The official blog of the Libertarian Party
October 13, 2005
D.C. Government Employees get Hefty Bonuses
The Washington Times reported the D.C. Department of Human Services has doled out $479,000 in bonuses to 400 employees from Oct. 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005. During the same period, the net total of bonuses awarded by the city government was 565, amounting to $1.06 million.
City employees are allowed to receive bonuses as an incentive, such as providing "a suggestion, an invention, a superior accomplishment, length of service or other meritorious effort." Those employed by the D.C. government that cannot receive bonuses are the mayor, city council members, and court and school employees. Even though most city employees are able to receive a bonus, D.C. rules state that a bonus cannot exceed $5,000 or 10 percent of an employee's annual salary, which ever is greater.
A small number of D.C. government executives earning at least $120,000, received hefty bonuses of $9,000 or more. Eric Price, the former Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development, was awarded a bonus of $13,239. Robert Legrande, who earns an annual salary of $155,250 as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer, received a bonus of $12,000.
D.C. Councilmen Adrian M. Fenty questions whether the Department of Human Services employees should have received such large bonuses given the department's recent performance record. Fenty said, "The Department of Human Services is not one of our better-running agencies right now. We're going to do a full scrubbing of this."
The department has drawn criticism recently for its management of subsidized child care programs and the closure of a homeless shelter in southwest D.C. A report from the D.C. Auditor found there was little oversight in the administering of these programs, which "fostered wasteful use of District and federal funds."
Posted by at October 13, 2005 03:45 PM
Reader Comments:
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This is nothing new, the little peon employees that work for the government period do not make very much let alone if they are lucky to get bonuses. But it is known guys in high positions get these big fat bonuses and yet when we need something for our veterans like doctors it called we do not the fundings. That extra amount of money could be used towards hiring another doctor, and there are a lot of homeless vets considering what the war does to them.
Our vets fight the war and they come home to this. this makes me SICK.
People who abuses credit card, instead of firing them right away, they take too long with the buddy system and even give them a chance to resigned so it looked that way on paper, or any other serious thing that involved abusive use of the money. One guy in the Union, stole a lot of money. All that happened to him is he resigned and he was a baaad Union President. And of course there are a lot of sexual harrassment that goes along and kissing butt to get into positions as well. etc. etc. etc.
The only thing I am glad for that it does help provide for work to disability people and the vets. But the rest for the big shots, forget it.
People know me, so I am remaining private.
PS. I forgot to add. when I brought up this in meetings and what isn't right. I was told to shutup and stop being a patient advocate.
I'd rather see said employees be getting pink slips, and the residents of DC getting firearms rights so they can lower the crime rate there.
Double their salaries but keep them home and watch the country prosper!
Or let them become productive members of society and watch the country prosper that much more.
Me no like immigrants. Me bothered by them. Why no being pentalize?
Me no like immigrants. Me bothered by them. Why no being pentalize?
Posted by: Truer American at October 14, 2005 11:19 AM
PEOPLE, look like we have a joker here, Please stop using other people names. I guess maybe this is the same joker who used J id also on another section of the blog.
We do not need children playing on our site.
If Bush wants democracy so he says. Let him democracize Mexico since he bluntly doing it to other countries.
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=254
Polls results. People believe the democrates care and will do more to protect our freedom.
If you read this article, they say only 7% of other parties care. WE LIBERTARIANS fall into the 7%. THAT IS NOT GOOD.
Are we Libertarians going to do anything to change this?
for freedom:
Why do you always ask these questions even though you never get an answer?
True. How would you take getting no answers then?
Do they really care about getting our freedom back?
If the people do not care to comment to For Freedom questions. Then maybe we have the wrong people in charge of this party because they are not serious.
Here's the killer:
The public continues to support the government guaranteeing health insurance for all Americans, even if it means raising taxes. By more than two-to-one (64%-30%), Americans favor a government guarantee of health insurance for all. Democrats and independents overwhelmingly favor the government guaranteeing health insurance for all Americans, while Republicans are deeply divided. Two-thirds of moderate and liberal Republicans (66%) support this idea, compared with just 41% of conservative Republicans.
There's not much room to manuever on this issue. The standard LP answer of health care is your own business is not cutting it. We have to do better.
I am thinking along the lines of a one time government investment into your medical savings account, paid for by shutting down Medicare/Medicaid. Not strictly libertarian, but the end result would be loads better than what we have now and the deficit bleeding from these outdated social programs would stop once and for all. I dont believe health savings accounts are politically sellable without some type of initial buy in from government in some manner. You cant start with nothing. The people wont buy it.
The more you make, the more you save. Do we want to put forth something that can be taken seriously, or just let them slap national health insurance Europe style on us?
Does anyone have any comments other than: "Tim West is a fascist commie pig" :D about this? Health Care is huge and we have to address it.
You're absolutely right, True American. I think YOU should run this party singlehandedly!
Tired of Immigration: What most people on a newssite forum say about immigration proves nothing. Many Americans believe that immigrants are generally good. And many Americans are either children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Were none of YOUR ancestors immigrants?
It's not that all immigration is bad, but there need to be limits. Right now, we have many hispanic gangs in many parts of the country. One you may have heard of is MS-13 which is comprised largely of illegals. I'm all for legal immigration, but I don't see how completely open borders would be a good idea
"Pentalize." Roffle.
Y'all who don't like immigration, consider that the economies of several states (mine, Texas, included) run on the importation from Mexico of unskilled labor. (My o key isn't working very well, so excuse any omissions.) And the fact is, there will always be gangs of all types of groups n matter how many of them you let in.
Anti-immigration sentiment is merely self-denial of racism.
Tim-
I agree that we need to think along these lines. I put an idea forward with school vouchers similar to this. We need to have states support voucher programs and work to end federal funding on education. Eventually we can replace public money with private money. Your plan can work in the same way. For lower income people we can always raise money privatly. The fact is if we want to be electable we have to put training wheels on our ideas for the American Public. The public today has become so sedated witht the idea that society would collapse without certain federal entitlements. I think people underestimate how much this is due to the fact that the State has a virtual monoply on the education system. Crucial to any socialistic State is a public school system. This is where we our taught against the facts that the depression was caused by gold shortage in the privatly ran banks, saved by the Federal Reserve. Greenspan pointed out the flaw with this idea and pointed to the fact that the Federal Reserve created in 1913 actually was the largest cause of the depression pumping cheap currency in both Amercian an UK markets causing the raoring 20's and the crash of 1929. This coupled with Hoover protectionism and drastic increase in regulation, spending and taxes by FDR caused the depression.This may seem unconnected to the issue of medicare but the fact is the reason the poll numbers show such a large support for government backed insurance is because of the misinformation by our public schools. Many history teaches imply that ,instead of being a big contributor to the depression, FDR's programs actually helped us out of the depression.The fact that the deppression lasted over the majority of his 14 yr term doesn't phase them. Also public school feeds into the idea that the Soc. sec. plan was the "shinning jewel" of all FDR's programs. This Ponzi Scam is taught to be a great program in public schools! It also feeds into the greatest job killer of all, the biggest fallacy in Keynesian Economics which is you can grow your way out of a economic down turn with more government spending. This has been proven to be false, because the market has proven to be more efficant at getting the money where it needs to be. Keynesian is taught to be a great success during The New Deal in our public schools. With this type of misinformation for 12 yrs it is no wonder that the polls read how they do. The American people are sedated and the public schools is the sedative.
I change my name to True USA from True American since there is someone here who insist on keeping close to my id, my guess he is an illegal immigrant.
Right now we have a lot of illegals comming here which I will not be surprised that we end up with MEXICO #2.
To many people bring uncontrollable diseases.
To many people bring uncontrollable crimes.
To many people bring more money out of our tax dollars.
To many people in disasters, you saw the results.
To many people bring better chance for nukes and bombs here, as well as people already here making them.
Hire the illegals and give them our money instead of taking care of our people which benifits the rich.
Jobs been tranfered overseas.
You do not see orange groves anymore, to much land taken for gated communities and condo's. Kids cannot go to school and play for they are search and stripped.
You can't go to the park without being harrassed.
You can't leave your door open, let alone you need bars on your windows to protect your homes.
These are just some examples.
End results, LOST OF FREEDOM, The government OWNS YOU. You bow down to them, be a good little citizen or go to jail.
I am sure if I was to run this party it will not be single handed, I can guarantee you that.
True USA-
You don't own the name ,True American, in the same way that you don't own the job that the illegal "steals". Open boarders do help the rich but also help the entire economy it helps to keep inflation down and keeps jobs that would have otherwise gotten outsourced here in America, for our poorer workers typically recent immigrants.
The misconception is that it drags down wages but this is not true as we see with textile industries when Americans because of raising standard of living demand more money then the industry can't pay and still stay competitive it must find cheaper labor. This is often painted as a bad thing for the economy but that is BS. How is it a bad thing when our econonmy gets so strong our unemployment so low (5% v Europe's double digit) that our workers can demand so much money first in the north that certain jobs move to the south as our southern states economy starts to improve the workers also start asking for more money when this gets to be to much for certain industries they move to Mexico. This is not a bad thing it means our worker can ask for more money then certain industries can pay. The pool of immigrants represent a group of people usually starting on the bottom of the economical ladder and will help to keep some of that money here(although they do send some to Mexico).
I do agree with some of your other points about security. But you are really off the mark when it comes to the negative impact on economy. Open but Secure borders is the answer.
The day I see somebody who isn't a Mexican immigrant who's willing to do the jobs they do is the day that I'll agree that they're "stealing" your jobs. But the fact is, they're not. Nobody else will do the jobs that they do. People would rather be bums.
Also, people, learn how to spell. It's not that it's illegible, it's that it makes you look like a moron.
Your right I do not own the name, obviously we do not own anything crap period.
As far as the immigrants, they live off our money, work under the table, take not some but most to Mexico. When they work under the table they have babies, not one, but like they are going out of style, and live off our money while collecting welfare. WE THE PEOPLE CANNOT GET hospital care, WE THE PEOPLE GET BANKRUPT when they get FREEE CARE.
When they get shipped back to Mexico for doing a crime, they come right back with a different social security number. They do not care about voting unless it turns into MEXICO. I have seen banks, restaurants, who are hired MEXICANS. Talk about racism. I have applied for jobs in banks, I had more experience and they hire a mexican. MARK my word. If they take over, if the Muslim don't first. If you are caucasion, you will be the first to get squashed.
There is more. I have said enough for now.
Maybe I should use your name and cuss everyone out then everyone can think you did it. Would that be ok. How would that make you feel.
I don't think banks hire people who can't speak or write English. I'm guessing that many of the foreign-born individuals they hire express themselves better than you do.
Also, economic studies show that Mexican immigrants as a whole pay far more in taxes than they receive in welfare.
Clearly I don't believe in giving illegal immigrants government services, but I don't believe in racism either, unlike those of y'all with such archaic mindsets.
True USA-
You keep attacking governmet poilcies that Libertarians oppose(Welfare and affirmitive action) as reasons to oppose immigration.
Thats a laugh, about they express themself better then me. Not when I see banks that use to be diversified not anymore.
I look in the paper for jobs in the medical offices. You have to speak spanish as well as english. Most of the hires are spanish there as well in the front office.
Actually someone I know overheard a coversation sitting in the office when someone talked about hiring someone for a position, "Quote" hire our own kind.
Some places do not even know english and do not even bother learning english. I read somewhere that there are areas saying english is not even necessary anymore.
How do you propose that mexican pay more taxes. No they do not. The working actual legals pay what we pay, and the illegals work under the table and collect from the Government.
Somehow the discussion turned to southern border crossings - With some exceptions my expectation is that libertarians would support an open border, so people could migrate. I am surpprised to find some apperent opposition to that policy.
Under discussion are those, misnamed as illegal immigrants. They are, illegal aliens, such as a foreign national here without permission or someone with an expired visa. Illegal immigrant, a corruption of terms offered up by media and advocates of an open border softens the stigma of an illegal status. Specific words are very important in propaganda for changing attitudes just a little insidious.
I think we should be open to anyone who wants to some into our country. The more people we have in our country the more powerful we become. Thats why we are loosing way to China and India, they have billions of people in their countries.
Just a thought
~Gladiat0r
True USA -- you have no clue what you are babbling about. Why do you keep bringing this up in almost every thread that is posted on this blog?
Can you not read the topic and stick to it?
And for the L-A-S-T- time --- nobody on this board has ever supported illegal aliens. NOBODY on this board or in this party believes in letting anybody and everybody in here. "Open borders doesn't equal borderless state". We oppose quotas on immigration. We believe that anybody with peaceful intent can and should be able to share in the American Dream.
The day American citizens pick a bushel of apples for less than $0.50 is the day mass illegal migration will stop.
Ofcourse if you were a real believer in the Free Market and Capitalism, you'd have understood most of this by now.
And a final commebt on your thinkly veiled racism - it's disgusting. Goodness knows what problems you have with muslims and Mexicans but your method of painting them all with the same broad brush is wrong.
I don't like writing posts like these but please, enough is enough. Immigration is certainly an issue worthy of discussion but this random hijacking of threads has got to stop.
ROY you are NO ONE that can Dictate to me what I should write or stick with. Not when other people have already discuss and in agreement with me regarding immigration.
I am sorry if you cannot comprehend the big picture here.
As far as racism, go live in muslim country and then come back here and tell me how you like it.
Your comment is irrational.
Nate having more people does not necessarily mean more power. It will mean more riots, crime, diseases, control, which put us at a mercy to continue to have police state. Maybe even human chip implants to keep tract of us.
You forgot to add higher cost of living and the condition of life becomes degrated and we are running out of infrastructure.
Examples: overcrowed highways, long commute time to work. Astronomical housing prices, strained heath care and insurance systems that struggle to pay for indigent care. Potential water shortages in the west, in short any fix resource will be less affordable in direct proportion due to the incress in population.
Naturally, this does not apply to resources which are not fix, which is human inventiveness, etc. Finally we are on the thresh hold of a era in which not only will much human labor be replace by machine, much human thinking as well.
Roy please pipe down.
Racist? All me said is me no like anyone not white and born here. What racist about that?
So just what does aliens sneaking across an internatonal border, without permission, have to do with motives, racial background, religion, culture or ethnicity, anyway?
While illegals do qualify for, free (paid for by others) walk-in medical treatment at hospital ER's, and acceess to childrens education in public school, these institutions are overloaded in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas from this unregulated influx. State taxpayers are forced to pay for the failure of fed to control the border.
So just can an illegal alien, open a bank account (the Patriot Act requires banks to record proof of citizenship), SS Card, birth certificate, drivers license, identification card, qualify for SSI, Welfare, or other government support?
Yes the illegals can get medical help, the paying like me I can't.
Actually you can get treated as a walk-in. As I understand it hospital Emergency Rooms, by law, must treat whom ever comes in and is willing to wait for service. Payment is another issue.
Reportedly Hospitals of Laredo TX and other border towns have to beg for money from taxpayers to stay in open.
If you have no medical insurance, you would be charged the exorbitant prices from the Hospitals retail list. ($10.00 Aspirins ect) You would pay up or be hounded by a credit collection company and finally sued. If not paid, a judgment awarded and when executed your non exempt property is auctioned off and the proceeds pays the debt. If there is any left you could keep that. If you have no identity or property you get free treatment and other people pay, like the supporters of Universal Health care wanted it to be in the first place.
Interesting site, and very organized too. Good work. substances that cure you: http://www.yahoo.co.uk , my parents didnt told me about it , substances that cure you
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This is nothing new, the little peon employees that work for the government period do not make very much let alone if they are lucky to get bonuses. But it is known guys in high positions get these big fat bonuses and yet when we need something for our veterans like doctors it called we do not the fundings. That extra amount of money could be used towards hiring another doctor, and there are a lot of homeless vets considering what the war does to them.
Our vets fight the war and they come home to this. this makes me SICK.
People who abuses credit card, instead of firing them right away, they take too long with the buddy system and even give them a chance to resigned so it looked that way on paper, or any other serious thing that involved abusive use of the money. One guy in the Union, stole a lot of money. All that happened to him is he resigned and he was a baaad Union President. And of course there are a lot of sexual harrassment that goes along and kissing butt to get into positions as well. etc. etc. etc.
The only thing I am glad for that it does help provide for work to disability people and the vets. But the rest for the big shots, forget it.
People know me, so I am remaining private.
Posted by: at October 13, 2005 05:04 PM