‘Cuz We Don’t Need No Damn Guvment!
Front page of the Houston Chronicle this morning: Budget Cuts
This ain’t gonna improve none at all.
Despite a two-year budget of $2.4 billion, the Texas Department of Public Safety, with little notice, has reduced office hours at 11 of the state’s busiest driver’s license offices and plans to lay off more than 100 full-time employees to deal with a $21 million funding crunch.
The statewide police agency’s primary function is to patrol state highways and issue driver’s licenses, but in recent years has spent hundreds of millions on security operations along the 1,200-mile border with Mexico.
That ain’t your job, DPS. Patrolling the border is Donald Trump’s job.
The last time I renewed my driver’s license, I had to go in person. I had to wait in line for 3 hours. Now it’s going to get worse. Yippee!
Thank you, Republicans.
Creating a dysfunctional or non-existent government is their #2 goal (#1 is stealing as much taxpayer money for themselves as they can). At least if a cop stops you and you don’t have a current driver’s license you can blame the licensing agency for it.
1Wouldn’t it be nice if our Governor and Lt. Governor were not politically crazed over their insatiable desires to cuddle their politically crazed bases?
2In my part of the woods we can use our computers to do a lot of the DMV business. I’m surprised that so many states aren’t taking advantage of technology. Yes, I know its incredibly expensive . . . I think I just answered my own question.
3I had to get my DL renewed a couple of years ago. There was a very pleasant Asian woman walking the line with a tablet asking folks where they were going that day, telling them where there was a DL office with a shorter line near that destination and in general urging folk to go some place else besides McKinney. Many folks did, including one neighbor who took his teen to Denison where he was able to walk up and take the driving test without any wait.
I felt sorry for an older gentleman who was there to renew his license at 91, so I allowed him and his service dog to go ahead of me.
4It’s about 94° here on the Maryland side of DC today. I don’t know how hot it is in Texas, but I think those people standing outside in that long line might not need too much goading to riot after a while. The people in charge of government sometimes needs to be reminded what it’s for.
5It ain’t about driver’s licenses, it’s about voter ID.
6We joined AAA so we would not have to go to our DMV and wait for hours. Well worth the price!
7The state does the same thing ISDs do. Money tight? Put the problem where it will bother the most people. DPS, lines. Schools, stop bus transportation for kids less than 2 miles from school. Gets everybody’s attention real fast.
It happened in Dallas some years back. An employee walked the line apologizing. She also informed us that the state used prison labor to send the notices. Every prisoner who had that job in Texas had our VIN and TDL numbers.
8Ray in Jerrytown has it right – it’s about voter IDs.
On a side note, how about a drive to help people get concealed carry licenses? They serve as voter ID in Texas, and might be easier to get. It’d be fun to see the Republicans try to block that one…
9@RepubAnon
You Sir are an evil genius.
10WOW! That pic shows some great voter turnout! Wait, wut?
I’ll just sit quietly over here. Sigh.
11I just had to renew my license in person also, and waited almost 3.5 hours for the 5 minute process to happen. They had just installed a “kiosk”, a touchscreen computer, to provide waiting numbers, and the persons who used to do that weren’t quite up to speed on the new system. And there were as many, sometimes more, employees supervising the waiting area as were doing the processing. The three ladies back there were not in a huge hurry.
You can renew your license online in most cases, but every 12 years or so, or at some age, you have to go in and prove you’re still alive and not blind. I’m not certain of the exact parameters, but I certainly would have done it online if I had been allowed. I’m not totally masochistic.
12Texans, do you believe your state legislators will ever respond as they did in Kansas?
13Don’t want to sound too positive on this DPS drivers licensing thing, but we’ve never had much of a wait at our more rural ones.
Texas’ DPS has implemented a great online DL renewal system that I just used a few months ago.
Not sure when it started, some time ago I think (it’s a 7 year licensing period IIRC, without looking at my DL).
It was a cinch to use the online renewal process, got an instant printable temporary DL (didn’t need it, doing it in advance), and the new one was in the mailbox a couple weeks later.
Certain other transactions might require a visit to the offices though.
But I urge anyone needing a renewal to just use the online method.
Unless you’re like some of my idiot co-workers many decades ago who refused, for decades, to have their paychecks direct-deposited into their bank/CU accounts when that service became available. They said they just liked standing in line and didn’t trust the ‘ ‘lectronic paper’.
The same ones that refused to use those new-fangled 401K’s (we had them offered when the law/reg came out, and kept our pension plan too), with the 100% match; absolutely FREE matching money, who would turn down a significant amount of free money? Fools.
.
All that said, I agree that DPS shouldn’t be doing ICE work.
One very major DPS budget item (which I’ve written about many times) is our very expensive and absurd DPS Riverine Navy down on the Rio Grande.
Those 33-36′ center console, 3-300HP outboard/each, 900 HP monsters cost about ONE MILLION DOLLAR$+ each (equipped&armed).
I think that they now have at least twenty of them. They cost many, many million$ more to operate and man/staff.
And such boats are quite unsuited for continuous operation in the shallow, silty Rio Grande waters*. I’ve heard that they have been a maintenance nightmare, with constant outboard engine problems.
I have a mere 200HP center console (offshore fishing) and it does not like shallow, dirty water. I can fully understand how running that dirty, silted, trashed river leads to frequent breakdowns (I do almost all my own boat mtce).
And at <=1.7mpg, my boat will suck a 100 gallon fuel tank dry in about 150-200 miles of operation, and if run at a high duty-cycle near it's 45mph top speed, those 100 gallon$ would only last for about 3-4 hour$. (I do carry a reserve tank too)
Can only imagine fuel consumption for a 900HP behemoth CC.
.
* As one of very few people since the 1850's to actually "sail" into the mouth of the Rio Grande River (on my Hobie catamaran) and navigate upstream a little, and also having spent much of my life living within a few miles of it– it is a messy river.
…whew… ;]
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