Life, the universe & everything.

It's really that simple.

 

When I suggested programs were cookie cutter, I was referring more to how they are managed rather than computer programming. There are certain guidelines that government agencies seem to use for their specific department. If you go to the IRS and ask a question, they usually go to their book or computer and look up the answer. If you go to a welfare or social services office they will likely ask the same questions to everyone to see if they qualify. Perhaps it is naive, but I think much of what these bureaucrats do could be fairly easily transitioned from one person to another over a fairly short time frame. It might require some people staying around a little longer or staggering turnover to ease the transition. Working for the government was never intended to be a long time career, especially with our elected representatives.

I don't dislike government. My disdain has come in part from the waste that I have seen in government. Things such as spending money on things that you don't need so that your budget won't get cut next year. Our government wastes many billions of dollars each year. I dislike what our government has become. This government was originally intended to be by and for the people. It has become a giant intestine devouring everything in it's path. The government no longer seems to work for the people. The people work for the government.

If you want to look at waste, just look at our industry. One thing that wastes many hours of our time is just getting our base plates. Most of us have to go to our state capital to get apportioned plates instead of our local tag office. It wastes man hours for industry as well as requiring additional personnel to process these tags. There is no reason this could not be done locally or remotely by computer. We fill out a form and then a government worker inputs it into a computer. There is no reason that we could not plug in the numbers ourselves on line for our tag and cab card and save the double labor and printing costs for forms. If it was done by computer it could be done in a fraction of the time and without as many people. Plug in the numbers and out comes your bill. Once you receive your first tag you may not need to have another decal, only a new cab card which could be printed from your computer. Better yet, we could get away from apportioned plates and buy a tag comparable to our auto tags. We already pay our UCR fees over the Internet. I order over size permits for some states through the Internet. I don't even need to talk with anyone with some states.

There are so many programs within our government which wastes our resources. I would like to see this country go back to a constitutional government that actually serves the people. I didn't mean to get on a rant but there are things that can and should be eliminated in our government.

Comparing a heart surgeon to a brain surgeon is different than comparing private sector with public sector jobs unless the surgeons are government employees. The private sector must perform to exist. Performance has little to do with whether public jobs or departments are eliminated. Non performance and a lack of efficiency seems to be encouraged. But then most government workers are union and that is the way most of these unions seem to work.

 

Agreed that there is a lot of waste in government spending. Just the nature of governmental accounting promotes this. It is like having a bunch of check books to pay for their own programs. Deposits come from various places and the money can only be used for that fiscal year. There really isn't much "over the course of time" thinking like in business. The funds for the most part have to be spent that year or are gone. Like in your base plate scenario , could be the transition cost couldn't be supported in the budget for any particular year or perhaps it is required in the legislation that a certain office has to over see the purchase of the plates.

But even in the business world, the cost of the learning curve to bring in someone in every couple of years to manage a department with all it bureaucracy would prove to be insane. We have term limits for our state legislature in Michigan. Perhaps that is why we have the worst unemployment in the nation. ???

 

Does anybody else here get the 42?

Talk to me Matcat

 

Like AIG?

Like Countrywide?

You must be happy as can be with the way trucking has turned out since it was de-regulated.

 

Just make sure you always, I mean ALWAYS have your towel!

 

I came up with 9. Could somebody check my math?

 

I would think the reason base plates are still handled at the state capital in most states is due more to job loss than the cost of transition. Some states will allow carriers to file their IFTA online. There is no reason the base plates could not be handled the same way. After all, the information still needs to be put in manually. The difference is that when a government worker does the work then we need to pay extra for it. As a carrier, we have to put in the numbers anyway so it would be just as easy to put them into a computer program as to do them manually.

I don't think having term limits is the reason Michigan has such a high unemployment rate. The depression coupled with mismanagement of the companies have resulted in some very sick companies and high unemployment. If you think unemployment is high now just wait until the government takes over GM and Chrysler. They will likely force these companies to make cars no one will buy and push them further down the road to ruin and unemployment. One factor that is rarely mentioned when it comes to these major car companies is the job loss in related businesses should they fail. Some companies rely on the car industry for their businesses to be successful.