Incomplete list of U.S. Federal/State/Local Government self-destruct announcements for July 2016:
Arizona: Due to crashing tax funding the state Health Care Cost Containment System denied Medicaid to 3-thousand 5-hundred refugees and immigrants, as far back as October 2015! The city of Scottsdale just spent $4-million tax-dollars buying a man’s property, then asking the man to continue living there rent free! It’s all part of the city’s plan to ‘protect’ the world’s largest urban nature preserve. The man who sold out is now basically a park ranger in exchange for somewhere to live. The city of Tempe is being pushed to considering changing laws, and possibly spending tax dollars, to create a ‘tiny home community’. The idea is to cram 11 living spaces on two thirds of an acre. The tiny homes are tiny versions of mobile homes which, ironically, are being promoted in response to Tempe’s growing mobile home eviction rate!
California: The Golden State’s Cap-n-Trade program is praised for reducing pollution, criticized for killing jobs, and now the courts want to know what the ‘elected’ lawmakers are doing with the money! The program forces industries to bid on auctioned ‘permits’ to produce pollution. Whistleblowers revealed that revenues are far short of what was expected, but nobody is saying what’s being done with the money.
Connecticut: More proof of Failed State-ism, after already eliminating 825 taxpayer funded jobs the ‘elected’ government announced more layoffs. Apparently the layoffs will continue until 2-thousand 5-hundred taxpayer funded jobs have been eliminated! However, local news media report that state agencies might be rebelling against the gov’na’s plans, by re-hiring laid off employees into newly created lower paying positions!
Florida: At MacDill Air Force Base, IAP Worldwide laying off 45 people by the end of September. At Kennedy Space Center, Chenga Security & Support Solutions eliminating 272 jobs by the end of September! At Eglin AFB, InDyne eliminating 641 jobs by the end of September!
Georgia: In Atlanta, after 35 years privately funded homeless shelter Open Door Community shutdown due to the cost of keeping the aged building open. Local news reports said this will burden the city run homeless ops, which are already being cut due to crashing taxpayer funding.
Idaho: The Idaho Statesman revealed that a plurality of ‘elected’ christian lawmakers are covered under taxpayer funded healthcare for full time employees. The reasons this is a scandal are that Idaho’s lawmakers are legally considered part time employees, and the fact that at least 78-thousand Idahoans are not covered by ObamaCare insurance. According to InsideGov.com, Congressman Raul Labrador claims his net worth is negative $216-thousand USD! A ranch family is suing Adams County after two deputies shot and killed Jack Yantis. Admas County Sheriff claims his deputies were about to put down one of Yantis’ bulls, after it had been hit by a car, when Yantis showed up and threatened them with a gun. All deputies on scene blasted Yantis to death. The family disputes the Sheriff’s version of what happened. A Deputy Fire Chief in Nampa was fired after revealing that two apartment complexes weren’t safe for disabled people. A federal court judge now says there’s enough evidence for Doug Strosnider, the now former Deputy Fire Chief, to file a ‘whistleblower’ lawsuit against Nampa. The ongoing drought is forcing the state Water Resource Board to spend $7.2 million tax-dollars to boost water recharge of the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.
Illinois: A prime example of Failed State; Winnebago County will conduct layoffs due to multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls. The county is short nearly $1.6-million USD on just personnel expenses, and sales tax funding for 2017 are expected to be short by as much as $8.8-million! The Madden Shelter/Residential Program shutting down in Chicago, Bartlett and Des Plaines, 145 jobs gone starting now!
Louisiana: For profit prison operator GEO eliminating 80 prison jobs at Allen Correctional Center. To save money the Louisiana Department of Corrections wants to downgrade the ‘correctional center’ to a simple jail.
Michigan: The number of tax-sucking state employees charged with the city of Flint’s water catastrophe now numbers nine. All are basically charged with covering up what they knew was criminal action by contractors. The state administrators charged worked for the state Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Environmental Quality. Flint’s former utilities manager has also been charged.
New Jersey: “Gov. Chris Christie’s executive order to freeze transportation projects could wind up costing construction contractors millions in additional expenses and force layoffs to thousands of construction workers…”-Burlington County times
The U.S. Justice Department now suing two former executives of New Jersey based military contractor Louis Berger Group. Those executives pled guilty to ripping off $50-million tax-dollars for work not done in Afghanistan, Iraq and other parts of the world the U.S. is occupying.
New York: “The Campaign for One New York, the now-defunct nonprofit dedicated to promoting New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s agenda, raised $60,000 during the first six months of 2016… …the mayor decided to shut down amid federal and state investigations into……..whether the mayor traded government action in return for donations…”–The Wall Street Journal
Also, federal investigators are looking into current ‘elected’ mayor Bill de Blasio’s connection to the sale of Long Island College Hospital. Supposedly the buyer of the hospital is a property developer with direct connections to de Blasio’s assistants. The city of New York paying more than $2-million tax dollars for the death of an autistic boy. The death happened in 2013, after the Queens school somehow failed to notice the autistic boy left the campus. He was found three months later (in January 2014) in the East River. The state Department of Financial services now investigating foreclosure actions against people with reverse mortgages. In The Empire State there are escalating cases where old people who got reverse mortgages (you know, those home equity loans that claim you can live in your home for the rest of your life) are being foreclosed on by those very reverse mortgage lenders!
North Carolina: Between January and July, state employment administrators received notice of the elimination of more than 8-thousand 5-hundred jobs in the private sector!
Oregon: The city of Portland is pushing ahead with the shutdown of a homeless camp, despite not providing a viable alternative for the increasing number of homeless people (an estimated 5-hundred people now live in the Springwater Corridor).
Texas: Taxsucking Lockheed Martin eliminating more than 1-hundred jobs at Randolph Air Force Base, by September! Despite many Texas leaders claiming to be ‘christians’, the city of Dallas is pushing ahead with shutting down homeless camps despite threats of lawsuits by the ACLU. Local news reports say the number of homeless people has doubled since May! “Yeshua [Jesus of Nazareth] said to him, ‘Foxes have lairs and birds of the sky have shelters, but The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’”-Matthew 8:20, Aramaic Bible
Virginia: Arlington based Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is offering $4-million tax-dollars to any company that can meet its Cyber Grand Challenges for 2016. That includes creating an automated computer hacking system!
Washington: At the Hanford nuclear vitrification plant U.S. Department of Energy contractor Bechtel eliminating 45 jobs, but in another report claimed they will continue to fill 3-hundred positions! Company administrators basically said 45 eliminated positions were found to be “inefficient”.
Washington DC: Taxsucking military contractor Lockheed Martin announced that 350 jobs will be eliminated from their Mission Systems and Training operations!
WARN=Worker Adjustment & Retraining Notification.
I found a 2010 AFL-CIO analysis (titled The Public Availability of WARN Notices: Lack of Accessibility and Disclosure…) which proves what I’ve been suspecting in my search of state WARN notices; most states are not complying with federal WARN regulations and are not publicizing or tracking mass layoffs.
Former employees who receive severance are not counted as unemployed!
The U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) no longer issues mass layoff reports: “On March 1, 2013, President Obama ordered into effect the across-the- board spending cuts (commonly referred to as sequestration) required by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, as amended. Under the order, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) must cut its current budget by more than $30 million, 5 percent of the current 2013 appropriation, by September 30, 2013. In order to help achieve these savings and protect core programs, the BLS will eliminate two programs, including Mass Layoff Statistics, and all ‘measuring green jobs’ products. This news release is the final publication of monthly mass layoff survey data.”