The Accelerating Scale of the Legislate-Regulate-Spend-and-Repeat Cycle Has Broken Government
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in Corruption and Scandals, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes, Mental illness and substance abuse, Money in politics, Politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements
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23 responses to “The Accelerating Scale of the Legislate-Regulate-Spend-and-Repeat Cycle Has Broken Government”
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Tax & Spend Democrats, or…
Borrow & Spend Republicans.Clean of body, clean of mind. Take your pick.
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Trying to beat the legislate, regulate and spend without oversight and results out of government. Your little comment doesn’t mention government competence, which would be refreshing no matter who is in power.
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Great rant. Advocates of big government have long ago stopped caring if the spending actually yields positive outcomes. More money and more spending is always the answer to every social and economic malady. It almost makes you wonder if there’s something in it for the big spenders themselves.
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$9,507 for every man, woman and child in the Commonwealth. And yet the Imperial Clown Show in Richmond remains steadfast in continually raising taxes. Sometimes overtly – for example, raising the motor vehicle fuels tax in NoVa and Hampton Roads. Sometimes covertly – for example, the wealth transfer surcharge coming to your electric bills.
It seems obvious to me that no amount of money will ever be enough for the Democrats in Richmond. A quick peek at California or New York will show you the future of Virginia under Democratic Party rule.
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“A quick peek at California or New York will show you the future of Virginia under Democratic Party rule.”
And this is where the sunshine blowers say, “But wait, California and New York have pretty strong economies and isn’t that what we want in Virginia?”
No. You will not get the strong economies of California and New York here in Virginia, under either Democratic OR Republican party rule.
Not without a complete change in cultural attitudes, anyway.
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I needed to do some shopping so I scheduled an appointment with WalMart to go to their store, buy things and pay them money.
Oh, wait a minute … you don’t have to schedule an appointment to shop at WalMart.
I needed to pay to get new license plates for my car. So I set up an appointment with the DMV.
Yeah, that’s right … you need an appointment to deal with the Virginia DMV.
Government competence? That’s quite the oxymoron.
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And when you schedule an appointment with the DMV, that’s just the appointment to get in line and wait inside for another hour.
I recently had to transfer ownership and registration of two vehicles belonging to my late father. It took almost an hour of filling out forms at the window (I would have filled them out beforehand but their instructions on how to handle this leave a lot to be desired).
And I wondered–all of the information I put on these forms is in their system. Every bit of it. Is there some reason they couldn’t print out these forms with that info already on it so all I have to do is sign that it’s correct? It would save a LOT of time….
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If you ever want to read a great account of government incompetence writ large … buy “Bailout” by Neil Barofsky.
Barofsky was the former Special Inspector General in Charge of Oversight of TARP. Barofsky was a lifelong Democrat who contributed to the Obama 2008 campaign and served in the Bush and Obama administrations.
His book is chilling and a complete indictment of government on both sides of the aisle.
This is what liberals can’t seem to understand – giving more money to government is giving more money to corrupt and incompetent institutions. It doesn’t matter whether the money is for a good cause … our government is too incompetent to properly oversee the funding of a good cause.
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“It doesn’t matter whether the money is for a good cause … our government is too incompetent to properly oversee the funding of a good cause.”
I’ve long had a suspicion that might be the case…
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I can’t wait to see the buffoonery that will come out of the infrastructure bill.
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I’m sure it will be a train wreck. No pun intended.
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In all this rant, one statement stood out for me: “Republicans roll back regulations.” Please list some Virginia regulations that Republicans have rolled back.
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“Please list some Virginia regulations that Republicans have rolled back.”
From 1843 through 1970 the only Republican governors of Virginia were appointed by the US Military during reconstruction.
So, I guess rolling back the “regulations” that allowed for slavery in Virginia should be credited to Republicans like Abraham Lincoln.
The God-awful 1902 Virginia State Constitution was written by Democrats and contained “regulations” like literacy tests and poll taxes for voting. The replacement constitution was adopted under Linwood Holton’s term as governor (the first Republican to hold that office other than through Reconstruction in over a century).
So, I guess we have to add Jim Crow and Massive Resistance to the “regulations” rolled back by Republicans. Those “regulations” were certainly adopted by Virginia Democrats.
Jim Gilmore tried to roll back the car tax.
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He got halfway.
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“So, I guess we have to add Jim Crow and Massive Resistance to the “regulations” rolled back by Republicans.”
Actually many of the regulations were never repealed. I believe they were largely found invalid by court decision and federal civil right legislation. Which Virginia Republicans supported the Civil Right Act again…?
For instance there is Joel Broyhill… Republican – Arlington… In 1955, he was one 81 US Representatives who vowed to oppose by “every lawful means”, the U.S. Supreme Court holding in Brown v. Board of Education which outlawed segregation. He and Richard Harding Poff of Virginia were the only two Republicans to sign the Southern Manifesto. Broyhill and Poff voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (from Wiki).
As it turns out in the House in 1968 there were 4 (out of ten) Virginian Republicans and all of them voted against the Civil Rights Act (Fair Housing Act) of 1968.
In fact, for all this Civil Rights legislation there was only one “aye” vote by a single Virginia Representative and that was for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Guess what, he was William Jennings, a Democrat.
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A quick look at the congressional votes for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 shows that Southern politicians, regardless of party (but mostly Democrats, since that’s what was favored in the South back then), mostly voted against it. (I found a handful of YES votes in Texas, one in Georgia, and one in Florida, a couple in Tennessee)
Northern politicians, regardless of party, mostly voted for it (and, without adding up every single state, a glance at a couple of Northern states suggests that Republicans had a slight edge over Democrats in the North at that time, holding more congressional seats).
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And, excluding those that voted “present” or didn’t vote at all, of those that voted AGAINST the civil rights act of 1964:
37.29% of Democrats who voted, voted AGAINST it. (91 out of 244)
20.46% of Republicans who voted, voted AGAINST it. (35 out of 171)
The source for these numbers is the link in my previous post.
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You can’t have it both ways Dick.
Democrats have run all of my life on the fact that Republicans gut a lot of regulations that they find worse than useless yet Democrats claim protect the _____, (fill-in the blank). Here you say those Democrats were wrong or lying.
The not-so-secret secret is that big business loves regulations because they are the only ones who can afford to comply. That is one of the reasons that big business has always supported both sides.
It is also the reason that small business remains the heart of the Republican party.
Pick a story and stick with it.
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[…] response to my column that called out the observable inefficiency of government, I give […]
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“Republicans roll back regulations.” Now that’s funny!
On the occasion the republicans win control of the state, they inevitably ignore small businesses and start passing anti-abortion legislation. Hence a significant reason republicans keep getting the tails handed to them.
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Abortion? That’s the bloody shirt you are waving – again?
I am surprised it took so long. Abortion is a sacrament to the left. I’m going to bet the “Republicans are going to take away a woman’s right to choose” Democratic plea to suburban women won’t work this time.
But I am not going to bet a lot.
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The only flag I waive is that of freedom, not the hypocrisy from both wings of the Statist party.
Not sure when, if ever, I’ve mentioned abortion before… but its just one example of Republican gaslighting…. much like dems gaslighting about the environment, when the only “green” they really care about are greenbacks.
These are the issues that create controversy amongst the useful idiots, while the real work of fleecing the taxpayer is being done by members of both party wings and their army of lobbyists and self perpetuating bureaucrats.
The Republicans, like their Democrat brethren, are just as guilty of promoting cronyism, while ignoring, if not abusing, small businesses.
Last time Repubs had a trifecta, we get:
https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+sum+HB462
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Federal regulations change every Federal Workday when the Federal Register comes out. There is an annual copy too.
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