Minnesota State Guvmint shuts down, will anyone notice?

[Strike For The South]

Actually, the only money New York State has is what they confiscate from the people who pay taxes. So to be more precise, it's the people who pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits who pay my salary.

Meh, We can debate how much of the cow we can hack off at a different time. If you went to these peoples houses and showed them that you put in a honest days work do you think they would oblige you and still pay your wages? No, they wouldn't. I'm just pointing out the whole "Sons of liberty" theme this thread has taken probably would be different if it Was Albany.

I just lol at people reveling over government shutdowns. It's every pseudo 18 year old liberitarians wet dream. I'm surprised you subscribe to tea party fever

[Hosakawa Tito]

Meh, We can debate how much of the cow we can hack off at a different time. If you went to these peoples houses and showed them that you put in a honest days work do you think they would oblige you and still pay your wages? No, they wouldn't. I'm just pointing out the whole "Sons of liberty" theme this thread has taken probably would be different if it Was Albany.

I just lol at people reveling over government shutdowns. It's every pseudo 18 year old liberitarians wet dream. I'm surprised you subscribe to tea party fever

Yeah, you got me. Maybe I'd feel different if it affected my department. Cuomo Announces Closure of 7 State Prison Facilities.

Reveling over government shutdowns? Hardly, but unfortunately many of the politicians calling the shots are the same morons who mismanaged this fandango in the first place. Kicking the can down the road for future generations to pay can no longer be an option. Someone has to start being the responsible adult, but we're stuck with the ones that were elected. Some of which are only concerned with staying on the gravy train and making sure "shared sacrifice" doesn't include them. Perhaps if the media would do it's job and ask all these tax and spend politicians what they are sacrificing along with the frontline workers would be a good start. After all, the benefits frontline public employee workers get are just the crumbs that fall off managements' plate. Maybe if it was hammered on in the media as much as public employees have been over the last few years the pain would be more equitably shared. I haven't seen any of that, have you? So, short of doling out the Gabby Giffords treatment to some of them, what do you suggest? Or is the prospect of turning into a Grecian welfare state appealing to you?

See what happens when I drink beer in the early afternoon...

[Strike For The South]

I'm all for responsible spending but I am also for responsible taxing which makes me a Commie/Terrorist/Kenyan depending on the day.

In other parts of the world I'm called an adult

[HoreTore]

I'm highly offended that you people confused Sweden with Norway.

Bastards.

Now apologize, before I get the longship ready....

[Fisherking]

I'm highly offended that you people confused Sweden with Norway.

Bastards.

Now apologize, before I get the longship ready....

What? Are there more Square-heads living in MN than Swedes? Someone must have died.

Anyway it is not the west most province of Norway. That would be Poulsbo, WA.

http://www.visitkitsap.com/kitsap.asp

The guy with the beard is a good friend of mine: http://vikingfest.org/history.htm

[HoreTore]

A place named Poulsbo must be danish. Pål is norwegian, poul is danish(and paul is english). Say the word out loud. Note the gutteral and awful sound you just made. Doesn't sound like the harmonious and melodic norwegian language, now does it...?

Anyway.... You mentioned lutefisk. Which is our crappy and uneatable foodstuff, it doesn't belong to those smelly meatballs to the east! They write the name for their version differently, but as swedish is impossible to read, I wouldn't know how they write it.

[Populus Romanus]

Nope, its Finnish. I've been there.

[Fisherking]

A place named Poulsbo must be danish. Pål is norwegian, poul is danish(and paul is english). Say the word out loud. Note the gutteral and awful sound you just made. Doesn't sound like the harmonious and melodic norwegian language, now does it...?

Anyway.... You mentioned lutefisk. Which is our crappy and uneatable foodstuff, it doesn't belong to those smelly meatballs to the east! They write the name for their version differently, but as swedish is impossible to read, I wouldn't know how they write it.

No when the town was named it was Paulsbo. Or what ever the place in Norway they came from was. When they sent an application for a Post Office the postmaster general misread the handwriting so the name became Poulsbo.

My wife speaks Norwegian. She has little trouble reading Swedish and Danish. She can’t understand much when it is spoken though. She reads the Old Norse from the Icelandic Sagas too though so maybe that helps.

But hop into your long ship just the same. The sea voyage might do you good and I would like to see what TSA dose when you get there.

[Ironside]

Anyway.... You mentioned lutefisk. Which is our crappy and uneatable foodstuff, it doesn't belong to those smelly meatballs to the east! They write the name for their version differently, but as swedish is impossible to read, I wouldn't know how they write it.

Det stavas "lutfisk" på svenska, men uppenbarligen kan du inte alls läsa det här. Och jag tror du blandar ihop det med "surströmming", som verkligen kan användas som ett luktmassförstörelsevapen.

Translation for everyone except Horetore :

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's spelled "lutfisk" in Swedish, but obviously, you can't read this. And I think you mixed it up with "sörströmming", that really can be used as a weapon of smelly mass destruction.

No when the town was named it was Paulsbo. Or what ever the place in Norway they came from was. When they sent an application for a Post Office the postmaster general misread the handwriting so the name became Poulsbo.

My wife speaks Norwegian. She has little trouble reading Swedish and Danish. She can’t understand much when it is spoken though. She reads the Old Norse from the Icelandic Sagas too though so maybe that helps.

Paulsbo has to be changed someway even before. Closest Swedish word would be Pålsbo, but Pålsby is even more likely.

I'm not sure how much Norwegian differs within the country (they got two different languages, Bokmål and Nynorsk), but with the Nowegians I've spoken to, it's like a heavy accent. You'll understand almost all of it, with a bit of focus.

[Hosakawa Tito]

I'm all for responsible spending but I am also for responsible taxing which makes me a Commie/Terrorist/Kenyan depending on the day.

In other parts of the world I'm called an adult

Perhaps you missed this part of the article.

Even as the state found itself with no approved budget, certain state services deemed essential never stopped. State police patrol and prison operations went on, as did payments to the state’s schools and payments for food stamps, welfare benefits and some programs for the disabled.

And failed to compare it with this part.

But even within state agencies, officials found themselves sorting through what must keep going and what ought not. Most prison guards stayed put, for instance, but the state Department of Corrections said it was ending family and volunteers’ visits and yoga classes for prisoners and — if the shutdown lasts long enough for service to lapse — prisoners will see no more cable television

Can you pick out the responsible spending/responsible taxing parts from the irresponsible wasteful part? I know you can, and I also believe that we have more in common in determining what's responsible in how taxpayer money is spent. Most state budgets are rife with irresponsible nanny-state waste of taxpayer money. State spending = taxpayer spending. People who received more benefits from the taxpayers than they payed in taxes have no "skin in the game", why should they be allowed to vote?
Ironically, the Bush tax cuts made the divide between the income-tax payers and the non payers wider by exempting from federal income taxes a large number of low-income earners. What happens to a society where as many people pay into the system as take out of it? It becomes divided, permanently.
We have a system where 50% of the people pay payroll taxes and very little income tax and the other 50% pay payroll taxes and most of the income tax. It’s insidious because lower-income people think they are paying their payroll taxes to fund Medicare and Social Security. In theory that’s correct, but we haven’t used Medicare and Social Security taxes solely for that purpose since LBJ was President.

[Lemur]

Yo Hosa,

Just a note, but the majority of state-level services are usually funded by taxes other than income tax, no? Sales tax, fees, etc. I know that jacking up every fee was part of how MN's previous budget problems were solved. Seems as though the quesion of income tax is more relevant on the Federal level than the state.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Lemur, I'm from the state of New York. You've lived in the Empire Vampire State before so you have experienced that "giant sucking sound" emanating from Albany. State income taxes, for us 8%, are just another part of the shakedown. Sales tax 9%, Medicaid 4.3%, School Tax rate 17 cents per $1000, County Property tax the same. Plus various consumption taxes, fees *a tax by a different name*, licenses, registrations, etc...

I'm speaking from a "New York state of mind". If one could tax & spend to prosperity than New York State would be Economic Utopia. I can assure you all it is the exact opposite. New York doesn't have a revenue problem. It has a systemic spending problem that no other state or the fed should emulate. That is the point I'm trying to make. New York has been and has continued to kick the can down the road in fixing the spending problem. How many other states have similar issues?

I get frustrated getting up before dawn to drive to work, passing by houses of people still in bed, some of whom are either able to work but can't find a job or others who are too lazy and comfortable on state benefits to even try. New York makes it too easy & convenient not to work, and much too easy to game the system. I am drug tested by my employer, New York State, to hold & keep my job. Those that collect welfare, medicaid, food stamps from the state are not. If ya got money for recreational drugs than ya don't need benefits intended for the truly needy. There needs to be put in place, policies that incentivize the need to work and help to carry the load. How many other states have similar issues? I have no problem helping the truly needy & disabled, but if your only handicap is laziness than I don't care to subsidize that behavior.


@ Strike: you'll be a full fledged and blooded adult when you get a job and help pay for all these taxes.

[Lemur]

Sure, I remember the NY state income tax, and lord knows I paid tens of thousands into it, maybe more. I was a high earner in NYC. Then again, I was getting a lot of value back in the form of police, public trains, good roads, etc. And everyone I knew was gainfully employed, so I lacked exposure to the welfare/disability cheats who have your blood riled.

I guess I'm some sort of closet Scandanavian. I like to work hard and earn, but I don't mind taxes if I get value back from them in the form of good public services and a stable society.