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The Fastest Government Study In History

Is Common Sense Decision Making A New Trend?  Don’t Count On it!

By Art Gallagher

The New Jersey Department of Transportation completed its engineering study into the feasibility of allowing commercial trucks to travel the Garden State Parkway north of exit 105 with lightning speed.

The Asbury Park Press reported that the department’s engineers were studying the issue on Saturday.  By Monday afternoon, Transportation Commissioner James Simpson announced that the truck ban would continue.  The department’s engineers had concluded that there were significant engineering issues that would prevent even a preliminary consideration of the idea.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if common sense decision making was at work throughout our various governments as it apparently is in the Department of Tranporation.  How much more affordable would New Jersey be if our leaders could do or not do something without first performing expensive studies simply because the answer is obvious.

Isn’t it obvious that it doesn’t make sense to pay men and women in the prime of the lives generous pensions for the last 30, 40, or 50 years of their lives while they pursue new careers either in or out of government “service?”  Isn’t it obvious that paying for health benefits for those men or women and their families for life is not sustainable fiscal policy?

Isn’t it obvious that paying elected officials a pension and a salary for the same job, while they are in the job, is ludicrous?

Isn’t it obvious that it is wasteful and inequitable to pay someone who worked part-time for 20 years a full time pension if they work full time for 5 years at the end of their career.

Isn’t it obvious that the Abbott District experiment didn’t work?

Isn’t obvious that government employees having civil service protection and union contracts is overkill?

Isn’t obvious that guaranteeing a teacher lifetime job protection after three years gives no incentive to that teacher to preform exceptionally?

Please add more in the comments.

Posted: April 19th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Government Waste | Tags: | 4 Comments »