The traditional trade-off for robust job protections and generous pension packages for government workers has been the gap between private-sector salaries and public-sector salaries.
That has disappeared, as government salaries have increased to ridiculous levels…cops making $400k/year, lifeguards on Los Angeles beaches making $500k, teachers with Ed. Ds (a doctorate for making dioramas?) making $250k, and bureaucrats in bloated state governments, doing work that just a generation ago was done by clerks, making similar salaries.
But…or so the argument goes…we need to pay these people well otherwise we would lose their skills to the private sector! You know, like the functionary in Hawaii whose chaotic personal politics may have been responsible for the deaths of many people.
What we have in Hawaii is the perfect storm of generations of Democrat hiring practices, which are nothing more than political payoffs, coupled with the stark and obvious inability of these politicized civil servants to…you know…DO THEIR JOBS! They are far more interested in pushing the latest Woke nonsense, and of course, protecting the precious environment that they themselves devastated with their awful and short-sighted policies controlling fire mitigation and water use.
Hell, the last time I checked there were a few military bases in the Hawaiian Islands, and my guess is that the United States Marine Corps could help out a little bit…if they were asked by the governor. But he hasn’t. All he has done is asked the Coast Guard to monitor environmental impacts because that is obviously more important than the lives of the Hawaiian people.
What is that…a little political theater? Although it is up to the governor to ask for federal help, so the responsibility is the state’s.
There are 850 people still missing, and while some of those people are undoubtedly safe, the death toll will climb…probably by a lot. And it is the fault of the state and local civil servants who simply did not do their jobs.
The utter and complete failure of government is on full display, and it is a culmination of years of effort on the part of the progressive movement in America. They have converted the civil service into a money-making, hyper-politicized arm of the Democrat party. Get a cushy gig, contribute to the party, then hire more like-minded people to keep the horrid cycle going.
The function of government is no longer to support society in times of need…it is to fund the progressive rot.
If you happened to live on a quiet country back road I can certainly attest to that. If you happen to live in certain urban areas of the State it can be a little problematic.
Of course, depending on your political leanings you view things through rose-colored glasses.
The big west coast cities, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle, have become progressive dystopias filled with lawlessness and crime. It’s what the residents voted for, and they’re getting what they deserve. The video below deals with Seattle, will the Burlington area get as bad? only time will tell.
(This is why The Republican party in Vermont is [dead] to me.)
Vermont is perhaps the most liberal state in the nation, and much to the resident liberals apparant embarassment also one of the whitest. The State, which has next to no restrictions on firearm possession, is also still one of the most safest States in the country.
This of course can only mean that Vermont’s culture and its residents are irrededeemably RACIST! Black lives Matter was then given ‘carte blanche’ to ignore the rule of law and silence any opposition through raw intimidation.
When the Vermont legislature recently passed a bill to allow a women total unrestricted abortion right up to sucking out the baby’s brain while in the birth canal, any normal republican would have vetoed the bill and forced the legislature to override. But like Pontilus Pilate; Phil Scott washed his handsand signed it with enthusiasim.
Phil Scott despises Donald Trump. So I must assume that when I drive around central Vermont and see houses flying Trump and Gadston flags and signs saying “pray to end abortion” and “pre-born lives matter” that their governor despises them too.
I realize that the majority of voters in Vermont are liberal democrats who have for generations been living in Shangri-La and feel a deep need to virtue signal to atone for the sin of being blessed with a decent quality of life.
So if Vermont is so “progressive” how did (rino)Phil Scott defeat his rival so easily?
Well you had someone who was going to give [democrats] nearly everthing they wanted. The alternative was his fringe radical opponet who was ready to step on the gas a take Vermont to a place even liberals were not ready for.
For Conservative Republicans the choice was the frying pan or the fire.
The biggest mystery about Scott is why he remains a Republican when the party nationally has moved so far to the right and has bowed so deeply to the whims of a man he can’t stand. No elected Republican in the country—not Baker or Hogan, not any member of Congress—has gone further in repudiating Trump than Scott. He supported both impeachments of the former president, and on Election Day, rather than writing in the name of a GOP luminary, Scott voted for Biden.
He [Scott} voted for a house plant for President. Personal hatred won out over love of country.
I liken it to General Robert E. Lee commanding the Union Army of the Potomac against the South and his home State of Virginia. While at the same time wearing his grey uniform.
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