Too big a bite of the pie.

[gallantwarrior]

Finally, government manages to do something for the people they are suppposed to be working for. When the (now) Sen. Mark Bagitch (D-Ak) vacated his previous position as mayor of Anchorage, he left a tidy return for the public union goons' "investment" in the best government they could buy, courtesy the Anchorage taxpayers. During his last days as mayor, Bagitch handed the unions everything they wanted, including an unprecedented five-year contract that included both hefty annual pay increases and lavish benefits packages.
Now, weeks before those golden contracts are due to be renegotiated, the Anchorage Assembly has passed a rewrite of city labor laws that "level the playing field". This time, the unions do not hold all the cards and this mayor and assembly are apparently paying closer attention to their constituents.

The only people who haven't had to tighten their belts are these union slugs.


Anchorage: Assembly passes rewrite of city labor laws by slim 6-5 margin | Anchorage Assembly | ADN.com

 

[Freemason9]

Alaska is a state that is completely dependent upon the federal teat. It seems unfair to blame workers there, when the whole state is a study in welfare.

 

[gallantwarrior]

How little you know about Alaska. While you are correct about certain special groups of people here who are almost wholly dependent on the Fed, there are many of us who would welcome the opportunity to kick the Fed to the curb. Those of us who are capable of self-sufficiency, that is.

 

[Freemason9]

How little you know about Alaska. While you are correct about certain special groups of people here who are almost wholly dependent on the Fed, there are many of us who would welcome the opportunity to kick the Fed to the curb. Those of us who are capable of self-sufficiency, that is.

That's some funny shit right there.

 

[Foxfyre]

New Mexico probably receives more federal dollars per capita than any other state. The result? We are among the nation's poorest states per capita, we have some of the worst schools, we have one of the higher crime rates, and we lose out on a lot of good paying jobs due to environmental wacko-ism and high taxes.

So let's take the federal dollars off the table as we assess the OP, okay?

The point should be, and something of which all educated Americans should be aware, is that city managers, state legislatures, and the federal system no longer have ANY economic accountablity and accept no responsibiity beyond their own immediate situations. Thus they can promise the sun, moon, and stars and buckets of money in the future to the unions, to the voters, to everybody because they figure they'll be well out of office with their own little nest eggs, acquired at our expense, firmly intact by the time those chickens come home to roost. And they depend on the fickle clueless Americans not remembering who caused the problem when the worst happens.

And low and behold, just like any Amway pyramid scheme, there won't be sufficient money in the coffers to pay those chickens when the time comes, and then we see federal bailouts with even more money we don't have, and a system that will have to collapse under its own sheer weight sooner or later.

Why is that truth so difficult for some to see?

 

[Freemason9]

New Mexico probably receives more federal dollars per capita than any other state. The result? We are among the nation's poorest states per capita, we have some of the worst schools, we have one of the higher crime rates, and we lose out on a lot of good paying jobs due to environmental wacko-ism and high taxes.

You are missing a key point. New Mexico isn't poor BECAUSE it receives federal aid; it receives federal aid BECAUSE it is poor.

There used to be a thing called a "social contract" in this country. Relatively wealthy city folk and business interests recognized the importance of sustaining frontier settlements so that resources could be extracted, farmland cultivated, and transportion supported. That's why the "red states" like Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Alaska, Arizona, and New Mexico are so utterly dependent upon the federal tit--agriculture, forestation, and mining simply cannot support those largely-rural populations. And yet, it would be devastating for the nation's economy to lose access to the resources of those states.

I am always amused when red-staters bitch about federal spending. They DEPEND upon federal spending for survival.

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

[C]ity managers, state legislatures, and the federal system no longer have ANY economic accountability and accept no responsibility beyond their own immediate situations. - foxfyre

Truer words have never been written - or spoken - in any language.

Thanks to partisan crap, many local government cretins are not accountable in their own "situations".

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Thanks to partisan crap, many local government cretins are not accountable in their own "situations".

I live in a tiny city. When I moved here I had no idea about local politics. I asked my representative what would happen if the Democrats got elected. He said, "they'd give the city away."

It's never partisan crap, its always liberalism that has always been at the heart of the worlds problems.

 

[gallantwarrior]

The point is, our Assembly recognized that they could no longer afford to subsidize some politician's political piggy bank. The mayor proposed, and the Assembly passed, an ordinance that installed a few encumbrances to unrestrained public union gluttony. Personally, I feel it was not enough, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The point is, our Assembly recognized that they could no longer afford to subsidize some politician's political piggy bank. The mayor proposed, and the Assembly passed, an ordinance that installed a few encumbrances to unrestrained public union gluttony. Personally, I feel it was not enough, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

so who were the Republicans and Democrats??