[Grovenet] Was: "economic cancer"?/now govt saving money

Mon Apr 30 18:32:35 PDT 2007

Y'know, Katie, even the current administration in Washington who has run up
a huge financial and diplomatic debt for us thought they were doing what the
voters wanted them to do. After all, they were elected,  then RE-elected to
office! 

To paraphrase that old saw, "Be careful what you vote for, you might get
it!" 

I tend to have your experience in dealing with people in government in
general. They are all trying to do what they thing they should do. It's a
very rare person who acts like they are trying to hurt people. After all,
their job depends upon doing their job. 

What I do see is that public servants are human. If they perceive they are
dealing with someone who is trying to hoodwink them and cause them trouble,
they often respond accordingly. 

To paraphrase another  old saw, "If you kick the dog you're likely to get
bit!" 

Ron D'Eau Claire 

-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of allnutt
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 1:48 PM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Was: "economic cancer"?/now govt saving money

Some people might think that if you ask for your city/school/government 
entity to tell you what it will cost to provide XYZ services and they tell 
you what it will be, then when you vote for them to provide XYZ services 
they should plan to spend that money on XYZ services.
And don't most city/school/government budgets have a category called 
"contingency budget" or 'surplus' that they specifically set aside for 
unforeseen expenses or carry over to the next year in case the income 
estimates are off?  By definition then they are not spending every last 
dime.* They may be guessing wrong on what the unforeseen contingency happens

to be but if you are presuming that your local or state or budget director 
will be 100% accurate in their clairvoyance then you have a great deal more 
confidence in fortune telling than I do.

Maybe the difference between us is that I have met and talked to people on 
budget committees and I have found them to be human beings. I haven't yet 
met one that was trying actively to do something that they didn't believe 
was what the voting citizens had directed them to do.
Or maybe the difference between us is that I believe that government has the

capability to do what ever we tell them to do, including not spending every 
last dime on something if we tell them that the money is to be saved for 
something else.  But the operative phrase is 'what we tell them to do', 
emphasis on the 'we'.

Katie
* exceptions of course for our current federal administration that is 
running up a large debt.

----- Original Message ---
From: "Steven" <NoSpam03 at comcast.net>
To: "Forest Grove local interests list" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 11:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Was: "economic cancer"?/now govt saving money

> IF the government had the capability of NOT spending every last dime, 
> taxpayers would be much more in tune with spending.
>
> allnutt wrote:
>> Are you sure you want governments to 'save' money out of budgets to 
>> spend
>> on
>> costly capital expenses?
>> Wouldn't that require tax payers to pony up enough money in current 
>> dollars
>> to meet the budget needs plus some extra to save for large expenses 
>> later?
>> Voters are not very happy when they are asked to pay for more than the
>> minimum needed for right now and maybe a year or three ahead. They tend 
>> to
>> reject anything that covers long term needs.  They are much more likely 
>> (as
>> they did in FG a few years ago) to approve an operating measure that does
>> not cover current operating costs and requires governments to spend down
>> reserves. That is why the last operating levy only asked for 99 cents per
>> unit instead of the $1.19 that the budget would need.  The voters passed 
>> the
>> levy for less than required and the city has been using up reserves in 
>> order
>> to provide what they are giving the citizens now.
>> And it doesn't work the other way around either. When bonds are passed 
>> for
>> capital expenses it is illegal for the city/school/government entity to 
>> use
>> that bond money for operating expenses.
>> The built in safeguards that keep our government in check also make it 
>> less
>> flexible when it comes to moving money around where it is needed. But 
>> those
>> are the checks that we have put on government ourselves. So if you want 
>> to
>> moan about how the government  buys bonds then you should look up and 
>> down
>> your street and see if you want to convince your neighbors to pay taxes 
>> up
>> front so the government can 'save' them for use later.
>>
>> Katie
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Steven" <NoSpam03 at comcast.net>
>> To: "Forest Grove local interests list" <grovenet at rdrop.com>
>> Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2007 11:03 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Grovenet] What is the proper Economic word for the 
>> condition
>> of "economic cancer"?
>>
>>
>>
>>> I hadn't thought of government as a Ponzi scheme, but you are right. 
>>> They are basing future budgets on larger percentages of our income. 
>>> Theoretically, you should be able to operate a 
>>> business/government/organization on a set budget as a percentage. A 
>>> county should have costs associated to their population and area. We 
>>> should be able to operate on a certain dollar per person. Known 
>>> costs and income. A household knows that someday their roof will 
>>> need replacement. We should be setting aside funds to cover this 
>>> future expense. A government entity should be able to create proper 
>>> budgets going forward that also reflect future expense. I really 
>>> hate to see the city float bonds, nothing but buying on credit. 
>>> Couldn't the city plan for future growth?
>>> We don't teach our citizens this, so why should we expect this out of
>>> government.
>>> If you want a car, save for it. why pay 15% interest to buy the car now?
>>> You're doubling the cost. Payment on a $15000 car are $356.85/month.
>>> You're going to be paying $6400 in interest. Save the money and you'll
>>> have it in three years. Add the insurance you're not paying and the time
>>> drops again.
>>> Where do we teach this?
>>>
>>> David Morelli wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Apr 28, 2007, at 2:40 PM, Carol Morgan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes, and government and private economists are constantly focusing 
>>>> on "the benefits of growth" and "stimulating the economy to grow".  
>>>> This is the large scale version of the Ponzi scheme.  And finding a 
>>>> workable process to transition from relying upon future growth to 
>>>> resolve our current problems, to ordering our economic programs to 
>>>> function elegantly in a declining population is not on their radar 
>>>> screens.
>>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
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