Hidden disaster in new budget: Demonic plot to raid pensions

[mitty14u2]

Source: Salon

Hidden disaster in new budget: Demonic plot to raid pensions

What you won't hear about this new deal: Public workers will get eviscerated, to achieve "deficit reduction"

Pay freezes are just the beginning. In February, hundreds of thousands of federal workers were forced into unpaid furloughs in accordance with sequestration’s across-the-board budget cuts. In virtually every federal agency, workers had to take as many as 15 unpaid days off during the last fiscal year. Then, when the government shutdown occurred, workers were again sent home without knowing if they would ever get paid for the missed time. The lack of cash flow stressed workers and made it difficult to pay bills on time. Fortunately, Congress did provide back pay for the 6.6 million work days missed during the shutdown. However, that comes out of agency budgets, and workers have to still complete their tasks without the ability to hire additional personnel to make up the time.

The Federal Workers Alliance, a coalition of unions representing federal employees, estimated in a message to the budget negotiators that between the pay freeze and furloughs, federal employees have sacrificed $114 billion in pay cuts over the past three years, an average of over $50,000 per employee. Yet somehow, budget negotiators are going to the well again.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/12/11/hidden_disaster_in_new_budget_demonic_assault_will_raid_pensions/

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PoliticusUSA

November 9, 2013

Natural Born Job Killers: Republicans Are Set to Kill 1 Million More Jobs in 2014

During eight years of the Bush administration, Republicans managed to squander a substantial budget surplus, wage two unnecessary and unfunded wars at a cost of $6 trillion over the next generation, and drove the country into a Great Recession. Along the way they destroyed Americans retirement savings, the housing industry, and successfully killed tens of millions of Americans’ jobs. For two short years after the Republican economic catastrophe ended, President Obama saved the economy, staunched job losses with a meager stimulus, and created millions of jobs and yet, by 2011 Republicans went against conventional economic wisdom and embarked on a job-killing austerity spree under the guise of reducing long term deficit they blew up during the Bush years. For the past three years, besides attacking women’s rights, Republicans have made killing jobs their raison d’être and according to a new report, their economic insanity will cost the nation immense long term economic damage.


http://www.politicususa.com/2013/11/09/natural-born-job-killers-republicans-set-kill-1-million-jobs-2014.html

Devastating the middle class jettisons the money to the top, Monopolies and Control takes the money and property to fewer and fewer every minute, Coup D’ Screw the Voters!

[MissMillie]

1. I can never understand

Military folks and veterans get all kinds of "thank you" for their service (though their benefits are sorely lacking)

But when it comes to teachers, firefighters, police officers, social workers, bridge builders, etc.... they don't even get the "thank you"



The world would shut down w/o these people, and we thank them by robbing them of the pensions they paid into. WTF??????

[upaloopa]

3. Speaking as a government worker, neighbors and

some family members see me as a person who is somehow robbing them through the tax system and living high on the hog while everyone else is suffering. Our union members SEIU 206 give $10,000,000 in salary concessions over the last three years. Each pay period we worked 3.5 hrs for free. We gave up colas and pay increases. Yet you never hear them acknowledge what is taken from us.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Former SEIU worker here...hats off to you!

[geek tragedy]

5. Because people only interact directly with government employees

when something has gone wrong, in most cases.

And they almost never have to be on the receiving end when troops are doing what they're paid to do.

[yurbud]

19. the vets need the pension and benefits more than yellow ribbons and parades too

A lot of the "support the troops" stuff is a mile wide and an inch deep.

I'd like to see people say less and simply take decent care of them, including being more careful about when they send them into harm's way.

[Heather MC]

24. Everyone contribute to society we are all important and necessary, the type we can really do w/o

Are CEOs and BOARD MEMBERS, and people who own private prisons they can go too

[Jackpine Radical]

26. As a Vietnam vet, let me simply say

You can keep the &^%$* "Thank You."

But it really hurts to see how many of my brothers have been living out their lives in the gutters.

[JDPriestly]

2. Now, how do we explain this to our friends, families and neighbors?

Any way to explain it to Fox News viewers?

[SoapBox]

4. Was Little Eddie Munster Ryan involved in this?

Yup!

And that makes the ENTIRE thing suspect.

If there is a TeaPuke involved, then WATCH OUT!

[WillyT]

6. K & R !!!

[Proud Public Servant]

7. I'm a federal worker, but

the kind of hysteria pedaled here does not help build sympathy for our cause.

Pay freezes aren't pay cuts. Sure, I miss my annual cost-of-living increases, but not getting them doesn't make me any different from most private sector workers, so grousing about that doesn't make me a figure of sympathy -- it just makes me sound like the kind of entitled caricature the GOP insists I am.

And yes, the shutdown was initially stressful -- but the minute Congress approved back pay (only a few days in, recall), every federal worker I know treated it as a paid vacation, and talked about it as such.

Yes, the furloughs were bad. That's spot-on. But we're still some of the only workers in America with pensions and gold-plated health insurance. This kind of grousing when food stamps and unemployment insurance remain imperiled is just unseemly.

[passiveporcupine]

10. thank you for your honest appraisal

I feel bad for anyone losing their retirement or benefits, or undergoing pay cuts or even freezes. But government workers are not more special than regular workers; many of whom are suffering from the same things (and have been longer).

We need to fight for security for everyone, not just a certain group of people because of who they work for.

I am not bashing government workers here...I applaud them and feel they deserve fair wages and benefits just like everyone.

[duffyduff]

12. Because YOU don't have anything, public employees should be screwed.

Nice bit of spin there.

The fact is we EARNED those pensions, and many of us didn't pay into Social Security, either.

BTW, public pensions are deferred compensation.

[passiveporcupine]

17. I never said you should lose anything, but neither should private workers

Or union workers. However...very good point on the SS versus pensions. SS is really not enough to live on, but it helps, and I believe everyone should pay into it and get it, government workers as well as private. And without it, nobody should be trying to take the alternative pension away.

Take a deep breath...hyperventilating won't help anything.

[elleng]

11. Thanks, with you,

as a retired Federal employee.

[duffyduff]

13. Not our problem that others were willing to have their pensions gutted.

They can blame themselves for their gullibility when companies gutted pensions in favor of sham defined contribution systems.

I have been on both sides of the issue.

Besides, many public workers don't pay into Social Security and are screwed royal.

You can only speak for yourself--NOBODY else. You don't speak for me for parroting talking points designed to appeal to people's jealousy because they made rotten career choices. The problem isn't with pensions--it's with politicians who want to raid them to enrich the crooks who own them.

[Proud Public Servant]

14. Well, that's just wrong

Last edited Wed Dec 11, 2013, 09:31 PM - Edit history (1)

The only federal workers who don't pay into social security are those who joined the federal work force before 1984. Their pensions are not being touched -- indeed, no federal pensions are being touched, per se, and the only workers affected by the pension part of the budget deal are those who joined this year or those who will join in the future. I don't mind being called out, but I prefer it be by someone who knows what s/he's talking about.

Oh, and telling private sector workers who lost their pensions that "they can blame themselves for their gullibility"? Are you sure DU is where you want to be? Because that kind of sentiment has "Freeper" written all over it...

[newthinking]

23. Your retirement is likely "grandfathered" and not subject to cuts right?

It is the newer employees that will be affected right?

I used to work for a public sector group and it drove me crazy how they divided the "old timers" from the newer employees and cut the hell out of the newer employee's benefits disproportionately simply because they they could get away with it. But they rarely cut senior employees retirement, which are actually the pensions that are the heaviest weight.

There indeed were some problems with the older pension setups, but there is really nothing they can do about it (it's a contract). But most government pensions are no longer all that much above private (most systems were adjusted years ago for newer employees) if at all. Unless you are talking about retail, which I hope we want to *lift*, and not bring everyone down to.

[BeyondGeography]

27. Raises, let's see, I've had one very minor one in the last three years

and that was after two pay cuts that added up to a 25 percent pay reduction. Extreme case, but I'm in an industry that's on the wrong side of the future (print publishing), and those of us who have survived thus far are happy to still be in the game.

Things either grow or they shrink. A lot of businesses still look at 2007 as their peak and the people associated with those jobs therein have had to endure plenty of hardship.

A roundabout way of saying your post is quite sensible. Pay freezes and cola cuts are old hat to many of us in the private sector; making them out to be the end of the world for the public sector is politically tone deaf, even dangerously so.

[WowSeriously]

8. The first thing that came to mind when I learned

About the increased pension contribution was that the takers were fattening the pot, like they did with the postal service pensions, so they can be raided during the next Democratic Administration to fix the pending debt from the next Republican Administration.

Detroit was a test drive to see how the workers woul respond. They learned that the workers will let it happen peacefully.

[the_sly_pig]

9. People get angry because government pays a living wage.

It is not for the lack of money in this country. I often marvel at the private sector employee's that are home with their families for holidays and weekends (not all mind you, but most).

You want stupid kids, underpay or lay-off teachers.

You want your house to burn down, underpay or lay-off fire personnel.

You want to guarantee death during medicals or deal with crime on your own, underpay or lay-off first responders.

You want your plane to drop out of the sky, underpay or lay-off air traffic controllers.

I certainly don't need to be an underpaid 911 dispatcher, but it works for my family.

I just wish the bitching about government workers pay would end. Pay for anyone is never the problem; greed is the problem but we never get to hear about corporate welfare, the idle rich or banksters going to prison. All of which steal vast amounts from the taxpayer.

[TBF]

16. We don't hear about the wealthy robbing us blind

because our politicians work for them - not for us.

As soon as people figure that out we might make some progress.

[1StrongBlackMan]

15. Maybe I'm quibbling; but ...

The Federal Workers Alliance, a coalition of unions representing federal employees, estimated in a message to the budget negotiators that between the pay freeze and furloughs, federal employees have sacrificed $114 billion in pay cuts over the past three years, an average of over $50,000 per employee.

A "pay freeze" is NOT a pay cut ... neither are unpaid furloughs that are subsequently paid.

[NutmegYankee]

21. The sequester furloughs were not paid back.

And yes, a pay freeze is a pay cut. As the deductions paid have gone up, the "cost of living" increase didn't happen, so net pay is lower than three years ago. If the money paid into checking is lower than before, that's a pay cut.

[yurbud]

20. when this stuff comes up, I can't understand why Republicans in Congress get their phones answered

their offices cleaned, or psychos kept outside.

When somebody wants to legislate screwing public workers, those workers should stop working for those specific legislators, and other support workers and aides should honor that like a picket line.

I would also support workers in the cafeteria flinging mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese in their faces.

[MrScorpio]

22. This is why we need to vote Republicans out of office. nt

Last edited Thu Dec 12, 2013, 09:52 PM - Edit history (1)

[sendero]

25. It seems like some in our Congress.....

... are intent on importing the "austerity" that is crippling the European economy.

[socialist_n_TN]

28. Oh that's already happened. That's what the infamous "sequester".......

was all about. It was "austerity" rebranded. Just like the rest of capitalism. Take the same old shit and call it Merde and hope enough people won't notice.

And this new budget deal? All it did was delay FURTHER cuts. It didn't replace any of the dollars, especially for domestic programs, already "sequestered" previously. And of course because it didn't raise taxes on the people and corporations that have made out like bandits for the last 30+ years or so, the working class and poor are the one paying for the cuts.

No tax raises, cuts in domestic expenditures and privatizations of pensions ALL equal austerity in all but name.

[TheKentuckian]

30. That is winning for too damn many. Add in staving off worst case hypotheticals and you have nirvana.

[Uncle Joe]

29. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, mitty.