To watch "The Talking Points Memo" click here.
Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thank you for watching us tonight.
The average American worker is $6,000 in debt. And help is not on the way.
That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points memo.
According to Census Bureau, the average debt of every man, woman, and child in America is $6,000, not counting mortgage and rent obligations. And with unemployment rising, many Americans are feeling very insecure these days.
Many states are also deeply in debt. California and New York are billions in the red. New York City faces an illegal transit strike next week because they don't have any money to pay the workers.
But why? With all of the taxes we're paying, what the heck is going on?
Number one, nobody is watching how the money is spent. Upcoming this evening, we'll tell you how millions have been stolen at the Los Alamos nuclear facility in New Mexico.
Number two, politicians have given away so much to the unions in staggering displays of vote-buying that the taxpayer can't possibly pay for it all. Let's take the transit workers as an example. After three years on the job, a person driving a bus in New York City or cleaning a subway car makes about $50,000 a year base pay. That person gets -- ready? -- eight weeks off a year. Eight weeks, with full pay.
In addition, the worker only has to do one specific task each day, like clean two subway cars or something like that. After he or she is finished, they don't have anything else to do. So more workers have to be hired.
Mayor Bloomberg wants any raises to tied to increased productivity. No way, says the union. That's why the roads in New York are always under constructions, the trains are dirty and run down, things are generally chaotic, because workers take so much time off. And when they are around, they work two, three hours a day.
This kind of scam is happening all over the country. Workers on the public payroll are not forced to work hard, receive good benefits and lucrative pension and disability payments.
Are you ready for this? The state of California pays $1.1 billion in disability payments every year. New York State pays $720 million. Illinois sends out $216 million.
On the radio today, somebody said, OK, O'Reilly, you big dope, how would you fix it?
Well, I'm glad you asked. Number one, there should be a federal bureau of revenue, the FBR, that annually audits every organization receiving federal money looking for fraud and threat.
Number two, the government should get out of the service business so politicians can't buy union votes. Amtrak, subway and bus systems, road maintenance, garbage collection, most other services, exclusive of police and fire, should be run by private companies under competitive bidding and government supervision.
If that would be done, at least the taxpayer would get some fairness for the money. Right now, all we're getting is hosed.
And that's The Memo.
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day
Time now for the "Most Ridiculous Item of the Day".
You know, I thought this billoreilly.com Web site was going to be a pain for me, but it's turned out to be a lot of fun.
We've just posted a poll question, "Is Whitney Houston committing child abuse?" We want you to weigh in on that.
And the other features are pretty entertaining. At least I think so.
We're also giving away free booklets of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, if you sign up for premium membership, courtesy of our pals at the Cato Institute. But it's really not premium. I mean, this thing is so inexpensive, it's like embarrassing to say it's premium.
So get online at billoreilly.com. It's a lot of fun, and it's not ridiculous.
--You can watch Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points Memo and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 & 11p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com
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