Furloughs and Redundancy

If the government is partially shut down by Progressive-Democratic Party Congressional politician obstructionism, millions of federal employees could face furloughs, some federal offices may close or work shortened hours.

Those furloughs and closures would give us some interesting data on the usefulness/criticality of those furloughees and offices. Here’s what Slate found regarding these items during the Obama “shutdown” some 10 years ago:

Notice a couple of things here regarding Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s threat to stop paying our military members and Party politicians’ threats regarding the VA (right click on the graph and select Open Image in New Tab to get a bigger image). One is the Veterans Affairs level of furloughing: all of 4%. That’s not importantly different from the ordinary absentee rate due to illness, vacation, and so on.

Then look at the Defense line and the Note at the bottom of the graph, the latter which says Department of Defense total includes military personnel. Half of civilian personnel have been furloughed. The civilian furlough rate of 50% is a strong indication of how many of those civilians really are needed in the Pentagon and elsewhere in DoD. The military side of DoD can easily continue being paid out of current tax law-driven revenues flowing in to the government.

Finally, notice the furlough rate at so many of those Federal Agencies. That’s also a very strong indication of how many employees are truly unnecessary. Certainly, short-term furloughs overstate the degree of redundancy, but they give a very good index into how many truly are excess.

Fundamentally Transforming America

I’ve written elsewhere of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s goal, and of the destructive nature of that goal.

Here is the rank and file of the Progressive-Democratic Party, demonstrating how deep-seated is that desire to destroy our Republic:

  • nearly half of Democrats (47%) support censorship, and think speech should be legal “only under certain ­circumstances”
  • one-third of Democrats (34%) think Americans have “too much freedom”
  • 75% think government has a responsibility to censor “hateful” social media posts
  • a majority of Democrats (52%) approve of the government censoring social media posts “under the rubric of protecting national security”

It isn’t possible to fundamentally transform something without first destroying it so that the transformation can be done from the ground up. This assault is on that path if we choose wrongly in the fall of 2024.

Bidenomics

It’s terrific, or so claims our Progressive-Democratic Party President, Joe Biden. Here are some examples of how well it’s working.

  • He [Mark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody’s Analytics] estimates that the typical American household would need to use 42 weeks of income to buy a new car, as of August, up from 33 weeks three years ago.
  • New 30-year fixed-rate mortgages today carry rates around 7%, up from 3% two years ago.
  • The typical credit card carried a 20.7% interest rate in May, up from 14.6% in February 2022….

That’s Bidenomics’ inflation, which drives the Fed’s moves on interest rates. That’s also Bidenomics’ inflation, which drives prices higher. That last pushes the need to borrow, whether to buy a home, buy a car (new or used), or via credit card debt to buy daily and monthly necessities.

Sure, Bidenomics is working. And maybe I know of some beachfront property north of Santa Fe….

Lying or Hostage-Taking Threat?

Our Progressive-Democratic Party President, Joe Biden, is at it again. On the possibility of a Federal government partial shutdown due to a lack of a budget—which Biden distorted as being a complete shutdown—he had this threat regarding our military:

Let’s be clear. If the government shuts down, that means members of Congress and members of the US military are going to have to continue to work and not get paid….

This, of course, is false, or should be. There is plenty of revenue coming in to the Federal government under existing tax law to continue paying the Federal debt, Medicare and Social Security outlays, DoD expenses and military salaries, and on and on.

Biden knows this full well. The only interpretation to his claim is that he’s lying outright, or he intends deliberately to withhold our military members’ pay, taking them hostage against his demand to get his way.

You decide.

A Couple of Thoughts re Yakima

Yakima is a city in central Washington, and its Progressive-Democratic Party mayor, Janice Deccio, claims she’s being harassed since the release of her 911 call regarding some petition signature gatherers who were gathering at a Walmart. Yes, the mayor made an emergency call over petitioners gathering signatures and exercising their 1st Amendment right to petition government.

Her call:

There’s some far right-wing petitioners at Walmart, and they don’t—they’re not leaving. Walmart has asked them repeatedly to do so, and the police have not taken them off the premises.

Never mind that the police—and they told her so during her 911 call—absent a court order that Walmart had not bothered to seek, had no authority to remove the signature gatherers, not when the activity is occurring on public property or on private property that’s intended for public use, like shopping malls and store fronts.

Later, Deccio claimed she was unaware of all the nuances of the law at that time, though, and, in hindsight, I could have waited to hear from the chief. That’s risible. She’s the mayor, of course she knows the laws applicable to her role. Or she’s ignorant, having skipped or slept through, which is the same thing, her junior high Civics class, to the point of unfitness for office.

Her decision not to wait on actual answers is all too typical of the arrogance of Party politicians: obey me, subjects, and quit arguing.

That’s one (where have I heard that before?).

The group that was gathering petition signatures is Let’s Go Washington, and these are the sort of initiative for which they’re working (it’s unclear for what initiative they were gathering signatures at the Walmart):

  • I-2113, which would roll back some restrictions on when police officers can engage in vehicular pursuits
  • I-2117, to prohibit state agencies from imposing any type of carbon tax-credit trading
  • I-2124, which would allow employees to opt out of the state’s long-term care insurance program
  • I-2109, to repeal the state’s capital gains tax
  • I-2111, which would prohibit state and local jurisdictions from imposing income taxes
  • I-2081, which would allow parents of public school students to review instructional materials and student records upon request

That a Progressive-Democratic Party politician thinks such center-right positions are far right-wing clearly demonstrates how Left-extremist Party has gone.

That’s two.