The Democrat Thread

[vandy125]

The problem is...the Heritage method is the wrong way to do it. Controlling for education, age, etc., is the only proper way to ask that question. It would be much better if the Heritage foundation produced an honest study looking at that question, rather than forcing other groups to perform dishonest studies to match a dishonest methodology.

 

The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing anti-government think tank that routinely publishes misleading or factually incorrect studies. They compare every private sector employee, from fry-cooks on up, the the whole public sector. It's a crap comparison because there's a lot more low-wage, low-skill, low-education private sector jobs that just don't exist in nearly the same proportion government.

 

Look I actually agree that the Heritage Foundation study does not show the complete picture. I was just pointing out that this other study doesn't either and doesn't help out its own cause by changing the comparison instead of getting at what we would really like to see.

 

IMO, both studies are probably crap because they try to twist the picture to fit their own conclusions. I'm not sure how the Heritage Foundation did it in their study, but it is a pretty blatant twist in this other study to not even compare the same things.

Edited September 14, 2011 by vandy125

[Balta1701]

IMO, both studies are probably crap because they try to twist the picture to fit their own conclusions. I'm not sure how the Heritage Foundation did it in their study, but it is a pretty blatant twist in this other study to not even compare the same things.

Although this study states that it was motivated by Heritage, it's clearly not even trying to compare the same things. It is dealing with the effectiveness of contracting out, which is a totally separate issue from whether or not federal workers employed by the government directly are overpaid.

 

It's a pretty blatant completely new topic.

[vandy125]

Although this study states that it was motivated by Heritage, it's clearly not even trying to compare the same things. It is dealing with the effectiveness of contracting out, which is a totally separate issue from whether or not federal workers employed by the government directly are overpaid.

 

It's a pretty blatant completely new topic.

 

So, what would really be the point? All it really shows is the solution to cutting costs is to not fire public employees and hire contractors do to the same work that they were doing.

 

And again I would say that is pretty obvious, IMO. If the public sector compensation is out of balance (and I haven't said it is or is not), then get it in line if that helps with costs. If the public sector compensation is in line with the private sector then the only way to cut costs is to get out of some of the work that is being done completely (not outsourcing it, just get out of the business of doing it).

Edited September 14, 2011 by vandy125

[Balta1701]

So, what would really be the point? All it really shows is the solution to cutting costs is to not fire public employees and hire contractors do to the same work that they were doing.

 

And again I would say that is pretty obvious, IMO. If the public sector compensation is out of balance (and I haven't said it is or is not), then get it in line if that helps with costs. If the public sector compensation is in line with the private sector then the only way to cut costs is to get out of some of the work that is being done completely (not outsourcing it, just get out of the business of doing it).

I don't think that's obvious at all...outsourcing to private companies with claims that the contract will produce savings, booking savings immediately, and then having the actual contract cost significantly overrun the estimate is a very common thing to do in government. Happens all the bloody time. Usually the contract happens to go to a campaign contributor, too.

 

In fact, I'd say "The government contracts out way too much and should just directly employ people to do a lot of these tasks" strikes me as a point of view that fits quite well within the modern Democratic party.

[NorthSideSox72]

This is good enough to stick in here in case I ever need to remember it.

I can't believe people aren't seeing the obvious Business 101 thing here... you are saying that private sector work is more expensive, and therefore less efficient, than public. Thus countering conservative claims that private business does it better than government.

 

Of course, the data you are presenting doesn't say that at all. I'll see if anyone else can spot why.

 

[Balta1701]

While I await learning what the hidden flaw they didn't take into account is, back to a previous topic, Ron Paul being asked what should happen to a person without insurance who gets sick.

When CNN's Wolf Blitzer pressed Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) over what he would do if a 30-year-old uninsured man suddenly slipped into a coma and needed care, he did so, in all likelihood, not knowing just how personal a question it was for the Texas Republican.

 

Paul's 2008 campaign manager, Kent Snyder, went through a strikingly similar experience to Blitzer's hypothetical one, dying of complications from viral pneumonia just two weeks after Paul ended his presidential bid. Snyder was uninsured, so family and friends were forced to raise funds to cover his $400,000 in medical bills. Their efforts included setting up a website soliciting contributions from Paul supporters.

[Balta1701]

Just so I don't have to keep the tab open, here's that full study.

[vandy125]

I don't think that's obvious at all...outsourcing to private companies with claims that the contract will produce savings, booking savings immediately, and then having the actual contract cost significantly overrun the estimate is a very common thing to do in government. Happens all the bloody time. Usually the contract happens to go to a campaign contributor, too.

 

In fact, I'd say "The government contracts out way too much and should just directly employ people to do a lot of these tasks" strikes me as a point of view that fits quite well within the modern Democratic party.

So where would it fit, "the government contracts out way too much and should just get out of a lot of these tasks completely"?

[NorthSideSox72]

So where would it fit, "the government contracts out way too much and should just get out of a lot of these tasks completely"?

You're getting warm...

 

[Balta1701]

So where would it fit, "the government contracts out way too much and should just get out of a lot of these tasks completely"?

Since you couldn't take the time to tell me which tasks and just adopted the mantra that the government always does too much, I'm going to guess that's a pretty Republican statement.

 

Getting rid of building inspectors, food inspectors, police, IRS tax collecting, and the Dept. of Defense., yeah, sounds like things we shouldn't be doing.

[Balta1701]

You're getting warm...

You can't be seriously going for "the government shouldn't do these things in the first place" as a blanket statement.

[BigSqwert]

I don't remember which thread we were discussing the FBI and Muslims but here's a relevant article:

 

FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’

The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”

 

At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: “Any war against non-believers is justified” under Muslim law; a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”

 

These are excerpts from dozens of pages of recent FBI training material on Islam that Danger Room has acquired. In them, the Constitutionally protected religious faith of millions of Americans is portrayed as an indicator of terrorist activity.

 

“There may not be a ‘radical’ threat as much as it is simply a normal assertion of the orthodox ideology,” one FBI presentation notes. “The strategic themes animating these Islamic values are not fringe; they are main stream.”

 

The FBI isn’t just treading on thin legal ice by portraying ordinary, observant Americans as terrorists-in-waiting, former counterterrorism agents say. It’s also playing into al-Qaida’s hands.

 

Focusing on the religious behavior of American citizens instead of proven indicators of criminal activity like stockpiling guns or using shady financing makes it more likely that the FBI will miss the real warning signs of terrorism. And depicting Islam as inseparable from political violence is exactly the narrative al-Qaida spins — as is the related idea that America and Islam are necessarily in conflict. That’s why FBI whistleblowers provided Danger Room with these materials.

 

Over the past few years, American Muslim civil rights groups have raised alarm about increased FBI and police presence in Islamic community centers and mosques, fearing that their lawful behavior is being targeted under the broad brush of counterterrorism. The documents may help explain the heavy scrutiny.

 

They certainly aren’t the first time the FBI has portrayed Muslims in a negative light during Bureau training sessions. As Danger Room reported in July, the FBI’s Training Division has included anti-Islam books, and materials that claim Islam “transforms [a] country’s culture into 7th-century Arabian ways.” When Danger Room confronted the FBI with that material, an official statement issued to us claimed, “The presentation in question was a rudimentary version used for a limited time that has since been replaced.”

 

But these documents aren’t relics from an earlier era. One of these briefings, titled “Strategic Themes and Drivers in Islamic Law,” took place on March 21.

 

The Islam briefings are elective, not mandatory. “A disclaimer accompanied the presentation stating that the views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. government,” FBI spokesman Christopher Allen tells Danger Room.

 

“The training materials in question were delivered as Stage Two training to counterterrorism-designated agents,” Allen adds. “This training was largely derived from a variety of open source publications and includes the opinion of the analyst that developed the lesson block.”

 

Not all counterterrorism veterans consider the briefings so benign. “Teaching counterterrorism operatives about obscure aspects of Islam,” says Robert McFadden, who recently retired as one of the Navy Criminal Investigative Service’s al-Qaida-hunters, “without context, without objectivity, and without covering other non-religious drivers of dangerous behavior is no way to stop actual terrorists.”

 

Still, at Quantico, the alleged connection between Islam and violence isn’t just stipulated. It’s literally graphed.

 

 

rest of the article

[Balta1701]

Lieberman and one of the ladies from Maine, Collins (I think)? are actually putting serious effort into trying to get the government to stop funding crap like that under the guise of anti-terrorism education

[StrangeSox]

 

this is the author:

http://www.amu.apus.edu/academic/faculty-m...lliam--gawthrop

 

WND has carried his brilliant work!

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=38575

 

[StrangeSox]

lol love the straight line for Christianity. Crusades?! What were those?

[NorthSideSox72]

You can't be seriously going for "the government shouldn't do these things in the first place" as a blanket statement.

Nope.

 

And I wasn't really trying to say the study was flawed, because it isn't. What is flawed is the conclusions you and others are drawing from the data. Think of it this way...

 

1. Republicans, generally, tend to favor more privitization. They say that some things (lots of variability in terms of what things) are better off in the private sector, as opposed to public. One of the arguments is that, in general, private business does things more efficiently than government. That cost levels should be lower and/or the profit difference in private business is plowed back into the company and jobs some of the time. Does this sound right so far?

 

2. You show us an article, which shows that when government agencies outsource work to private firms, as opposed to doing similar jobs in-house, they end up paying more money. The cost of the job when contracted out to the business sector is more than if it stayed internal. Still sound right?

 

3. From these pieces of information, you conclude that perhaps the private sector is in fact not more efficient, and in fact may be less so than public. And further that privitization of government work is not a savings at all, and may cost more. These are what you are trying to say, right?

 

The problem is that going from 2 to 3, you have made a logical leap that is not supported in fact or data presented. The data does not say that the private sector costs more to do some specific service or provide some specific need. It says that if said service is still a government task (and still with all the overhead and oversight of it - which is cost), but if some parts of that work are outsourced, the cost goes up. This is not surprising at all. As a general rule, even in the private business world... if you have some specific task that needs to be done as part of a larger service structure, and if you find you have to contract out for it, it will almost always cost more. But you do it anyway because you have to for some reason. Could be you can't find the resources who can do it full time, or it could be that it is a short term gig that makes no sense to hire full time, or could be you want to try something out before committing to it, etc. But the effort to bring in outside contractors for work almost never is about getting it done cheaper.

 

Basically, your conclusions are based on a study that isn't what was presented here. That study would need to go something like this... Find a specific service that government provides, and look at the complete cost of the provision of that service... then find the same service in the private sector, and again look at the full cost to the consumer. Then compare. Now, you have a valid comparison.

 

Here is another analogy. Often times, a business may have some product, service or business line they are experimenting with. For whatever reason, it may have value, but they don't think it fits well... might be too far outside their skill zone, might not balance well in terms of risk with the rest of the company, might not be able to grow further while part of the company, etc. Basically, they feel that someone else could make more money from it and do it better - and therefore, it has value in sale. So they sell it, or spin it off with some equity interest, or whatever. What they don't do, because it would be stupid, is outsource the core work but keep all their managers and overhead around it.

 

Do you see what I am getting at here? The study you posted tells of the dangers and costs associated with having to contract out pieces of work for a government agency. It does not tell us that private industry is more, or less, efficient and some given task.

 

[Balta1701]

There's a big piece that you're missing though...the study compares the price for contracting out to the price for having the same task done by long-term government employees.

 

What you're asking is again a different question - I'm not trying to argue that the government sector is always more efficient than the private sector, that'd be silly, and that's what I think you're getting out of that because of your statements that "There is usually a reason why this is contracted out".

 

Almost every case that they discuss is a case where the contracting out happens by choice, not because the government is incapable of doing so. DOD maintenance and logistics. State Department Security. Security at medium-level government facilities. Human Resources and oversight of contracts. Operations at West Point. "Simple" IRS collection cases. TSA screenings. Management and upgrading of Coast Guard facilities and equipment. Intelligence gathering.

 

Almost every single case they cite in their survey is a case where the Federal government used to do a function using its own employees but then, sometime between the 1980's and now, decided that it would be cheaper based on some estimate to outsource the function to a private company. They are not doing anything that the government doesn't have the capacity to do, the government is stopping doing a function, laying off the people who are doing it, and adding an outside company to do the function on the grounds that some estimate says it would be cheaper and because the mantra of this era is that the private sector is more efficient.

 

In almost every one of those cases, the federal government is performing the service, there is an estimate saying it would be cheaper to outsource this function, and then the function winds up being substantially more expensive once outsourced.

[NorthSideSox72]

There's a big piece that you're missing though...the study compares the price for contracting out to the price for having the same task done by long-term government employees.

 

What you're asking is again a different question - I'm not trying to argue that the government sector is always more efficient than the private sector, that'd be silly, and that's what I think you're getting out of that because of your statements that "There is usually a reason why this is contracted out".

 

Almost every case that they discuss is a case where the contracting out happens by choice, not because the government is incapable of doing so. DOD maintenance and logistics. State Department Security. Security at medium-level government facilities. Human Resources and oversight of contracts. Operations at West Point. "Simple" IRS collection cases. TSA screenings. Management and upgrading of Coast Guard facilities and equipment. Intelligence gathering.

 

Almost every single case they cite in their survey is a case where the Federal government used to do a function using its own employees but then, sometime between the 1980's and now, decided that it would be cheaper based on some estimate to outsource the function to a private company. They are not doing anything that the government doesn't have the capacity to do, the government is stopping doing a function, laying off the people who are doing it, and adding an outside company to do the function on the grounds that some estimate says it would be cheaper and because the mantra of this era is that the private sector is more efficient.

 

In almost every one of those cases, the federal government is performing the service, there is an estimate saying it would be cheaper to outsource this function, and then the function winds up being substantially more expensive once outsourced.

 

How is that missing anything? I specifically said that was what was being compared. What I am pointing out is, that does not mean the private sector (or public for that matter) is more efficient in any broad sense. What it means is that outsourcing specific tasks within an existing overhead structure is not generally going to save money in the long run.

 

And by the way, that is a lesson the private sector is learning too. You know how, for the past 5 to 10 years, software companies and other technology services have been moving so many jobs to India? Programmers, help desk call centers, etc.? Executives were salivating over the idea of getting a programmer for a third of the salay of one in the US. Of course, they didn't save nearly as much money as they thought they would, or in some cases none at all. And the cost over there is skyrocketing... companies are slowing their pace of India-sourcing, and many of them in fact have reversed the flow.

 

 

[Balta1701]

How is that missing anything? I specifically said that was what was being compared. What I am pointing out is, that does not mean the private sector (or public for that matter) is more efficient in any broad sense. What it means is that outsourcing specific tasks within an existing overhead structure is not generally going to save money in the long run.

And at what point did anyone here, including me, take from that study the concept that you're arguing against? No where did I say that the public sector is always more efficient at everything.

 

The only thing I argued as a political point was, and I quote myself....

In fact, I'd say "The government contracts out way too much and should just directly employ people to do a lot of these tasks" strikes me as a point of view that fits quite well within the modern Democratic party.

[Balta1701]

I'll add again...personally, I think the reason there's been a significant rise in private contractor spending is that it's effectively the Spoils system...companies are getting these contracts for things that the government used to do because they happen to also put a ton of money into the campaign coffers of the people in power. In the end it costs the government a ton of extra money, it happens on both sides, but its defended politically because the private sector must be more efficient at accomplishing governmental tasks based on a certain set of ideologies.

 

[Balta1701]

Michigan House bans all benefits for domestic partners, Michigan state senate is likely to follow suit, and Michigan has a republican governor.

 

Here's the bigoted jackass who sponsors the bill commenting on it.

Rep. Dave Agema from Grandville is the primary sponsor of the HIB 4770 and 4771.

 

"It is not the responsibility of taxpayers to support the roommates and unmarried partners of public employees," Rep. Agema said in a press release. "Michigan voters, our Supreme Court, and the attorney general all agree with these bills, and passing legislation is just another way to underline their point to those who don't seem to get it. This is a fiscal issue. We are doing all we can to respect the will of the people and not place an unnecessary economic burden on our residents while so many are struggling to make ends meet."

The law would also prohibit cities and universities from offering Domestic Partner benefits, which may not even be legal and has little to do with the State budget, but hey, if a university employs a homosexual faculty member, Jesus kills a kitten.

[StrangeSox]

[StrangeSox]

best cartoon ever:

 

[Balta1701]

For you guys...

Liberal activists and academics displeased with the Obama administration’s handling of several issues popular with progressives say they are seeking candidates willing to mount a primary challenge against President Obama next year.

 

The group, led by consumer advocate Ralph Nader and scholar Cornel West, said it faults Obama for the escalation of military campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for extending tax cuts first enacted by George W. Bush and for his actions during the recent debt ceiling negotiations.

 

 

The group said Saturday it is seeking six “recognizable, articulate” candidates who would not mount serious challenges to Obama, but “rigorously debate his policy stands” on issues related to labor, poverty, foreign policy, civil rights and consumer protections.

 

The group’s efforts come as Democrats are growing increasingly pessimistic about the country’s direction. Fewer than three-quarters of Democrats approve of Obama’s job performance, and less than a third believe the nation is headed in the right direction, according to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll.

 

But Obama is building a formidable reelection campaign that is easily exceeding quarterly fundraising goals and is on course to raise more than $1 billion. Campaign aides last week defended the president’s slipping approval numbers by noting that more than a year before the election, he is attracting thousands of volunteers and small-dollar donors.

 

Nader said Saturday it is “very unlikely” he would challenge Obama, and that he is gauging the interest of former lawmakers and governors, academics, authors and labor leaders.

 

“I just want all these liberal, progressive agendas to be robustly debated. Otherwise, there will be a de facto blackout of their discussion” during next year’s campaign, Nader said.

 

The longtime consumer advocate’s involvement may revive accusations that his third-party presidential candidacy upended Al Gore’s chances of winning the 2000 presidential contest.

 

West’s involvement is notable, because he has repeatedly criticized and questioned Obama’s liberal bona fides, and faults the president for failing to properly address the growing economic plight of African Americans.

You're damned right it'll revive accusations that he put GWB in office.

[southsider2k5]

For you guys...

You're damned right it'll revive accusations that he put GWB in office.

 

Why would he debate them if there was no challenge? He'd ignore them like he has done to this point.