It seems everywhere we turn elected officials are making big mistakes that blow holes in government budgets. Reasons range from being unprepared for the complexities of the elected position – as in inept or over one’s head – to outright corruption such as shown by the recent sentencing of the former Mayor of Detroit to 28 years in prison for corruption, or Orange County’s former Sheriff’s 8 year sentence in federal prison for witness tampering. Then there are the current reports of an on-going federal investigation of the Orange County Board of Supervisors for possible corruption, including a pay to play atmosphere.
Incompetence or corruption, take your pick. Or perhaps it is something in between these two levels of non-performance that produces an OOOPS – the periodic failure of computer system development projects comes to mind – such as the multi-million dollar County of Orange effort to develop a new property tax assessment system that is now headed for court – or the failure of the Obamacare computer system that is making headlines today and leading to speculation that that federal HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius may be forced to resign. How about the Orange County Fire Authority collecting inspection fees for years from businesses when no inspections were being performed? How about employee pension systems that were established by city, county and state elected officials who then failed to adequately fund them? Or the apparent billions of dollars that the stalemate in Washington is reported to have cost the economy, not to mention employees of government contractors who were laid off during the shutdown. Or the numerous government projects launched by government elected officials that wind up costing 2, 3, 4 or more times the original promised cost?
These mistakes cost big bucks. Who pays? Is it all the taxpayers who elected them, as well as those who did not? Or is it just the most direct victims, such as the businesses who paid for fire authority inspections or the public sector employees who planned their careers based upon the promises of the pension systems the elected officials made?
It seems we the people selected people for elected positions who then sometimes mess up, big time. Those mistakes sometimes cost a lot of money. But, come the next election we often re-elect these same people. Does that make us, the voters and taxpayers, responsible to pay for the cost of the mistakes? If not us, who?
I think it is us, like it or not.
Halfway through, deja-vu?
Fetlife.com, a “free social network for the BDSM and fetish community,” claims 2,424,946 members (and 105,953 videos, and 204,156 upcoming events). So, thus far, about 2,100 percent more people have signed up for a single bondage and sadomasochism website than have signed up for Obamacare.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/17/the-daily-caller-investigates-what-are-the-numbers-on-the-hilariously-sad-failure-of-obamacare/#ixzz2i785Tg6R
Junior,
Let’s say I was an active member of Fetlife (I prefer collarme.com)? but, I had a good job, perhaps I was lucky enough to work for the county of Orange, with a pre-existing condition, why would I apply for affordable health care (act)?
In other words, your argument is foolish.
A better example is, let’s say I was a sheet metal worker at a non-union shop. My Republican boss, who is struggling because of the Bush-imposed recession, caused by foolish wars and bad decisions, family healthcare, but decided, he would provide HIS family insurance but, not the rank and file workers (let’s say the lot boy, Jose), where exactly is Jose supposed to go to get health insurance?
Presumably he has legal residency, because a law abiding, business owning, Republican would NEVER hire a “illegal”.
But, again, should Jose go WITHOUT insurance, so that when he gets so sick he needs to hit the ER at St. Joe’s, costing $3,600. for a Z-PAC (he got sick working in the cold yard early in the morning earning his $10.75 per hour).
What is so bad about the plan?
What is your solution?
You are a Catholic, Mater Dei guy, you know (or should) Americans love sex, kinky sex more than anything, especially more than signing up for health insurance. So the only people surprised by your silly posts are closeted internet porn addicts, and closeted kinksters.
“Incompetence or corruption,”
It’s both. And a lot of the corruption occurs when covering up incompetence, like the great rat droppings clean up at the County’s Eckoff Building and the then CEO pretending it was a big emergency (it wasn’t) and that nobody had done anything wrong (they had).
Big Box – Yes, there is a duplication of seveal paragraphs. Trying to get that removed, but no luck so far. Hopefully the message of taxpayers being on the hook for the blunders of those we elect and re-elect comes through. Of course, if someone sees it differently, I’d like to hear about it! Maybe the fact that a Court just found LA Sheriff Baca personally liable for the long-running mess in his jails is a glimmer of hope.
It was fixed (for my view, anyway) about 2 hrs ago , thanks! (Would have deleted my post, if I could) I Didn’t hear about Baca- thanks for the mention!
shameless namelees,
My argument is not foolish as it is sarcasim.
Next time call it satire. That way you can say that you meant to slip and fall over that banana peel.