I’m a witness: ramblings on ‘stimulus’ waste
I’m currently a web development intern one of my university’s well funded research centers. I personally don’t have ‘oh…one of those’ jobs which I have long been opposed to in principle, but a large majority of my coworkers do. Four days a week I come to work, sit at my new Mac Pro and beautiful monitor, and look around seeing three people doing the job of one, two doing the job of one, and another two doing the job of none. At half their combined salaries and budgets, I could probably do the job of all of them for $150,000.
But why would they cut personnel or spending? ‘We have a $X million budget.’ Better use it all, right?
This is just one of thousands of cases, and may will only become more common as the government continues to tamper in economic issues with a ‘stimulus.’ that creates thousands of jobs with a similar ‘federal culture’ that’s laid back, care-free, and disgustingly inefficient. Honestly, the stimulus will do a great job at showing the American public how to spend money irresponsibly though, which is what our overextended economy relies on, so if society can draw this conclusion maybe it will be successful in that sense.
Our economy is a mess for a wide range of reasons, and lawmakers seem to understand none of them. I think one thing is certain though: the US doesn’t need more gov’t outposts that over pay too many people to do too unimportant of things. And at the cost of $5,000+ in debt per normal tax payer, I’d rather invest that into my own business and I’m sure it’d be more efficient, create 4X more value and more jobs, and more spending.
But I guess my government knows how to spend money better than I do. I still have hope, but the change the administration has promised is not looking so different than the wasteful spending of the past. I hope I’m not the only entrepreneur and college student upset with this. Paying ever-increasing tuition, making grades, working, and trying to run a business is hard enough without the dollar losing all of its value and eventual tax increases necessary to pay for this ‘stimulus.’
Share your thoughts!!!