Well paid city officials

[NormH3]

Anyone else see or hear this? Holy moly..corruption at its best..I believe.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-0...-protests.html

[Leftygolfer]

No surprise there. I wish I got a 12% raise every year. Sadly, this is almost expected in the era of big government.

[zeg]

Trust us, we're from the government.

It was pretty big news around here for a few days. My favorite part was there was one councilor whose salary was like $9,000. The others were all taking home over $100,000... sounds to me like there may have been one honest guy in the bunch. Ugh.

Also, this is not a big government issue. This is a local corruption issue, don't cloud the issue with non-sequiturs.

[Leftygolfer]

There is plenty of federal corruption issues that aren't investigated by our wonderful AG.

[NormH3]

Also, this is not a big government issue. This is a local corruption issue, don't cloud the issue with non-sequiturs.

Absolutely correct.

[KD Epic]

Also, this is not a big government issue. This is a local corruption issue, don't cloud the issue with non-sequiturs.

Yup, big government or small government - Doesn't matter. Nothing could have kept this corrupt congress (which when Pelosi and Reid took control, the national debt was $250 billion....) from giving themselves a raise during a time when unemployment rate was (believed to be) peaking.

I can see how with big government there could be MORE of this going on, seeing as there will be more jobs belonging to bureaucrats than to those in the private sector (size of government increases, size of government jobs increase, chances of corruption increase?) But this kind of thing could happen regardless of big or small government and we're pretty helpless to stop it. I mean, vote 'em out I guess. But some congressman said it best when he defended his stance on term limits. It was something along the lines of "Without term limits there is no hurry to be corrupt - But with term limits you're more likely to be corrupt sooner" It's really sad and I can't remember who said it or what the exact quote is but it's true. They're going to be corrupt and it's hard to stop them one way or another. Anybody know who I'm talking about here?

[KD Epic]

There is plenty of federal corruption issues that aren't investigated by our wonderful AG.

You mean the same AG that dropped charges of voter intimidation on the two members of the Black Panthers (after they were already found guilty and convicted, just not sentenced yet) or is this a different one?

Yeah, like HE cares about corruption. They're all puppets, the DoJ tells him "Drop these charges" and he does. Can't blame him, I guess - he's doing his job and respecting the chain of command but I wish one of these politicians would grow a pair. I mean we've seen you can win a campaign on promising an end to "more of the same" but it'd be nice to see one of them actually follow through with it.

[Shindig]

Also, this is not a big government issue. This is a local corruption issue, don't cloud the issue with non-sequiturs.

Oh no no, didn't you hear? The era of big bad government began 1/20/09.

[zeg]

Oh no no, didn't you hear? The era of big bad government began 1/20/09.

Oh yes, of course. Too bad we didn't learn how to responsibly manage federal spending from the previous administration *laugh* *cry*

This thread is amazing. Was there a single post on topic before it devolved into the same ignorant crap spewing about the federal government? Believe it or not, they had nothing to do with the fiasco in Bell...

[stealthduffer]

What's amazing is that no one noticed earlier. Does the city not issue a financial report each year? Is it not audited by an outside firm? Aren't city official salaries published by the papers (they are for key positions where I live)? Is this really corruption or is it the by product of an indifferent citizenry?

[double_j]

What's amazing is that no one noticed earlier. Does the city not issue a financial report each year? Is it not audited by an outside firm? Aren't city official salaries published by the papers (they are for key positions where I live)? Is this really corruption or is it the by product of an indifferent citizenry?

This - I thought that public servant pay had to be publicly reported? Not to say that the citizenry would have actually cared but still...

[Leftygolfer]

You mean the same AG that dropped charges of voter intimidation on the two members of the Black Panthers (after they were already found guilty and convicted, just not sentenced yet) or is this a different one?

Yeah that is the one. Mr. Eric Holder. He is such a joke along with our congress. They wouldn't investigate anything that might contradict the great one's agenda.

[allin]

I usually don't respond to these type of threads. The reason is because the majority of the comments are just ignorant rants. I feel that the majority of non elected officials work in a modern day white collar sweatshop, pushed to do more and more with inadequate resources, ridiculous standards of accountability, for very low pay. They are subjected to heaps of abuse from the public who assumes that they are just lazy losers who they as taxpayers have every right to criticize for an unlimited time frame and otherwise treat abusively. Most of the ranters would not last a month doing what I do. And virtually none of them could accomplish in a week what I do in three days.

[KD Epic]

I usually don't respond to these type of threads. The reason is because the majority of the comments are just ignorant rants. I feel that the majority of non elected officials work in a modern day white collar sweatshop, pushed to do more and more with inadequate resources, ridiculous standards of accountability, for very low pay. They are subjected to heaps of abuse from the public who assumes that they are just lazy losers who they as taxpayers have every right to criticize for an unlimited time frame and otherwise treat abusively. Most of the ranters would not last a month doing what I do. And virtually none of them could accomplish in a week what I do in three days.

Does this make it ok to lie and cheat and steal?

If you don't do any of those three things then I commend you and wholly appreciate your work - as it is needed for our country to run. And I hope it's not as hard as you say because the way things are going there is going to be a need for a whole lot more of you in the years to come.