Jamestown presents their Budget. (a brazen example of irresponcible, out of control, burdensome government)
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Look at these outrageous statistics:
Out of an almost a $32 Million dollar budget, 46.1% is for salaries, 28.8% is for benefits.

Thats a total of 74.9%. (almost $24 million).

We say NO raises for anyone, union or no union, sorry – no offense – but not one dime, not now, not anywhere, and not in the near future.

The area for the most significant spending reductions is in the 75% category not the 25% category.

Unemployment is over 10% and do you realize that is almost entirely comprised of private sector non-union employment !

For more perspective- Government Grows Too Large For Private Sector. PJ Editorial POSTED: September 20, 2009

You’d have to be some sort of economics wonk to remember a graph that then-Congressman Richard Armey, a trained economist, developed a decade ago to look at the relationship between size of government and the health of the private sector economy.

His analysis recognizes that government is an important ingredient of economic development – to a point.

”Where governments did not exist, anarchy reigned and little wealth was accumulated by productive economic activity. After governments took hold, the rule of law and the establishment of private property rights often contributed importantly to the economic development of Western civilization,” notes a report from the congressional Joint Economic Committee Study of 1998.

However, the study – and the theme of Armey’s graph – is that at some point, further expansion of government contributes to economic stagnation and decline.

How do you know when you’ve reached the point beyond which more government is detrimental?

Seems to us you do not know until you have already passed it. We also hazard the opinion that too much of what government is doing right now propels us ever more quickly there.

Just look at the expansion of government right here in Chautauqua County evident in studies by the state Commerce Department of personal income.

*In 1970, government workers in Chautauqua County earned 14 percent of the total amount of personal income as measured by place of work.

*By 2007, that had grown to 21.6 percent of the total amount of personal income earned in the workplaces of Chautauqua County.

Just last month, the Office of Management and Budget’s update shows that this year, the federal government will increase spending 22 percent to a peacetime-record of 26 percent of the gross domestic product.

Oh, and there’s that estimate from the Heritage Foundation last spring that around a quarter of a million new federal government workers were needed just to spend all of the massive amount of new money in the Obama administration budget.

Again from our own backyard, we see with more frequency the gap between what private sector workers and what those in government experience. The two worlds are disconnected now to a point that the private sector economy is, as Armey predicted, bowing under the burden of carrying a government that is just too expensive.

Consider news out of Jamestown last week about how the costs of government pension benefits are strangling the private sector – while at the same time, more and more private sector workers in the area are responsible for funding their own retirements. As we reported last week, Jamestown has to come up with an extra $540,000 next year to cover a sharp increase in its mandatory contributions to the state retirement fund.

”This is disastrous news for us and every other municipality in the state,” says Mayor Sam Teresi. ”This is going to have a suffocating effect on us.”

Can we pull back from having too much government and its detrimental effect on our economy?

Consider the fight some of the part-time elected Chautauqua County legislators put up when faced with demands that they stop getting health care insurance at taxpayer expense. Consider the fight they continue to put up to keep their number at 25 instead of trimming the size of local government.

Now multiply that determination a millionfold and add in the almighty power of public sector unions, and that’s the resistance you’ll find in Albany and Washington.

The Foundation of our Country- our Constitution- our Traditions- our Values, have been being chipped and chiseled away for some time. Never has this been truer than it is today as we now have a group of people in Washington; once called public servants - too many are now nothing more than ruthless career oriented political hacks; and they have replaced their chisels with jack-hammers, and they are working at a fever pitch. 

Our Security, our Freedoms and Liberties, our RIGHTS (given by God not men); personal, property, and financial; are compromised and eroding like never before. Many a citizen has long since worried about this slippery slope, but this is no longer. Today this worry has become a revelation that America is coming down the mountain, speeding and out of control. “We are no longer a Nation of Just Law, but rather a Nation of Unjust Men” 

WE MUST ACT NOW. Stopping this rapid slide toward despotism will be a monumental task that can only be achieved by ”We the People”, our vigilance, and our resolve - to preserve our Nation. 

This Health Care bill just passed by the House amounts to nothing less than TYRANNY and we must STOP IT ! 

• This Unconstitutional legislation tyrannically establishes fines and even prison sentences for non-compliance thereby forcing you to buy insurance or else. * Section 7203 Misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.* Section 7201 Felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years. That anyone should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible. Don’t ever forget all those that were against this before they were for it. (one big lie with several more to follow)     And how much will the stay-out-of-jail insurance cost? The joint committee noted that “according to a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the lowest-cost family non-group plan under HR 3862 (the Obama-Pelosi bill) would cost $15,000 by 2016.” Remember, the bill provides only subsidies to help pay this enormous sum after families making about $45,000 have paid 8 percent of their income for insurance and after those earning a household income of about $65,000 have kicked in 12 percent. 
• The tough penalties in the House bill are designed to keep insurance companies from opposing the bill. This is because insurance companies will see their coffers swell when tens of millions of new customers are required to buy insurance. The more draconian the penalties for failing to pay them large sums of money to pad their bottom lines, the better. After all it will still be years before the public option takes over enough to fully nationalize the insurance industry, so for now the money is quite appealing.
• This bill will insert an unprecedented level of bureaucracy between your family and your medical care, and you and your children, and all in some very scary ways. One of the many ways this is true is with respect to how this bill continues to threaten the future of “quality of care”.
• This monstrosity was bad enough when it was 1500 pages and now it’s even worse as a 2032 page expedited disaster in waiting. In addition, “we will pass this without you” as dictated to the GOP, well that doesn’t sound like the inclusive bi-partisanship promised. This is consistent with the fact that over 200 GOP Amendments have all been shot down, many of them not even debated, and many of them would have substantially simplified this abomination.
• One Amendment that was shot down, and more than once, was to force Government officials to be subject to the same insurance coverage and clauses, which they are forcing on the American people, but nope, they’ve exempted themselves and their families.
• Promises continually have been broken with respect to transparency and Pelosi’s direct promise to post the final bill online for 72 hours.

• We have constantly been told that Abortions will not be covered yet it has been a major fight to pass the Stupac Amendment which simply guarantees that said promise is kept. Now some in the Senate are threatening to strip this Amendment.
• Then there’s illegal immigration and yes the fact that Joe Wilson was right. Though we are still told that they will not be covered and it may vaguely seem so on the surface, there is no specific language preventing it and a number of loopholes for the exact opposite to happen. Illegals will simply gain coverage or benefits through the back door instead of the front, or be amnestied.
• This bill is anything but deficit neutral with far reaching fiscal implications. This bill is a job killer, with further degrade an already suffering economy overall, will tax the middle class who were promised otherwise, and will be a bane to the States. Once this crushes the states it will deliver the final blow to you the citizen as it will trickle down to crush your County and City as well.
• The bill still lacks necessary tort reform thereby protecting trial lawyers (a major lobby for the Democrats) and out-of-control lawsuits. (see the WSJ article below to understand how and why)
• This bill is going to strip Billions of dollars from Medicare affecting seniors all across our Country, only to expand Medicaid and therefore even further expand entitlements and the mentality associated therewith. This bill continues to threaten the quality of care along with the fiscal implications, for our seniors !
• This bill is a big payoff to Big Labor who put Obama in office and keeps their tentacles wrapped around many other as well. Consider, who has visited the White House the most according to the records released so far ? Andy Stern, head of the SEIU. He says his first priority is to get the healthcare bill passed. That’s because this bill will take the burden of the massive benefits unions promised workers, and dump it on the federal government, and in turn you and I. This will in turn sweeten Union bosses and their organizations already over sweetened pots.
• This bill is also a payoff, or more to the point a bribe, as follows: The AMA was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians’ reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill and in a typically slick fiscally irresponsible way the costs associated with this are not budgeted in. A 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs bribed the drug industry. They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. Seniors pay close attention to this next one – AARP one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, high-cost privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. President Bush passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. More than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.  Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP – which supposedly represents them – will make more money.
• One has to wonder what bribes were offered to House democrats when Obama met with them on the day of the vote, specifically 36 of them who bent to Obama-Pelosi’s will and voted for this, after previously expressing opposition publicly and to their constituents.
• The more you study this bill, the worse it gets !
• The next step in this fight is the Senate, and reports from a few days ago… claiming that government-run health care wouldn’t be voted on until next year… were premature and erroneous . According to the New York Times, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to put Pelosi-Care on the Senate floor next week. In fact, Reid filed a motion to introduce his version of the same on Monday which means the Senate debate will begin on Tuesday. The will of the American people be damned…The extreme liberals in Congress plan to ram their so-called “reform” down our throats with all deliberate speed… They think the American people are tired, that the vote in the House took the wind out of our sails. They’re scheming behind closed doors… making deals… twisting arms… thinking they can do the same thing in the Senate that they did in the House. They think that if they move quickly, they can get away with it. They continue to underestimate your resolve against government-run health care.
• This must be stopped right here and right now.

“We Can’t Sit Back and Allow the Loss of Our Freedoms” “The Constitution gives the Feds zero authority” - Judge Andrew Napolitano, Political Analyst, Constitutional Scholar, and Libertarian 

“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
 
What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
 
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation…        You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”  

 “[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” –Candidus, Boston Gazette, 1772