Politicaly appointed Government employees

Federal political appointed “managers”

I dealt with four federal government agencies during my career in Engineering Management, Engineering and Business Management Consulting and while running my own businesses.

There are many competent and hard working people working in government service.

My concern is with the political appointees who get appointed to high paying job when there is a turnover in an administration. The “Appointees” are many times people who blew up balloons for the winning candidates.

The worst of the worst are the top “Management” appointees who are in position to spend huge amounts of your money without active oversight. They contribute nothing to the management of their “bureau”, leaving the work to the working troops.

Second worst are the “Administrative Assistants” or “Deputy Assistants”. Every manager seems to have at least one. They provide important functions like getting coffee for the boss, reading newspapers, and running errands.

The permanent hires of inappropriate people without education or experience to perform their job is also a problem. I was an engineering manager for a corporation that designed and manufactured equipment for naval ships. My counterpart at The Bureau of Ships, who was responsible for approving our designs and design changes, was a Political Science Major graduate. He literally didn’t understand nuts, bolts or cotter pins and routinely rejected or disapproved our submittals of drawings and specifications because we had not “adequately explained”. I guess the word “Science” in his Resume (and probable relationship with a politician) qualified him to be an engineering manager. Thankfully, after digging deep into the Bureau, and really ticking off the “manager”, we found real engineers who could assist us. The manager got “Promoted” to get him out of the way.

I think it was Ronald Regan who said, “If you want to see government waste walk into any government office”.

I’m sure he was talking about the political appointees, not the hard working, intelligent, competent, educated, trained souls who sadly will never be “The Boss”.

One last comment:

I was once in the office of an upper level manager in the DOE just after a Presidential election. A new Director had just been appointed.

I asked my contact, “How are you getting along with your new boss?”

He laughed and said, “He hasn’t found his office yet. We hope to keep it that way.”

Class Warfare

Tax paid is more important than Tax rate

During a recent CBS 60 Minute TV interview the Anchor looked at Gov Romney with a “You are disgusting” sneer and asked:

“If your income is twenty million a year you pay a 14% tax rate. If somebody earning $50,000 a year pays a higher rate, do you think that is fair?”

IT”S NOT THE RATE THAT IS IMPORTANT-- IT IS THE AMOUNT PAYED!

To foster Class Warfare and perpetuate the medias bias for Obama’s position that the “Rich” should pay more, the TV Anchor conveniently forgot to state that Romeny’s actual tax payment, at the of 14% rate, on the twenty million Capital Gains, would be $2,800,000, (that is two million, eight hundred thousand) He also forgot to mention that Romney would have also paid income tax on the income that allowed him to invest and make a capital gain.

If the downtrodden “somebody else” tax rate is 28% (double Romney’s “rate”) the tax paid on $50,000 regular income would  be $14,000 (that is fourteen  thousand)..

Romney’s tax, paid in dollars, would be 200 times that paid by the person with the “higher rate”!

I hope you see the deception.

I know all the zeros may be confusing but I’m sure you can see how a biased media can use numbers to create misinformation to smear those they do not support.

 Below are my previous blogs that describe the scurrilous, deceptive use of numbers, used to promote political positions, and to create class envy, hatred and class warfare:

The Buffet Rule is BS        April 25, 2012

Gasoline Price                    April 12, 2012

            This is interesting because the government demonizes huge companies with huge sales by           using the huge profits in dollars while not stating the low profit margin as a percentage   (Oil company profit margin reportedly is 4%).

Government Math               Feb  26, 2012

      

The Media interview that prompted this blog was partially included in an Obama TV add.

The add producer edited the interview response by Romney, furthering the deception.

 Please do not believe everything you see or hear from the media and blogs (including mine!).  Investigate, talk to others and be informed.

Also, emulate, don’t hate the successful.

As my son likes to say, “Get a glove and get in the game.”

If you don’t, soon there will not be a game.

Goodbye USA

Goodbye USA-- Hello USSA

If the US Government seized all money and assets from the “Rich 1%”, how many days would the seized assets run the Federal Government?

When all the seized money is gone what would the US become?  Would the Federal Government Nationalize and run everything? What form would the US Government become? This type of event has occurred in the past.  In this hemisphere, just look at the countries in South America for examples.

Do your homework.

Next question:

How many of the “Richest 1%” have developed plans or already started to move their assets to untouchable locations. Many have already moved out of NY and California. Out of the US would be next.

Most of the “Richest” aren’t stupid. If they move their wealth outside the US, what will our government do? Same answer as above, a Government run economy!

I have worked with many people in government. Most of the “appointed bosses” could not find their own butt with both hands. The Data on that is overwhelming. Pick any government run organization and imagine what would happen if there is no money in the treasury. 

A comedian once said that if the government was in charge of the deserts we would be out of sand in five years.

Well, we would say “Goodbye USA, Hello USSA”, the United Socialist States of America?

Old enough to remember singer Tennessee Ford’s song “I owe my soul to the company store”?

We could owe our life to The Government.

Increasing Business taxes will increase your purchase price

I’m amazed that so many of our elected officials obviously don’t understand or have never looked at a business Profit/Loss Statement.

I owned a Dairy Queen Brazier. Every month I prepared a Profit or Loss (P/L) Statement. The first line on my P/L was the amount of money that came into the business. The rest of the lines were money- out expenses for items like material, labor, utilities, government fees and taxes, my equal payment of Social Security tax, Unemployment Compensation tax, local business taxes, and accounting, insurance, etc.

If things went well and my income exceeded expenses, I made a profit. The governments, Federal, State, and local, then taxed my profit.

The after tax profits was what I could pay myself to support my family. Of course the Governments taxed the salary I paid myself.

The “income redistribution” folks may find this dreadful but when any government agency increased my taxes or operating expenses, I raised my prices. I hope you understand that my prices had to be competitive, but I was in business to provide an income for my family. If you understand what I have just written you will realize that all my suppliers, utilities and service providers, etc, also had their costs go up for the same reasons.  They passed increased costs on to me, requiring me to further raise prices.

I’m writing this to advise that when government agencies raise business taxes or expenses, the cost will be passed on to you. It is always a domino effect. You may not consider it a tax increase but you should.

Please consider my input when listening to politicians who are saying that they are going to reduce your taxes by increasing taxes on business. IT IS NOT REAL!

Writing the above brought back the bad memories that often overshadowed the joy of running my own business:

Final points; when we sold our business, after 20 years of hard work, the Federal Government collected a huge Capital Gains Tax. My wife cried for days. I’m not whining but someday I’ll write about how all levels of government intrude on the small business people, requiring them to spend significant effort collecting and reporting taxes and fees. The governments don’t pay you for collecting their money and seriously penalize you if you make an error or are a day late. I once spent weeks looking for data to prove that three years earlier I had made a payment on time. The Feds threatened to seize my personal and business bank accounts. They were wrong and didn’t even say they were sorry. We bailed, in disgust, after twenty years. This occurred between 1970-1990 so both political parties, unelected bureaucrats and political appointees contributed to our problems and suppressed the joy of being self employed, providing first time jobs to teenagers and providing an excellent product and service.

PCATS

Politicians Comprehensive Assessment Tests

I was required to pass grueling written and oral tests to obtain a Professional Engineer’s license.

Many other vocations (Doctors/Lawyers/Beauticians/Plumbers/Electricians etc) are required to pass a test before being issued a license.           

Every teenager must take a written and driving test before getting a license.

High school students take MCATS/FCATS tests that are used to establish competence when applying for college acceptance.

Why aren’t Politicians required to pass a PCATS before running for office?

Shouldn’t the people who will determine our future be required to prove competence?

A Few Suggested areas of PCAT test:

Basic Math

Math application problems.  Example; If 200,000 jobs are lost every week and 200,000 jobs are created every month what is the net gain or loss of jobs for the month

Problem Analysis and Solution:

Economics and Bank/Trading Regulations

Pros and Cons of Capialism, Communism, Socialism, Dictatorships

Business 101

   Profit/Loss Statements

            If you are operating at 10% profit and a new gov’t reg is applied that will cost  $100,000/year, how much will you have to increase sales/year to pay for the reg?

            What is a Balance Sheet---Describe use and Elements

Civics-Ethics - Election laws for fund raising

The Constitution including all amendments

Our Intelligence System(Nancy Pelosi thinks it should be transparent!)

We need intelligent, principled people in government. This PCATS requirement would help.

There are probably many bright men in Congress. I know it is difficult to say this since so many appear to incompetent, misinformed, lacking in common sense and down right stupid.

I have also proposed that a Candidate must have run a small business for a minimum of two years and have supported and paid for all family expenses from the business profit. The objective being to educate candidates that profit is not a dirty word and that dealing with government rules and regulation is time consuming, expensive and exasperating and takes time that should be used to run a business. Excuse me, but dealing with borough, city, township, county, state and federal officials caused me to sell my business. Dealing with hundreds of auditors with Napoleon Complexes was maddening.

Please read my previous Blogs

2/26/2012 Government Math

2/27/2012 Politician Tax Proposals

3/7/2012   How many Zeros in a Billion

4//11/2012 Who is spending your $

4/12/2012  Gasoline price

4/23/2012  Buffett Rule is BS

Perhaps all the talking TV heads and political journalists should also be required to pass a PCATS test! Oh, forget that---You can’t fix stupid!