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How do you spend $236 million on just 22 people in four years?
It’s a skill set. High level, high concept thinking.
Probably surprising to no one, both sides of aisle pound their collective chest about reducing fraud, waste and abuse until it actually comes to doing something.
If Elon had been Biden’s pick for this, Dems would have been taking a victory lap. Of course, anything uncovered would have been buried immediately.
“If approved, the cash will not be subject to state constitutional funding limitations because 90% of it will go toward healthcare and 10% will support food or education initiatives. ”
Sounds like a wagon load of BS to me. Does the new revenue enhance health care funding or does it replace cuts?
[quote quote=10861]
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/08/23/joint-office-homeless-portland-audit/ Similar story in Seattle. Locally, the budget for fighting homelessness is $265M/year. Portland’s homeless population is estimated at 5000. It would be cheaper to just buy a house for each of them.
That’s $53,000 in annual homeless spend for each. There are 5,108 houses for sale in the state of Michigan between $5,000 and $53,000. Send the homeless to Michigan, try to get them jobs. Pay 1/2 the cost of the house this year and the other half to fix it up as necessary. Do the rest the subsequent year. Presto. Problem solved.[/quote]
Some estimates run as much 2x for funding when NGOs are factored in. The problem is overlapping agencies duplicating services with inconsistent approaches to address the problem. Some want to provide housing before drug/alcohol problems are addressed, others insist treatment first is necessary. There are no metrics to measure success or failure of any approach.
No matter the approach or state, one thing is constant – we only need a few million$ more in the budget and we can solve the problem.
Not mentioned is simply the cost of owning a second home. Toss in travel cost, value of the Canadian dollar vs US$, aging demographic, difficulty in getting insurance in Florida plus profit taking on homes purchased years ago all have an impact.
Yes, the political climate is listed as the #1 reason for Canadians to sell their US homes. It may be a catalyst, but it not the only reason.
Similar story in Seattle. New Socialist mayor is pushing $21/hr minimum wage plus she is proposing penalizing business that close as a result. She is especially focused on grocery stores that close. Never mind that policy, rules and regulations are driving small businesses into bankruptcy.
People who love a high “livable” minimum wage don’t like self check out. Gee, I can wait to read comments from shoppers experiencing AI driven customer service robots. Input your project or shopping list and a bot will take you to the exact location of the products you want.
Shoot, 4 years ago a Hampton in near SJC airport was experimenting with a robot to deliver linens and other items to rooms after 5:00 PM. Granddaughters were chasing it around the hotel. 🙂 I guess this eliminates at least 2 perhaps as many as 4 jobs at the hotel. Easy choice, hire someone for $80k in salary and benefits or buy a robot that can work 24/7 without supervision for $150K.
Less Jackson’s status as a war hero, there are many similarities between Trump and Jackson. The most significant is their appeal to the common man and resistance from political elitists.
Son and family avoided Disneyland last summer, citing cost of over $1000/day.
Never was a big fan of Vegas. Lost complete interest as Vegas became “family friendly”.
Went to Oahu last summer. We stayed with girl friend’s daughter and son in law, had the use of a car. Lot’s of beach time, so our costs were ridiculously low. That said, there were several tourist activities I passed on because of stupidly costly price.
Destinations like Vegas are suffering from a lack of visitors. Catering to the rich, reducing market size, will have the unintended consequence of reducing employment in the hospitality industry. Fewer visitors means fewer employees needed to care for visitors.
The only reason Trump won was Dems selected the two most unelectable candidates on the planet. A moderate would have won easily, IMHO.
Dems will continue to run against Trump in the foreseeable future. It’s all they have.
Anecdotal, but not unusual.
Two years ago last July Mrs. Dawg was having serious trouble catching her breath. Diagnosis was walking pneumonia. I called BS, but we had a 10 trip to Vancouver Island planned. Before we returned, she got the point she couldn’t walk 20 feet without pausing to catch her breath.
When we got home, went through a second round of imaging and docs “found” a cancerous lump the size of tennis ball obstructing air flow to her left and impeding blood flow returning to her heart.
She was already Stage III at this point. Docs prescribed chemo and radiation- standard protocol for the type and severity of her cancer. That was the end of July.
Wellcare spent two months granting approval. She passed October 8 after cardiac arrest brought on by cancer.
Not sure it would have made a difference in the final outcome, but ….I’ll never know for sure.
Until any of the proposed revenue enhancing taxes includes a firewall that reduces spending dollar for dollar for each $ raised, it is money that will be wasted on grants, giveaways and graft.
When funds from this one time tax are gone, libs will pass the hat again, this time to help the poor, homeless, pay off student loans, save Mother Earth-pick your favorite cause.
Great example is Covid money. Seems to be no end to state and local governments crying about a loss of funds, when the real problem is it’s funding that was meant to be temporary. Bureaucrats readjusted budgets as if the funding would be permanent.
Libs are about to run out of other peoples money, and they are starting to panic.
Not that it means anything in the context of this thread, but one of my favorite breakfast places in San Jose is for sale. How do I know this?
There is a notice posted stating an application to sell the business has been applied for.
WTF! We really are on a downward spiral predict by Ayn Rand. One must receive permission from the government to sell a business? Other than another revenue stream, what rational is there for this kind of bureaucratic fuckery?
