Government Cuts - A Systemwide Reality

[eyewonderadmin]

Hey, everyone.

I live in Maine, which has had to endure major budget cuts in essential public services. These cuts have been ordered by both the national and state governments.

However, I've discovered that the latest $200M in service cuts by our Governor could have easily been avoided merely by changing the state's current Bond system.

While I know Maine's far from being alone in it's suffering, it galls me to know that simple tweaks in government procedures could dramatically lessen the impact on Main St. America, or even eliminate it altogether.

Your Turn:

It's great to state the issues and problems we all face, but mere talk isn't going to cause change. On the other hand, taking action WILL!

Discussion:

Where can the Government (State and/or National) trim the budget without cutting services to the people who require them for survival? What changes in government systems/procedures could save taxpayer dollars? Got any ideas? State them below - and let's start to ACT!

 

[Smith6612]

I do know that out in my part of the country, it snows a lot (lake effect snow) and our issue up here which is a biggie is that the County's Public Road maintenance service is short on money. The last I head, they only had enough money to be able to salt up the roads in our area and to plow them three times as of October. We've already have had two snow storms where the roads needed to be salted, so they had better find ways to get more money. Otherwise, the government officials in my area have always been spending money on things not needed and not managing things to the best that people think they should be managed.

 

[Spartan Erik]

I noticed how wasteful it is that garbage trucks must stop and go between each house to grab a trashcan. Imagine the inefficiency! If two neighbors took out their trashcans and put them next to each other, that is one less stop the garbage truck has to do. If every two neighbors paired their trashcans, that would be half as many stops total. Apply that efficiency everywhere and that's millions of dollars in fuel saved

Secondly we can stop building stadiums for one thing. I know that in Houston the Astrodome is sitting there vacant.. it should be sold!

Or better yet, (thirdly) Texas should legalize gambling and turn the Astrodome into the largest casino ever. All the people who want to gamble in Texas cross the border to Louisiana.. that's a ton of money! If people are going to gamble anyway, why don't we keep the money where it should belong?

And I'm sure pay cuts for execs at state/local levels could save a little bit (honestly, who would've thought that high school principles made 6 figures a year?)

 

[Smith6612]

In my area, we have the same issue with the garbage trucks having to stop, which is a big problem in the winter considering my street is usually not plowed for days on end at times.

 

[naerey]

Well, in Italy, it would be nice if the government cut the Parliament's guys wages, which are 10x that of normal citizens, and have a lifelong pension after they work there for 4 years. As well as criminal protection as long as they are in Parliament. Not to forget that they can have like 100 sick days or something, since you can rarely find them actually working. Many just drink coffee and read journals,without doing anything useful. Note that the italian PMs have the highest wages in europe, and Italy being one of the poorest countries actually. Cutting their wages will save a lot of money to the sate (there's 630 of them, each getting around 20k euros a month. Cutting that down to 7k €,like in France, will save the government around 8 million € a month. You can build loads of infrastructure with that money, each month!).

http://www.annoticoreport.com/2007/08/la-casta-expose-fuels-outrage-re.html