Which Payments should be cut to save money and what shouldnt be touched (175)

Wrong analysis, in the early 80's when Reagen was president in America, taxes were cut right across the board, guess what happened, America came out of recession, cutting taxes would encourage wealthy people to invest in new businesses whgich proved to be very sucessful in America in the early 80's, creating new employment, the best way to create jobs is to drastically reduce the costs of doing business, not discredited keynesnian economics of trying to spend your way out of recession which has never worked.

Your right 1% of the adult population may be in jail in America, why is it that a disproportionate number of prisoners are Hispanic or African-American, in the black community just over 70% of children are brought up in single parent households, usually fatherless, I'm saying that as a single parent myself BTW that the traditional 2 parent family is generally regarded as the best environment in which to rear children.

If America didn't have such a high divorce rate there would be less crime and less poverty but then again liberals like yourself don't care less about the family. Rigid co ercive, non negotiable discipline is essential especially in working class areas if the crime rate is to fall.

Cutting the dole is essential as well as reducing the cost of living, rent allowance needs to be drastically reduced etc. Its also ideologically recognised that countries come out of recession quicker if they concentrate more on spending cuts than tax increases.

Looking at all the choices set out by WP, the one that sits most closely to me would be modifications in the public services...

NOT cutting jobs in the public sector, but getting value for money...(did i hear right?, 70% of the health budget goes on wages, and how much beurocracy and middle management is that also feeding?)

I have worked (well, untill now, redundancy a month ago) in the private sector since i left school, my pay has never been astounding for the time i spent training (often on-going) and the huge financial outlay and investment in my work (mechanic / 40,000 euro adjusted over 25 years), my holidays have been on average throughout employment 21 days paid and sick leave pay under contract has not been an option, add to that i had taken 2 pay cuts in as many years in order to protect my employment...

I dont blame public servants taking advantage of secured pay, generous sick leave, sizable holidays and a greater degree of job security, dammit, like the man said "good business is were you find it", but really, in such times of economic dispare, could we not see the government and the public servants agree to practical cost measures that would save a fortune to the public purse....

A friend of mine is a nurse in Galway and told me of the 6 months full sick pay option with a further 6 months on half pay ( i know about the recent reduction proposal ), I love her to pieces but boy did we get heated on that one...
Furthermore, there are people (small in number) who consider full paid sick as a form of furher holiday entitlement, how can this be right?....

As i said, i dont want to see people loose jobs, god forbid, but since the working people of Ireland, private and public sector alike are bank rolling the public sector, dont they have a right to get value for their euro!...


AB....

Really Face....

What i know about politics, you could write on the back of a matchbox with a pick handle!...

Id probbo best get back to me "Wheres Wally" book and leave the business of governance to "experts", as ya do!...

AB...

P.O.S.H, why, dont we learn something new every day!...

I'm a single parent with a 12 year old son, I have never abandoned by son and have always faced up to my duties and responsibilities as a parent, my kids mum is a good woman, we split up when our son was 2 years of age and I regret it to this day, shes still a very good friend.

My son does well in school but he was in a class in primary school with 3 other kids from single parent families, all 3 kids had behavioural problems and by all accounts their fathers had little or no role in their lives.

Its not a majority that end up in trouble but statistics throughout the world show that kids from single parent families are far more likely to be invloved academic underachievement, behavioural problems or in extreme cases resort to crime compared to kids who are brought up in the traditional family.

Ah yes the bleeding heart liberal argument that poverty causes crime, there are thousands of poor people in Ireland who have never been invloved in crime, a some people are usually poor for a reason, they deserve to be poor because they have never shown any ambition to better themselves, sad but true.

As for Reagan, I didn't like his foreign policies I'll agree with you on that, America should always pursue an isolationist foreign policy in my opinion. Reagan was a very good president who brought unprecedented prosperity to America in the 1980's and gave the country back its self confidence after the disaster of the Nixon, Ford and Carter presidencies.

He didn't run a balanced budget unfortunately as the Democrats controlled congress while he was president and the Dems controlled the senate for 4 out of 8 years while reagan was president. That would have required compromise by Reagan in order to get most of his policies implemented. When Reagan got reelected in 1984 unemployment was at 7% in late 84 and continued to fall while he was president. If unemployment was 11% in America in November 84 Reagan would never have been reelected, he absolutely hammered that big government statist Walter Mondale.

If Reagan didn't care less about the poor in your opinion why did he get millions of traditional blue collar democrats to vote for him in 2 elections, care to answer that question for me?

Most private sector companies have moved away from defined benefit pensions to defined contribution pensions that are determined by the stock market, like Ireland, America has an overbloated public service that needs to be trimmed down to size.

In Ireland all public sector workers should be put on defined contribution pensions and jobs for life security should end immediately.

I don't know about America but in Ireland public service workers enjoy fare superior terms and conditions when compared to private sector workers, thats not public sector bashing thats a fact, in Ireland, the government has a completely unaffordable public sector pensions system that would be unaffordable even if zombie banks had been allowed go bang.

In ireland it is virtually impossible to fire incompetent teachers ditto with America. In America a number of cities in California have declared bankruptcy in the last few months as they can;t afford to pay out generous public sector pensions, the only thing that will end this runaway pension gravy train is an outright default in both Ireland and America.