1. - Cassandra - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 10:35 am:

   As long as Chicagoans continue to meekly accept increases in taxes (although it’s hard to get too excited about parking fees and sports tickets–and parking fees can be eliminated by taking public transport) they are going to get fleeced by
   the City.

   It seems likely that if you take away all the featherbedding and other forms of city government waste, the city has the money it needs to do what is important and necessary for its citizens. Unfortunately, there are not enough investigative
   reporters out there to find and publicize the waste and citizens certainly don’t have the time or the skills to do this, for the most part.
   They can, however, make it very clear to their aldermen/women that they have to back off on taxing middle class citizens while this financial
   disaster is working itself out, which likely could take several years. In fact, city government should be giving rebates.

   Politicians really do respond to clear messages.
   Phone calls, letters, visits to the office. But
   I one shouldn’t underestimate how clear that message needs to be.

   Wonder what happened to those Streets and San supervisors who weren’t supervising their workers by the way. Nothing seems like a distinct possibility. But perhaps a good place to start would be to cut within the vast acres of Chicago city middle management, many of whom are likely eligible for early retirement with great pensions and free health care. Taxpayers can’t afford them now and to the extent that they are necessary, those jobs need to go to younger workers.




2. - Plutocrat03 - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 11:03 am:

   There is always enough money for the government insiders. This also includes consultants, and professionals contracted to do work for the public bodies.

   The general public is focused on their own jobs and families. The most common time they look to government is to look and see if there is a program which will benefit them. Otherwise they complain about the taxes they pay and reelect the same old politicians.

   There is no incentive for the politicians to run things more efficiently. Therefore we have the free spending policies that are practiced at all levels of government.




3. - Carl Nyberg - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 11:22 am:

   Follow-up question about people without health insurance.

   What percentage of citizens who are neither seniors nor government employee have health insurance?

   BTW, if you want Americans to save more money, may I suggest passing single-payer health care?

   There’s no point saving money if the medical-industrial complex can wipe-out your savings if a member of your family gets sick. You’re better off not having savings and forcing the government or the health care provider to eat the cost.




4. - Go Union - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 11:26 am:

   Cassandra,

   Judging by how light the blogging is today, I would suggest that most Cap Fax enthusiasts are off of work for the holiday, which probably means they work for some government agency or another. I wonder how many of these folks are being paid by the taxpayers while they spend hours blogging about the lazy city garbage men.

   Maybe middle managers should start checking who is sitting on their can and blogging all day instead of picking on the folks that have to hall away trash all day.

   People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.




5. - Rich Miller - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 11:36 am:

   Go Union, I think maybe you’re misreading our resident public employee basher. She does that to everyone, not just garbage men.




6. - wordslinger - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 12:23 pm:

   I suspect the Cook County percentage of uninsured is higher. For instance, are they taking into consideration at all undocumented workers or people who no longer participate in the workforce?




7. - JohnR - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 12:35 pm:

   Rich, did you know that there are 1.4 million uninsured adults in Illinois?
   - JohnR, impersonating Lou Lang, impersonating Rod Blagojevich




8. - Mr. Wizard - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 12:38 pm:

   “I suspect the Cook County percentage of uninsured is higher. For instance, are they taking into consideration at all undocumented workers or people who no longer participate in the workforce?”

   After stumbling around their website, I can find no answer to your question or any other about the actual definition of “uninsured”. In fact, the study appears to be a series of estimates based on prior year(s) data. If I am wrong, someone please correct.




9. - Cassandra - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 1:31 pm:

   Actually, you didn’t read my post. My post was about the failure of middle management to adequately supervise their staff (according to the inspector general’s own report on the city garbagemen) thus
   resulting in sounds like a lot of poor performance

   And I don’t bash government employees per se, never have. I bash city and state systems which hire thousands of patronage employees, require minimal accountability, overstaff at the middle management level, and pay above-market compensation packages regardless of credentials or performance. This type of system is no longer cheap but we can’t afford it at any cost.
   Actually, this is a good example of how we pay
   for poor management in government service. Exposes like this one make it harder for the government
   to make the case for resources needed to invest in a higher quality of life for everyone—not just the rich and politically connected.

   If Rich can follow my IP address, he can attest that I most certainly don’t work for state government. My time is my own—every day, all day.




10. - Rich Miller - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 1:35 pm:

    At first I thought Cassandra was Rod Blagojevich, but I don’t think so any longer. lol




11. - The Doc - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 2:24 pm:

    Daley needs to be taken to the woodshed, presuming there’s an iota of truth to any of it. Politically connected spin doctors and family members get gold-plated city contracts while the mayor raises tax rates to even more unconscionable levels.




12. - steve schnorf - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 2:46 pm:

    Remember, uninsured data from college communities is frequently skewed by the large number of healthy young adults in the community.




13. - Bubs - Monday, Oct 13, 08 @ 6:36 pm:

    Voters, sweetheart deals and bloated government in Daleyland is like the weather. Everyone complains, but no one does anything about it.

    In fact, Chicago voters even be worse. One man actually did do something about the weather. His name was Carrier, and he invented air conditioning.

    We lose 1-0.

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