I'm not going to defend the regulation you have mentioned, but I'd offer this: Some folks think that gubmint is out of line any time it tells anyone they cannot do this, or must do that. From the perspective of the person owning waterfront land, this regulation sucks. On the other end of the scale, how 'bout we do away with all environmental regulations and all building codes? This way, Bill Gates can buy up all of Lake Washington, create parcels for all his friends, and it can be renamed Lake Gates. You can access it with his permission but why bother....it's just a wall of buildings now. No shoreline.

Of course, some folks are just going to dismiss this as fantasy, but it has happened elsewhere. And either you believe in protecting shorelines for their environmental value, or their aesthetic value......or you don't give a rip what kind of shoreline you hand to the next generation.

If you don't give a rip, there are going to be easier countries for you to screw up than this one.

In fact, there are countries you can go look at where there has been no gubmint regulation at all, to speak of. They don't look like your country, though.

One of my biggest issues with government is the total inaccountability and pathetic output of the employees. Anyone here who works/worked in government MUST admit they are/were surrounded by people who would be fired in the private sector. But in government no one cares, it's not their company or money. On this matter my ears are closed for business. Sup, you say that you work with people who poor their soul into their job, and this may be true but it would be an abhorition. I know people who work in all sorts of government, lets take a few examples.

Dope smoker guy:
This guy use to weld for me. Smokes HUGE amounts of dope and lost his drive to be productive. Nice guy but useless. Anyway, he is now the city manager for the city pay-lots downtown. I see him all the time. He just laughs at how they pay him to sit in his booth, watch TV, and smoke dope. Oh yea, he and his dope smoking buds have good pay($35k+) and full benefits.

Police officer guy(s): I have about 6 buddies on the PD. One gives a ****, the others have been on longer. They all make about $55k-$65k a year, and have fantastic benfits. They work 12 hour days, 12 days a month. OK, reread that guys it's not a typo. Anyway they all(but one) admit that they do next to nothing. Those that admit it acknowledge the one guy that still works hard. They say he is one of a few that still care. Back to the job. These guys have all been detectives, Swat, beat cop and ALL (every one including "still cares") have gone back to the street. Why you ask? THEY DONT DO ANYTHING. We were talking the other day about new GPS beacons going in cars. They said if they had those in their cars you would see the following: Call goes out with location......all cars withing 1/2 mile would scatter like cockroaches so they wouldn't get stuck with it. They say they actually "work" maybe two hours a day. I go to lunch with them maybe once every two months. This is a 1-1/2 - 2 hour affair for them, again NOT kidding and they do this every day. No one cares. I could go on with their stories, but I think you get the point.

NOTE: This is a big city PD and I'm sure it is different in smaller/other areas.

Next up: Government middle management girl.

This is a really nice chick I know. Worked in DC for a while, now here in Michigan. She works for a Congressman with a bout 6 others just like her. Once again these people do little. Their job is to explain or facilitate access to government for the constituants. Well if no one needs anything then 4 of the 6 go shopping or to a movie or for a long lunch, or WHATEVER. And for the record it's quite common that no one needs anything. Oh yea they also have AWESOME benfits.

All of these people have no idea about reality. They will pop in to my business and say "lets go see a movie" and not understand why there is absolutely NO WAY I can do that cause "I have a job".

I'm sure some of you think I'm exaggerating, I AM NOT. In fact I am considering a documentary on this. Now am I blaming the people? Absolutely not. These same people if not corrupted by the government employee system would likely be good, productive, private sector employees. The funniest thing to me is how they don't even notice it until I point it out. They get velocitized if you will. And those that do know how good they have it try to justify it by saying everyones job should be like thiers and that private companies abuse their employees. End rant choke full of typos, run on sentences, etc........

I'm sure that Superman and I could go on for several pages about everytime I recieved good service from private enterprise, and poor service from a governmental agency, and Super giving examples of the opposite.

No need for that, I guess we're discussing our basic philosophy differences. But I did find it amusing yesterday when I went to go renew my driver's license.
I had to wait in line to get the "now serving" number, before I could wait.

I will also agree that there are whackos out there who think government is evil. The dudes who clain police have no authority to issue speeding tickets, because of some out of context blip in the constitution.

They're just that- Whackos.

But in reality, both government and private enterprise are made up of people. Most who are good, some who are selfish beyond belief. Just as you think private enterprise needs regulations to keep things in check, doesn't the same apply to the govermnent? The people should have a right to oversee what the government is up to, and speak up when things get sideways.

If the government is truly of, for, and by the people, government employees should take note of frustrated people. Not just assume that the stupid masses must be "educated" so as to understand that what government decides is automatically correct.

Why should government agencies get larger budgets every year automatically? It's no fun to deal with budget cuts, but as a self- employed guy, my income fluctuates wildly. Welcome to life.

When the government is a larger part of GNP every year, I don't see the problem with budgets being questioned.

If your agency was scheduled for a 5% increase, and it only gets a 4% increase, only in government is that called a budget cut.

Sure, examples are just that. I am talking, "lets get real, this is human nature we're talking about" type stuff. When you have little reason to excel, and no one cares if you do, and there is punishment for not doing so, WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU? Sure a certain cross section of society will have good work ethics ingrained in them and will perform well regardless of circumstance. Most will not. This is a no brainer in my opinion.

Was out with a good buddy last night, visiting the city from the country. Not the least bit conservative in his politics and no where near a Republican.

"Why" he asked me - "Have my taxes doubled in 16 years"? He lives on the same dirt road, no garbage pick-up, no new schools, no water, no sewer services.

This is not only a problem of the big city and suburbs.

What is government? Spending other peoples money. Bloated benifits, outrageous retirement pensions, crazy work rules, nepotism, croynism, a lack of accountibility that would shock private sector employees.

We have ourselves to blame. Most of us dont vote, and when we do it is under the mistaken assumption the big shots make a difference. Most local elections are won by political machines getting out a fraction of the registered vote. And what do we demand of the press/media? More Brad and Jennifer..

In my experience those in government look at "best case scenerios" in the private sector and apply them as SOP in government. In other words, if any one compnay gives Thee Best health coverage well then by god we should have it too. I just get frustrated. I wonder what it's like to run a government department and have no possibility of failure. I mean we get $x a year and when it's gone it's gone. No one gets fired, no ones house gets reposessed, no ones wife leaves em because there was no money for new carpet or drapes or baby clothes, etc....

In the real world, you fukc up and run out of money you go under. Game over, thanks for the effort, come again. You know, reality.

Locally, we have the laugher cop situation where one was sited at the Puyallup fair..........surfing for Porn on his in-car computer. He was videotaped, and of course, not fired.

Yep, one of my officer buddies says when he gets to work he finds a park and plays Minesweeper/solitare/hearts until he wins each every day. Once he has completed this goal he starts his day. They all admit to sleeping in their patrol cars and bringing small TV's along, etc.. I' not blaming them, I'm just saying this is the natural progression of things in government.

I worked in a Government-like *company*.

Boeing.

Had ALL of the elements you mentioned, the most frustrating of all were the losers and abusers who could not get fired....

Craig, indeed. I almost brought this up but was saving it as a fig leaf for Sup:)

Huge business is nearly as bad as government because they take on the similar traits.

It was truly BAD.

The work itself was cool, the planes were incredible, the history of the places I worked were 2nd to none. But the schmucks who worked there....

Here's another one. On our local talk radio station they were discussing the postal service. A post office employee called and spilled the beans. He said they had so many people that there wasn't enough work for them all. They would run in a couple 2 hour shifts (how long it took to do their days worth of work). One group would deliver and sort, and the other played Euchre in the back. Something tells me this ain't happining at UPS.

It's just classic.

My Dad worked at Boeing from 1963-4. It was SO boring and such a waste of his brain power that he quit and went to work at Sundstrand.
He finished his 'work' in 1 hour and read Sci-Fi books the rest of the day.

He became the co-inventor of.....the "Black Box" flight recorder.

No kidding? Very cool.

Ok, so if you accept that government employees tend to be apathetic in their approach, why in the world would you want them to manage anything truely important for YOU?

I lasted 4 years as a direct at the Lazy-B before I quit to go contracting (which DOUBLED my income overnight. I just got sick of working my a$$ off for no reward. When it came time for performance reviews the manager had X number of dollars to dole out...most of them spread the money like peanut butter...a little for everyone. Even if the other guy didn't do anything all year he got the same crappy 2-3% raise as I did. The worst was when the college new hires come in making more money than engineers that had been there 5+ years. :mad:

I'm back inside Boeing now...but as a contractor. It's still just as frustrating dealing with the Bo-Bots.

Nothing has changed...people surfing the internet all day...posting on BBS's...oh wait...:D

Just took my daughter to a park in Kirkland.
There was a city employee sitting, almost sleeping, in an idling backhoe for over an hour. Hey, its cool.......WE paid for the gas.

Wouldn't want him to get cold while doing NOTHING.

He was happy and that is all that counts.

I'm not in denial. I suppose the office I handled was special. I know it was, for a fact. Today, I happened to stop by to surprize a woman who had been on my staff at the Labor Department, and who now is privately employed. She couldn't stop complaining about the boredom and lack of work. She's looking to change jobs because of that. In spite of the fact that she is handsomely paid now, with incredible benefits. Go figure.

And I'm going to give all these obervations a "pass" because I know they are true and because I would not defend laziness, particularly in work that is as important, or at least as high-impact, as gubmint work usually is. I would say however, what we all know, which is that generalizations are all false, stereotypes are not helpful and gubmint is just an easy target. A sitting duck. And again, much of your frustration with gubmint is shared by those inside. Very much so, in fact. You want to see a public servant get worked up, it's easy. Ask them a few questions about their workplace, and they'll "go ballistic" as they say. Which is a segway to......

Budget. I don't doubt that gubmint gets bigger each year. In fact, our current President may be the all time heavyweight champion of growing gubmint quickly. But particular government offices, in my experience, have the opposite problem. Each of the last six or eight years, at least, the Governor of my state has mandated that cabinet agencies simply cut overall budget by x%. (and that's not a request for reduction of a budget increase like in Dan's example. It's a plain and simple mandatory I-don't care-how-you-do-it-as-long-as-I-can-announce-it-in-my-next-speech budget cut) That's frustrating when you're trying to manage an office and your customers are like Dan, wanting BETTER service, not WORSE service.

Gaijindabe, I don't know about your friend's specifics, but the answer to his question might be very very simple. Let's take property taxes. In many areas (certainly in the Seattle area) property values double in 16 years or less. There's your answer.