't make sense to make the claim that he represents capitalism more clearly than he represents the unintended consequences of putting government into rolls it shouldn't be.

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The whole point of mentioning the consequences of the Great Leap Forward, instead of any number of other notable government missteps was not just to point at the horror as some sort of trump card. The consequences of the Great Leap Forward seem particularly well suited as a warning to those looking to government to keep them safe. Tens of millions starved, not because the government had weird ideas about ethnic cleansing or wanted resources from another area. They starved because the government had a better way to do things, and the power to put their plan in place. Not malice of intent, a deficit of experience and a lack of reservation/caution when it came to making profound changed to important things not fully understood.

Even when I believe that I briefly but methodically explain my point, you misunderstand.

When one supports their opinion with only extreme examples it often leads to just flames being thrown. Look at your reply to me, Canary's reply to you and your reply to Canary. I will not support this hijacking of a thread to stroke... No, I will not support this.

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If you return, please take a moment to briefly but methodically explain what part of my reply to you and to Canary, specifically, you consider to be 'just flames being thrown'.

The excesses of capitalism require an equally strong opposing force. Slavery is simply an extreme form of capitalism, and it took a powerful intervention by the government to halt it, even though it went against any conceivable form of morality and all religious teachings.

We can thank extreme capitalism for the invention of Communism, which was far, far worse, but could not have succeeded without widespread oppression of workers. In the US we took a less violent course when Teddy Roosevelt saved capitalism from a violent revolution by helping rein in the worst excesses. The only alternative to having government regulation is violent revolution. Even if the government is not efficient, there are worse evils out there than inefficiency.

Well you have demonstrated that it is possible to call lots of different things capitalism. At a certain point though, it just seems like you have decided 'capitalism' means 'anything bad'.

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The capitalism that I am referring to when I use the term, is one that uses the free market for pricing of goods and labor. In order for that free market to exist and set prices, the parties involved must be reasonably at liberty to offer terms, reject terms, sell or retain and ultimately mutually agree and execute a contracted transaction. Insuring the legal enforceability without resorting to thuggish means of legal contracts is one of the primary legitimate purposes of government in a capitalist system.

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As such, communism and slavery are inherently anti-capitalist as these systems make anything resembling free markets impossible for goods services and labor. You say communism is capitalism because you see communism as slavery, slavery as evil, and evil as capitalism, but that is a pretty absurd justification.

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Equally absurd is the idea that the worst that can happen by turning over your responsibility/relying on the the benevolence of the government regime, is that they might be a little inefficient.

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I do think you are right about one important point, "...The only alternative to having government regulation is violent revolution....". That does seem more and more to be true. These regulation are not simply going to undo themselves.

I'm really confused by your post. I tried to say that communism is far worse than capitalism, but was attractive to workers who were oppressed by the extremes of capitalism. I think one of my sentences was a bit ambiguous. Let me be clear: I believe communism is an appalling horror, and I agree it is inherently anti-capitalist. What I said was "We can thank extreme capitalism for the invention of Communism." I am not saying capitalists created communism. I am saying that people were so sickened by the excesses of capitalism that they turned to something that turned out to be even worse.

I am a firm believer in the free market as you describe. In fact, I am also a believer in regulated capitalism. I agree that one of the roles of government is to enforce contracts peacefully. I'll go even farther and say that the form of government creates the environment in which capitalism must exist, and determines whether you get Godfather capitalism, Somalian capitalism, Antebellum South capitalism, modern human trafficking capitalism, 19th century Robber Baron capitalism, Wall Street capitalism, Invasion of the Philippines capitalism, Banana Republic capitalism, or any of a wide variety of more attractive versions like Scandinavian capitalism.

Government is the only thing powerful enough to oppose the horrible exploitation that capitalism makes possible.

I also didn't say that the worst thing that can happen to government is that they might be inefficient. A lot of criticism I saw in the links is that government is wasteful and inefficient. I said, "Even if the government is not efficient, there are worse evils out there than inefficiency."

Some of those evils are the worst bits of capitalist excess. Some are the worst bits of governmental excess.

I did read your comment the other way. Your statements and position are very reasonable, and even agreeable to me, now with that clarification. Thanks.

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I still have concerns about the ultimate results of continually improving productivity/expanding automation for even virtuously well regulated capitalism, but it seems like the best among the choice.....agreeing on what exactly constitutes well regulated, achieving it and maintaining it; that's a whole new discussion.

Thanks, I think we agree on certain things. I also have concerns about the continual pressure to increase productivity, at the expense of the health, family, and even sanity of the workers.

As long as we have publicly traded companies and owners who demand continuous increases in PROFIT we will always have unrealistic pressure on productivity.

Wall Street doesn't care how good you were yesterday.

I also question the wisdom of squeezing the last penny of cost out of a product in the pursuit of profit, as in:

Bolt and Nut Selection

I could not agree more. I have believed for decades that there is a serious breakdown in morality and ethics in US society, in which the most powerful institutions in the country, the corporations, continually set an example of valuing nothing except money. Stockholders, or their stockbrokers, often see nothing but the return on investment, and do not care about how the CEO treats employees, the environment, society, and the government. The CEO says that his only responsibility is to provide the best return to the investors, and he or she communicates that to the rest of the companies from the upper level managers down to the bottom level employees.

Before I get a lot of responses, I believe that NOT ALL corporations do this, but the vast majority seem to. It seems to be taught in business school and law school.

Let it not be lost on us that consumers with their "I'll buy the cheapest effective product attitude" drive capitalism as much as "corporate greed".

I'm guilty....I will buy the US Corporate China sourced nail instead of the more expensive US manufactured ones.

We have collectively told corporations...either move your manufacturing to China or perish.

No. The government and their 40% tax rate has told corporations to move to China.

Like it or not, we now live in a global economy. As long as the US government is only concerned with growing itself and garnering more power over it's citizens, we will lose.

People in the US that involve themselves with crony capitalism should receive the death penalty if they are politicians, and life in prison if they are on the corporate side.

We'd never see another Solyndra...nor another bailout to keep union funds going to one party.

I'll buy that horse.

You want the freedom to attack the government, but without the government you wouldn't have freedom at all.

I, the OP, have never attacked the military. You jump to far with your assumptions.

But, don't try to tell me for a second that military programs are all without waste.

And don't try to tell me that there aren't soldiers who sandbag their way through the service.

"The military" hardly qualifies as a government program in the sense of things.

Individual military "programs" certainly qualify. They are located in states where the politicians will profit most from them. Regardless of the logic of the location. $$

"When the budget was signed into law on 28 October 2009, the final size of the Department of Defense's budget was $680 billion"

From:

Military budget of the United States - Wikipedia, the free ...

That's a VERY large chunk of our money.

Don't get your back up and wave a false flag of patriotism for our fighting men and women when that was never my intention, nor implication.

You'll find no false flags from me. You have the corner market.

And, the "market cornered".

Not sure where the burr under your blanket came from.

Government programs doesn't equate to enlisted men and women.

You can attach any incorrect assumption you choose to the thread.

In one sentence: I, the OP, have never attacked the military. You jump to far with your assumptions.

And yet, in the very next sentence...But, don't try to tell me for a second that military programs are all without waste.

Ludicrousness...

I'm not attacking military personnel, although you make a good case for questioning the intelligence of some of them.

PROGRAMS??????????????PROGRAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not people.

You would have us believe that no waste has EVER occurred in a military program?????????????????????????????????????

You can't possibly be serious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"....without the government you wouldn't have freedom at all...."

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That is a pretty big assertion to run up the flag pole without even a hint of justification. Care to expound a bit further?

Haven't you ever noticed how countries without stable and lawful governments work out for the little people?

This isn't civics class.

That the present paradigm would unflinchingly accept the idea of 'lawful' governments and by contrast 'unlawful' governments says a lot about the lack of belief people have in the existence of sovereignty and their resignation to the current hegemony.

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In answer to your question, but leaving the idea of 'lawful' out of it; there isn't really much opportunity to observe how things work out in a situation as you suggest.

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I can tell you that great tragedy for multitudes of little people is often justified as efforts to establish a stable government. It is also not hard to think of examples where the stability of the government vanquished hope far more than it promises thing will work out well for the little people.

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There are certainly examples where government clearly advocates for the benefit of the people and is a net benefit to the people on whole. So understand, that I am not saying that government is inherently evil or always bad.

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What I am saying is that there is far too much evidence of the harm caused by governments to make claims that even stable 'lawful' governments are of net benefit to the people. There are crucial additional criteria required before such a statement can even approach being thought of as reasonable. Those additional criteria are not trivial, well-of-course, no-reason-to-waste-thought/breath-on-that considerations.

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Even if this were your civics class, it would still be a good idea to think for yourself and have the courage to question what you think you know/have been taught.

Ever since the American Revolution, the idea of a "lawful government" is a government that is accepted by the people, as measured by free and well-informed elections. I am satisfied with that definition of "lawful." I also think that elections are swayed by powerful forces, but that is a different topic.

I think my opinion on both capitalism and communism comes down to accountability. Bad governments and bad capitalism are similar in their ability to ignore the consequences of their actions. Communism failed for many reasons, but a big one was that it did not provide for any way for the effects of bad decisions to affect the decision-makers. Same for capitalism. If the CEO's had to drink the polluted water coming out of their tap, the pollution would stop. Capitalism will fail without the presence of government to force it to be accountable to the people it harms. Many governmental systems have been proposed that claim to do this, but in practice the accountability is imposed rather than emergent. Islam is a form of government in which unelected rulers are supposed to distribute justice to its people. In practice, when the rulers become corrupt, the people have no recourse.

Democracy on the other hand provides accountability in a very obvious way that emerges from the system itself. The rulers have to keep winning elections. To do so the people have to be satisfied with them. Democracy is not designed to be efficient. The really big advantage that democracy has is that it allows the people to "throw the bums out" peacefully, without having to make war against the king, the army, the police, etc.

I don't think people are resigned to the current hegemony, by which I mean the various powerful forces that seem to have seized our government around the throat. I think they are very satisfied with the concept of democracy, even if seeing the details may be like watching sausage being made. But some people think the answer to those details is to get rid of government itself, and I think they are just inviting a completely different form of government to rise, probably government by warlords in which the things we take for granted, like being able to enforce contracts or complain about pollution, vanish.

I think we agree strongly on the important definitions and the constructive ideals.

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We do seem to have some differences in our understanding of current realities.

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I don't see the electorate on whole as well informed. I agree they are heavily inundated with information, but the type and quality isn't adequate to warrant description as being well informed.

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I also don't consider most elections, especially at the highest level, to be 'free'. Being allowed to participate in the dilemma of selecting between two carefully compromised individuals beholden to assertive interests often not aligned with the welfare of the populace, is far from what I consider a free election. There is a difference between swaying opinion and controlling the available choices.

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In some ways the promise of being able to 'throw the bums out' is overly optimistic. It does not apply to most of the bureaucracy. Some of the most important parts are incredibly insulated from public displeasure. SCOTUS comes to mind.

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I'm actually not in favor of attempting to abolish government, in part because I don't think that can be maintained. But I think our justification for whatever government we^{_{, perhaps delude ourselves into believing we,}} choose, needs better justification than 'without it warlords will take over'. Given our continual involvement over the last may decades in cold wars, hot wars, regime overthrow, extraterritorial policing and other ops, overt and covert, it wouldn't be hard for me to understand how it might be hard for some people to believe that our duly elected officials are all that different from warlords. I don't necessarily agree with that, but I don't have any problem understanding how someone might arrive at that conclusion.

I don't think I differ with you on current realities. I see all the things you mention. I also see a long term trend in fixing them, with many bumps and setbacks in the road. As I said in my reply to Lyn, the US has a strong cultural identity of fixing what's broken, and a long history of facing huge problems, improving them, and still surviving and going on to the next problem.

I also have great hope in the millennial generation and the generations following them. I have seen polls that say they are overwhelmingly accepting of other cultural groups, LGBT groups, environmental concerns, campaign finance issues, etc. There will be a huge cultural shift in the next few decades. In 20 years the boomer generation will be fading, for better or worse, and the millennials will be taking their place.

I have the courage.

I took an oath.

Twenty-seven years ago I took up arms to support the so-called empirical hegemonies, corporate oligarchies, and geopolitical sphere of the United States of America.

I haven't given in yet. I support one country...to do otherwise is treasonous. I support the United States of America and her people and fight for their common defense and no other's.

I am the product of a successful government program.

You need to look up sarcasm in the dictionary. I disregarded your "response" in the first paragraph.

Honestly...

I will support and defend the Constitution....

I don't question it before following lawful orders

Understanding the UCMJ, laws of the land, SOFA's, a smidgen of varied UN conventions, etc.

I've never been given an order too heinous, so it's not been too hard.

So if it's only a little bit heinous, that's cool?

Talk about Government waste:

The House is scheduled to be in session in Washington a total of 133 days this year. The Senate will be in session about the same amount or a few days more. We pay these losers $174K a year to do nothing but bicker and raise funds for their next election.

But wait, there's more. The total operating cost, staff/office/expenses for our 535 members is over $800 MILLION dollars every year.

Do you think they are worth it?

That's about 4 of my dollars, so yeah, they're worth it.

An interesting point. The population of the US is estimated to be about 318 million people. The population of Long Island is estimated to be about 7.5 million people. I can guarantee you that Long Island does not get even 0.1% of the Federal tax dollar even though we're more than 2% of the population.

So knock it off already.

[My gripe is not aimed at you, Tornado. ]

Your guarantee isn't so great

and another

and again

this is too easy!

I love Google...

I hate to burst your bubble, but it seems to me that you have a difficulty in reading comprehension or basic math. The US revenue for just fiscal year 2013 is estimated at about 3 trillion dollars. 0.1% of 3 trillion dollars is 3 billion dollars. The numbers of your citations, you hopefully did not read, are for projects over many years and are several orders of magnitude less than my proffered 0.1%.

It would appear that some people do actually work.

That's the claim, anyways.

I only work 135 days a year (1080 hours). That's a full-time job at 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday, weekends and federal holidays off...lunch is not included.

Overtime is not authorized (paid) but is expected.

On time is late.

You are delusional if you think working 1080 hours a year is working full time.

But then, You've never made any sense anyway.

Your opinion of yourself has always been highly overinflated, as it is in the case of your "full time" job.

Care to prove how working a mere 135 days a year could possibly be considered having a full time job?

Is this your first day back at work this year?

Whoops, sorry...that's 2,080 hours...260 days

Ah, well...Congress...but that's only the days they have in session. The rest of the year is chock full, I am sure.

I'll save my insults for later.

Let me guess. You work in the Government Accounting Office. Right?

Cheers.

Yes, it does seem like it.

Well, it sounds like we won't have Tink to kick around anymore.

We're gonna need some more goats, I guess.

It's easy to understand now how we got into the fiscal bottomless pit we're in today.

Tink actually divided 1080 by 8 to arrive at a 135 day work year. A very forgiving person might over look the 1080 for 2080 hours mistake, but to actually follow it up with 135 days? Even a blind man can't overlook that.

Bye bye Tinkie.

Do we really believe he's gone??

Gone...? He's not gone....he's never gone! It's some kind of radical new therapy!

Goon squad unite...nice to see you all in one place...easier to slop all the pigs at once!

Admin hasn't caught on, yet. You old farts need to shoot straighter...

I still have a job...for the gov't...ain't much you can do about it...

...complain all you want...that's the least and most you can do. My opinions are just as guaranteed as anybody else's...especially on a commercial forum.

crybabies.

I knew it was too much to hope for.

Every time you post (when you should be working) you prove my point about government waste more eloquently than I ever could.

I doubt that you are even productive 135 times in a year, let alone working that many days.

I grow weary of you. Go away and feed at another trough.

How do you know when I am working?

Posting on CR4 isn't my job...so I am not "working" when lobbing jabs at old farts on the internet.

I nominate you as CR4 Troll Supreme.

.

I congratulate you for embodying the motto, "Whatever you are going to be, be the best at it."

He's just an arrogant government worker who wastes his time trolling us while he's getting paid with our hard earned tax dollars.

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I don't doubt that there are lazy non-profits, just as there are lazy government workers and useless government programs. Not referring to you.

My non-profit exists because we can perform the tasks we do much more inexpensively than the local municipal government, with much lower overhead.