it's rather telling that a person's opinion of a "bad" governor is that the size of the state's government became smaller.

Not a very Libertarian viewpoint.  Smaller government necessarily means people will be displaced.  It also means the gov't needs fewer taxes which in turn helps businesses grow jobs.

I find it appalling that anyone with a "reputable" private school education and college degree doesn't get that relationship between public vs. private employment.

The government doesn't exist to create jobs for people who don't want to work a real job for a living.

Not many people seem to recall how terrible 2008 was for our state. Linda Lingle had it land in her lap right at the end of her career, and it was a real predicament especially when Hawaii's involvement in the grand economic pyramid scheme threatened to push us into insolvency. How much fun were those furlough Fridays, long lines at the DMV, and slow tourism years when a lot of small businesses folded and kicked off the mass exodus to Las Vegas?

Our state was saved from default by the federal government bailing out the big financial institutions, and as a result the whole world is now facing a crisis twice as bad as before.

When there is no money to hire state workers (or when the money is worthless) it does not matter how strong your union is.

I remember how we were so over taxed that the state ended up with budgets surpluses more than once, and under Hawaii law had to return money to the citizens. Under Waihee he started with a HUGE surplus and somehow managed to end his term with all that money vanishing into parts unknown, Cayetano came in and they just kept inflating the government with more and more idiotic positions. The state auditors literally could not figure out the actual number of individuals it was employing because so many people were double dipping salaries. More than one dept head was caught by newspaper reporters collecting multiple checks ... often without ever having shown up a single day in those offices.

I never did understand my sister in law when I asked what she does in her Federal job.

She said her job is to maximize the allotted spending in her department because if they don't spend all the allotment, their budget will be cut on the next fiscal.

She was to figure ways to spend the budget on projects that will eventually require more funding.

I believe that was the way she put it.

This same position opened up in Japan and she applied for that position that the gov't would pay her to relocate, provide on base housing rent free, and she can bring along her lazy, non motivated, jobless husband along for the ride.  So for 6 years she and her parasite husband lived in Japan on the gov'ts dime (paid for by us taxpayers) so she can figure out how to get more funding for projects that may or most likely may not make sense.

Meanwhile her lazy parasite was buying collectible godzilla toys and other related "authentic" japan paraphernalia for $10 and selling them for $100 to pre-teens in the US that begged their hardworking taxpaying parents for money so they can buy them from this "entrepreneur" living off the gov't's dime.

And now same husband is complaining to me that he inquired for Social Security and found out his retirement payments are small and paltry.  I told him what do you expect, you're 64, haven't held a job since you got fired from a real one when you were 42 due to laziness and absence from work too many times.  You've lived off your mommy (his wife) all this time.

I came real close to telling him about my friends 7 year old son.  My friend asked his son "Do you think money grows on trees?"  His son said yes.......

My friend son was understandably naive.  My in-laws husband:  just lazy and stupid.

Yes I have issues with family.  Thanks for reading.

I never did understand my sister in law when I asked what she does in her Federal job.

She said her job is to maximize the allotted spending in her department because if they don't spend all the allotment, their budget will be cut on the next fiscal.

She was to figure ways to spend the budget on projects that will eventually require more funding.

I believe that was the way she put it.

and that is the fundamental flaw in all government mentality,  self preservation even if your function is redundant / obsolete.  Trying to come up with excuses why you need to keep going or even grow bigger when your job does almost nothing but employ people who cant hack it in the real world.

Not any different than the Democratic Party screaming today about rampant Racism under every rock like we are all living in 1930s Mississippi, they are manufacturing pretend work to try and justify their existence, their 'job' was finished 25 yrs ago.

I never did understand my sister in law when I asked what she does in her Federal job.

She said her job is to maximize the allotted spending in her department because if they don't spend all the allotment, their budget will be cut on the next fiscal.

She was to figure ways to spend the budget on projects that will eventually require more funding.

I believe that was the way she put it.

This same position opened up in Japan and she applied for that position that the gov't would pay her to relocate, provide on base housing rent free, and she can bring along her lazy, non motivated, jobless husband along for the ride.  So for 6 years she and her parasite husband lived in Japan on the gov'ts dime (paid for by us taxpayers) so she can figure out how to get more funding for projects that may or most likely may not make sense.

Meanwhile her lazy parasite was buying collectible godzilla toys and other related "authentic" japan paraphernalia for $10 and selling them for $100 to pre-teens in the US that begged their hardworking taxpaying parents for money so they can buy them from this "entrepreneur" living off the gov't's dime.

And now same husband is complaining to me that he inquired for Social Security and found out his retirement payments are small and paltry.  I told him what do you expect, you're 64, haven't held a job since you got fired from a real one when you were 42 due to laziness and absence from work too many times.  You've lived off your mommy (his wife) all this time.

I came real close to telling him about my friends 7 year old son.  My friend asked his son "Do you think money grows on trees?"  His son said yes.......

My friend son was understandably naive.  My in-laws husband:  just lazy and stupid.

Yes I have issues with family.  Thanks for reading.

Forgive me for going off topic, but this is an anecdote that needs to be told.
I was in the Strategic air Command(SAC) at the end of the Vietnam war.
I fixed avionics navigation systems on B52H's, KC-135s, and anything else they sent me to.
Just before New Years, they ratcheted up the training sortie rate, just to use up their fuel budget,
so they wouldn't lose funding in the next year.  It was our Christmas present, from the "Brass":
Apparently our normal training rates didn't use the fuel budgeted. and SAC trains 24/7!
 

Forgive me for going off topic, but this is an anecdote that needs to be told.
I was in the Strategic air Command(SAC) at the end of the Vietnam war.
I fixed avionics navigation systems on B52H's, KC-135s, and anything else they sent me to.
Just before New Years, they ratcheted up the training sortie rate, just to use up their fuel budget,
so they wouldn't lose funding in the next year.  It was our Christmas present, from the "Brass":
Apparently our normal training rates didn't use the fuel budgeted. and SAC trains 24/7!
 

I would assume this happens at the fed level all the time.  I had a friend say the same. Told buy his boss to order more stuff or their budget will be lowered.  This is the mentality that is wasting tax dollars.

I would assume this happens at the fed level all the time.  I had a friend say the same. Told buy his boss to order more stuff or their budget will be lowered.  This is the mentality that is wasting tax dollars.

I've worked in a number of military/DoD facilities in my career, and yes, the baseline budgeting process is super wasteful.

The people in charge of submitting a budget for their programs never ask for less than the previous year's budget -- even if they didn't spend all of last year's funds.  In fact, they take last year's number and add a percentage increase to account for increases in prices/inflation the following year.

All year long you'll hear the managers tell you they can't buy this piece of equipment or pay for that trip for a conference or training because there's no money in the budget.  Didn't matter how important or beneficial that expenditure would be.  They just couldn't find the money in the budget.

Fast forward to July and August that same fiscal year ending in October, and the organization suddenly has "excess funds" that need to be spent rather than returned.  They wind up buying furniture, electronics, expensive tool kits, software suites, books, $5,000 workstations, and whatever else they can justify.  All that money to be spent, yet there was none available for things we needed throughout the year.

I once went TDY with a large group to Florida.  We were there for several weeks.  The unit only budgeted for two rental cars, and once we were split up into shifts, the Captain in charge returned one of them to save money.  So, when one group was working, the group not on shift had to share the one car to get things done.  Invariably, there would be someone to take the car as soon as they could and go sightseeing or whatever while the rest of us had no transportation to run to the BX or commissary, run errands, etc.

After the Major from our unit showed up a few days before we left, I mentioned how another vehicle would have reduced the stress.  He said, "All Captain Smith needed to do was call, and I would have authorized it."  Too late.  Shows how the higher-ups divide up the funds and can shift money between priorities, but the lower managers only spend what they are told is in their budget.

Anyway, I learned long before that trip that if you really need money from the unit's funding, you can ALWAYS find it.  Someone in the chain is keeping the funds flowing as slowly as possible to avoid being broke 6 months into the FY.  Too bad few are adept at actually planning a 12-month budget.