Live&DieBillsFootball

Well, Giambra unveiled his Green budget with the sales tax increase and his Red scorched earth budget to try to scare the residents into accepting the tax increase by threatening to gut county services. A funny thing happened...the citizens called his bluff. Now the county had to cut $108 million in expenses. Rather than a scorched earth budget, they are going to cut patronage jobs, pork, and trim the cost of government. Will there be problems? Probably, but we will finally get rid of a lot of fat and if need be, taxes can be increased later to add back the services that the citizens want. If the tax increase would have gone in, they would have kept all of the patronage and pork. I'm just glad that enough people had the spine to force the spending cuts. As another poster said, the Bass Pro deal has been signed and is going forward. I actually think that this mess will be good for Erie County in the long run. The population is declining but, the county payroll has continued to increase. It's about time our government starts living within our means, like the rest of us have to.

I gotta get a Losman plate to sew over my Flutie jersey.

But is she sea-worthy?

That's some funny sh--!

I am italian and french, and the father is black and portuguese. Absolutely gorgeous children.

I keep telling my uncle, a coal miner, to move, come down to Virginia, and I'll hire him as a maintenance guy for our county government. This would, in turn, move him outside to mainly cutting grass on athletic fields. Get him top of the line government benefits for him and his family. Start at about 35K a year. That usually goes up in VA about 7% every year. 236726[/snapback] This sounds like the Giambra solution. Hire all of your relatives to overpaid government jobs. Pretty soon voters will smarten up and you and your uncle will be working at Wal-Mart for minimum wage and no benefits. Other than union jobs, government jobs are the last places left that still provide fully paid medical and pension plans. Most private company have switched from pension plans to 401k plans. The next "crisis" coming along will be the underfunded government pension plans. Enjoy it while it lasts!

You're missing the point. The point is that Walmart is one of the largest private employers in this country, yet all of us are being forced to subsidize their employees' health care and other social costs because Walmart is unwilling to pay a living wage or provide affordable health care to their employees.

This topic was originally about Walmart and unions. Here's some FACTS to think about: 1. Wal-Mart, with about 25 percent of the company's 37,000 workers on TennCare, tops the list of businesses with employees on the expanded Medicaid program. Wal-Mart is the state's largest private employer. A study of Tennessee businesses shows thousands of Wal-Mart employees are on TennCare, the state's expanded Medicaid program, providing fodder for critics who say some businesses are shifting costs for low-paid employees onto the backs of taxpayers. Wal-Mart, with 9,617 employees listed as receiving benefits from the program, said it offers a health plan available to full-time workers after six months and to part-time employees after two years. 2. California taxpayers subsidized $20.5 million worth of medical care for Wal-Mart in that state alone. In fact, Wal-Mart personnel offices, knowing employees cannot afford the company health plan, actually encourage employees to apply for charitable and public assistance, according to a recent report by the PBS news program Now With Bill Moyers. 3. The Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce estimates that one 200-person Wal-Mart store may result in a cost to federal taxpayers of $420,750 per year – about $2,103 per employee. Specifically, the low wages result in the following additional public costs being passed along to taxpayers: • $36,000 a year for free and reduced lunches for just 50 qualifying Wal-Mart families. • $42,000 a year for Section 8 housing assistance, assuming 3 percent of the store employees qualify for such assistance, at $6,700 per family. • $125,000 a year for federal tax credits and deductions for low-income families, assuming 50 employees are heads of household with a child and 50 are married with two children. • $100,000 a year for the additional Title I expenses, assuming 50 Wal-Mart families qualify with an average of 2 children. • $108,000 a year for the additional federal health care costs of moving into state children’s health insurance programs (S-CHIP), assuming 30 employees with an average of two children qualify. • $9,750 a year for the additional costs for low income energy assistance. Link to Congressional report

Great post. I have worked in management all of my life, but my father was president of his union and my grandfather was the founder of his union. Unions over the years have caused problems, but if not for them, I don't think that most people would have 40 hr work weeks, medical insurance and retirement plans.

Even better than peanut sticks...peanut timbits at Tim Horton's. MMMMMMMMM donuts!

I have a little capture device from Avermedia that I use to capture from my 8mm camcoder to my pc. It comes with software to capture, convert, etc. It is $49.99 on their website. I got mine at Officemax for free after rebate. Officemax also has a pci card version. Either version allows you to plug in rca jacks (yellow, red, white) to capture from a camcorder or vcr. Link to Avermedia usb device Make sure that your pc meets the minimum requirements for speed and hard drive space. One tip: It is best to just capture the whole thing and create a dvd from it. I originally had planned to edit and put in titles, etc. It can be very time consuming to do the editing.

A WNY fish fry is not much of a lenten "sacrifice".

I remember flunking sex education in 6th grade. I was so mad at my teacher, Mrs. Smith, that I wanted to kick her in the nuts.

One of the problems with Walmart is that they are becoming more and more of a Supermarket. In some areas such as Canada and California, most chain supermarkets are unionized. The union forces the stores to pay a living wage and provide benefits to all employees who work full-time. This forces stores to charge higher prices, but if all of the stores have to do it, none have a competitive advantage. Now Walmart moves in and offers minimum wage and no benefits for grocery workers and can offer lower prices than the chains. Is it better for the supermarkets to kick out the union and move to minimum wage and no benefits in order to compete? Or is it better for a union to force Walmart to pay the living wage and give benefits? We all love low prices, but we pay it back in higher Medicaid costs to pay for the health care of low wage workers who don't get company provided benefits. As Walmart becomes the largest employer in America, do they have the right to make Medicaid the health care provider for their employees?

"When Charles becomes king, she will be a Princess Consort." If I ever become king I will pick some better looking princess consorts. Actually, I could use a princess consort right now.

That's the girl in the Hardee's commercial. http://www.hardeesgirl.com/commercial.html Your welcome!!

Well, maybe she wanted to buy you a strap-on.

Yep, That's the place. And I'm a bad man.

This season is over anyways so why bother. By the time the European scabs get back over here and everyone gets to training camp, there won't be time for a season. What do you do about all of the minor league players who are normally in an NHL training camp. That will make other fans real happy when you decimate the AHL, European leagues, etc, so that these overpaid ass holes can get back to work.

I slipped a buck into her g-string at Frank's Casanova. One look at the cellulite on her ass and I was hooked for life.

Well she is a Phys Ed teacher, so she was just trying to give the kid some exercise. Sure beats the sh-- out of dodgeball!

The problem with the $3,000 house is that you would not want to live in it. You can only get insurance if you live in it. If you spend money to fix it up, the house will be broken into and all of the new stuff will be stolen. People will break in and take the plumbing fixtures, pipes, furnace and anything else that they can sell for crack money. There have been several people in the last few years who have tried to buy up a bunch of houses on the East side and make a killing. Each of them has ended up in housing court because their properties are dilapidated and need repairs. They can't get the houses up to code to rent them, and they can't sell them. There are tons of vacant properties on the east side.

I thought that it was awesome. Usually they try to get 4 pop acts and stuff them all into 15 minutes and you get 15 minutes of sh--. I hope this is a new trend where they get one GREAT performer and let him/her/them play for 15 minutes and rock the house.

I thought it sucked

I also remembered reading the original post and forgot what the name of the stuff AD was using. I picked up a bag of Canadae yesterday at a health food store. 5 lb bag was $6.79 which is about what I have been paying for Science Diet at Petsmart. I just gave my dog a little today as I like to wean him over to new foods. But, he snarfed it up much quicker than normal. Thanks for reminding me about it.