Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 11:32:28 -0400 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: The General Motors Business Model will not work for Government This email is NOT spam. We are a non-partisan group working to acheive greater efficiency in local government. Please send to your friends. You may unsubscribe if you no longer wish to receive our emails. Most people are not aware of the real reason General Motors went from the number one company on the planet to insolvent in a few decades. The reason has nothing to do with cheap foreign labor (GM's competitors build many of their cars in the US) or the quality of the cars. The reason GM is insolvent is the company supports 600,000 retirees with only 165,000 active workers. Pension costs and retiree healthcare benefits drove GM out of business. Your local government has the same business model. Government workers can retire in their mid 40s and receive guaranteed pay checks until their 90s. Right now there are about 1,200,000 government workers in Florida and the number of retirees will soon be greater than the number of active workers. Your local government is headed down the same path as GM. But instead of ruining a car company we will destroy our local economy and lower our standard of living. Just a year ago, GM had $15 billion in the bank. They put $29.9 billion in a retiree health care fund in 2008, and borrowed a similar amount from the taxpayers in 2009. Your local government has the same business model as GM, except government's primary revenue is taxing small business. In the past six years small business has seen taxes triple, fees quadruple, and utility rates increase at many times inflation. The end result is no surprise; more business failures. But like GM the problem never disappears, it hides during periods of economic growth and comes back with increasing severity. Because of Save Our Homes it is mathematically certain your local government will continue to force small business to fail at an increasing rate. Putting numbers to the problem, State and local government spending was $93 billion in 2002. In 2006 that figure increased to $151 billion. Because of Save Our Homes most of the additional $58 billion burden fell on small business. Our future is a repeat of that cycle until only the strongest businesses will survive, unless we systematically change our local government business model. We are leaving our children a state with no future opportunity. Just as most people knew GM was in trouble decades ago your local economy has the same future without reform. Your local government has the same union salary and pension problems, and our economic future is the same as GM. The time has come to stand up to the government labor unions and save the future of our State. We need to reform salaries so civil servants do not make twice the wage of the average taxpayer. We need to reform health care benefits, and we need to reform the pension plan so it does not bankrupt our economy. The next 15 months will see more challenges as unemployment will rise above 10% in Florida. At some point the taxpayer will realize small business is the way out of this economic mess and demand government reduce the burden on small business. Will our current group of elected officials listen? So far they have raised taxes in a recession, doubled parking fees, increased utility rates 20%, and added new fees. When most businesses are losing money today, these actions have only put more people out of work. There are one million small businesses in Florida. If each one hires just one person unemployment goes to zero. If they each lay off one person unemployment goes to 20%. So, my fellow taxpayer, you decide. Is your local government working for the best interests of the taxpayer, or is it funding its own General Motors? Does anyone think it is fair taxpayers are working into their 70s so our civil servants can retire in their 40s? If this concerns you, please join us at the July 4th Tea Party, 11 a.m. on the north side of the Amway Arena (downtown Orlando). Let's fix this mess and leave our children with a better future. Matthew Falconer Orange County Taxpayer Budget Review Board www.TaxpayerBudgetReviewBoard.org www.LowerTaxesNow.org [email protected] Forward email This email was sent to [email protected] by [email protected]. Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe | Privacy Policy. Email Marketing by American Platform | 4201 Vineland Road | Orlando | FL | 32811 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! 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