Those darn government workers…
Yeah, let’s blame it all on those government workers. They’re the ones that got us into this mess. Whether they’re the guy who collects your tolls at the bridge, or your kid’s teacher, or the police officer, or the health inspector, or…, they screwed us all, didn’t they?
Yes, they’re the ones who cut taxes when we had surpluses that could go towards paying down our debt. They are the ones who needlessly took us into a second war, despite the fact that we didn’t know where the money to fund either of those two wars would come from (tax hikes during the time of war aren’t so strange, unless it’s somehow anathema to wisely figure out how to pay for your expenditures). Yes, they are the ones who robbed the economy of billions of dollars and got a huge bailout, and billion dollar bonuses.
Yes, let’s blame them. Easy.
Let’s go after them and make them give up their hard earned benefits and pensions. Why should they be any different than all those who don’t have pensions and benefits? Like all those poor CEOs who have to reimburse shareholders for their benefits and give up their pensions and golden parachutes when their stock and company performs poorly. (they do do that, right?)
Let’s make those fat-cat government employees give up these benefits, just like we expect our politicians (they’re government employees too, after all) to forgo their nice salaries, top tier health care, lifetime paychecks, pensions, security and perks. Hey, we all know government employees are mostly rich folk, like our politicians, who can afford to work for free.
I know, I know, those poor politicians need to have all the perks and the good salary since we don’t want them to have to worry about where their next paycheck is going to come from – god forbid we have corruption at the top levels. But we don’t have to worry about poorly paid government workers – after all, where are they going to go? Where else would they be able to get a job? And so what if they leave to find a better paying job? There are a ton of people out there who’d love to have their job, and thankfully, they probably won’t be part of that educated elite!
Yes, as I said, whoever those government workers are, darn them for being so convenient to blame and to sully.
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On a more serious note, I’d like to see how much longer this madness would continue, if we started to group our politicians as yet another subset of the same “darn government employees”. Try to touch their compensation packages and I bet they’d be singing a different tune.
CriticalMusings 