No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January 3rd, 2011

The Budget Chop – Federal Headcount

by @ 10:36. Filed under Budget Chop, Politics - National.

I have a riddle for you:

Q.  What do Russia and Cuba have that the United States doesn’t?

No, it’s not a massive federal deficit; they each have that.

No, it’s not a hard core leftist as the leader;they each have that.

Nope, it’s not a government that is more interested in itself than it’s citizens; they each have that.

The correct answer is: Federal employment that is being reduced.

After announcing earlier that they would be reducing the size of their federal government employment, Russian President Medvedev signed a decree  that will reduce the number of people employed by the Russian government by 20% over the next few years.

The civilian federal employment jumped over 10% from 2008 to 2010 and that is after subtracting the temporary census workers.  2011 is slated to grow that number by another 3.5%.  So federal employment has grown by double digit percentages will private employment has decreased by millions.

An area for the new GOP House to focus on for balancing the budget is the number of people employed by the federal government. 

Senator Orrin Hatch introduced a bill last year, that would have reduced federal employment to 2008 levels.  According to Hatch, this would be a reduction of 20% although I don’t think his math is quite right as he’s including the temporary census workers.  Not surprisingly, Senator Hatch’s bill went no where. 

Fewer federal employees would be good for at least three reasons:

1.  Fewer employees means fewer dollars spent today.

2.  Fewer employees should be coupled with privatizing more of the things that the federal government does but doesn’t need to do.

3.  Fewer employees means fewer dollars spent tomorrow in the way of pensions and other retirement benefits.

The next few weeks will be interesting to watch.  By the end of January, we should know whether the message of reducing spending, has been received by Congress.  I know the message hasn’t been received by President Obama but we’ll cross one bridge at a time.

It’s time to play, “Name That Religion”, WSJ edition

by @ 9:51. Filed under Presstitute Follies, War on Terror.

Sean Gardiner of The Wall Street Journal reported on a draft study from the New York State Intelligence Center on 32 terrorism cases against the US. Despite noting that the report included, as two of its 25 variables, religion and affiliations, that the study began with Richard Reid’s attempted shoe-bombing and ended with Faisal Shahzad’s attempted Times Square bombing (both of whose ties to Islam and Al Qaeda-affiliated groups were omitted from the article), and quoting the draft report’s finding that 82% of the 90 persons-of-interest were between 18 and 33 years old as “suggesting ‘that younger persons are less established, more impressionable, and therefore more susceptible to radicalization,'” there was no mention of the religious or other affiliations of those 90.

Gardiner, however, noted several other demographic trends, from a majority of the persons-of-interest being US citizens to a significant portion of those whose criminal histories could be established having prior records involving marijuana to a majority having at least some college education.

Who here thinks they found a bunch of Pentecostals and Alcoholics Anonymous members rather than Islamokazis and various left-wing/anarchist whackos? Anyone? Bueller?

NRE 2010 Awards – Dumbest Thing Said

by @ 5:00. Filed under NRE 2010 Awards.

Welcome to Day 3 of the NRE 2010 Awards. Today, we focus on the dumbest thing unleashed into the public consciousness. As a review/preview, here’s the rest of the schedule:

– Jackass of the Year, 1/1
– Thank You for Existing, yesterday
– News Story of the Year, tomorrow
– Person of the Year, 1/5

And the nominees are…

“It (unemployment insurance) creates jobs faster than any other initiative you can name,” Nancy Pelosi while pleading for an extension of unemployment benefits (fron steveegg) – No, you twit, it lengthens a lack of employment (I can’t properly call it unemployment because on the federal level, one can drop off the unemployment rate while on unemployment) right up to just a couple of weeks before it actually ends. As for the extended quote (courtesy Breitbart), I don’t see (or at least I didn’t used to see) too many people on unemployment picking up ribeye steaks and Dom Perignon (which carry a rather healthy profit margin) to survive, much less the new Chevrolets, Fords, Toyotas, Arctic Cat snowmobiles and hand-crafted furniture that allow jobs to be created.

“Are you serious?”, Nancy Pelosi, in response to a question about the constitutionality of Obamacare (from realdebate) – Yes Nancy we were serious, and correct. Enjoy your new status in the minority!

“We have to pass the bill so you can see what’s in it,” Nancy Peolosi regarding Placebocare (from Shoebox) – Not since Alfred E. Neuman’s infamous “What, me worry,” has a single phrase conveyed the level of conivary and deceit as this utterance from Pelosi.

“If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border,” Milwaukee County Supervisor Peggy West during debate on a resolution condemning Arizona for passing a immigrant status-verification law (from silent E and Kevin Fischer – yes, they both submitted the same quote)

“I don’t worry about the Constitution.” (from Phineas) Said by (now former) Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL), when asked last April  by St. Louis Tea Party members about the constitutionality of ObamaCare. I guess the “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” part of his oath of office is something he doesn’t worry about, either. Oddly, his constituents elected his opponent last November.

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