Spend til you Drop

Take a look at how well the school superintendent is paid and go into his office to take a peek at his desk. My guess would be he's got himself one fine piece of furniture.

The short answer is that no government does not have a clue how to manage money. I'm with yu on the whole school thing. We've had a lottery in California in which the money ostensibly goes to the schools. We've gone from the #1 school system in the country to #48. About 10 years ago here, the legislature even instituted a snack tax. We had to pay tax on pretzels, chips etc. I don't mind paying my fair share but I'm tired of the money that I pay being squandered on pet projects on to educate and provide health care and social services for non citizens. California has a spend and tax legislature and actually increased our sales tax this year to the highest in the nation when people are losing their homes, losing their jobs and in general suffering. IMO, governments job is to create stable economic conditions and provide an environment of job growth and prosperity. The solution when they are unable to do what they've been hired to do shouldn't be to raise taxes so that they can continue to spend money. Just as a family we have to cut back when times are tough so should governments on every level. But then again, who keeps putting these same incompetents in office over and over again. I have my house up for sale (hopefully I can sell it in a time when foreclosures are at a record high) and I frankly cannot wait to get out of this state. Today, the California dream is to get the heck out of the state.

I don't know how you can spend your way out of a recession, but I have often wondered... where does the money go? I'm not familiar with Chicago, but nationally, there seems to be black holes where the money disappears, never to be seen again. I think the government should be audited. As if that would ever happen.

Sonnygears, all i saw here was the last line "HOW CAN YOU SPEND YOUR WAY OUT OF A RECESSION? It obliterated anything else you said. If you do not SPEND your way out oof a recession, you simply will not get out of it. The definition of recession is "a period of reduced economic activity". There is not enough money in circulation. Pres. Bush tried to can cash flowing again by giving stimulous bonuses to the middle class. It didn't work. Traditionally, the middle glass saves money and that freezes the economy and the recession rolls right along. A little over a year ago the recession was rolling along so strong, we were damn close to a depression. That was when the FDIC started frantically brokering deals to merge banks. Why? There wasn't enough money in the FDIC fund to cover the FDIC insured savings in those banks and they were TERRIFIED that Americans would once again (as they did in 1929) go to their banks to withdraw money and find those banks closed. Henry Paulson under Bush and later Bernake under Obama have worked to get money in circulation and bring back the economy. They HAVE brought it back from the brink but there is a long ways to go and the most important thing is to get the money moving again. If private money won't do it, then government money has to do it. People keep getting freaked about how much government is spending. EVERYTHING costs more. Hell, a loaf of bread now comes to almost $4.00 when it was less than half that five years ago. Well, government has to spend more also but it has to get that money moving because there is NO other way to end a recession.