Like a six-lane highway, squeezing down to a two-lane country road in less than a mile, Dems are already busy funneling their arguments and talking points on strategy – just how to seize the wise fiscal spending mantra away from the GOP. Pertinent to the mantra are the serious depths of debt States labor under, and Congressional members taking a rare cut in their summer recesses to pass a $26.1 billion bailout for more than a dozen states, as part of a “gamble” on positive voter reception.
They say the bill does not add to the national debt and – in overcoming Republican opposition – they have saved the jobs of tens of thousands of teachers, firemen and police nationwide.
“Why wouldn’t House Republicans want to keep 310,000 teachers, first-responders and private-sector workers on the job instead of on the unemployment lines?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said Monday.
~~~On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled House is expected to pass the measure, which in part relies on ending foreign tax credits for multinational companies and money from last year’s stimulus bill to pay for $10 billion in teachers’ salaries and $16.1 billion for the extension of the Federal Medicaid Assistance Program (FMAP). More than a dozen states are counting on the money to balance their budgets and to keep about 140,000 teachers nationwide on the payroll.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen last week shrugged off the suggestion that approving the measure might come back to haunt the party in the midterm elections this fall.“It is not a gamble,” the Maryland Democrat told The Washington Times. “It would be gambling our children’s education to have them go back to school and find no teacher in the classroom and with larger class sizes.”
Here we go… another “for the children” moment, and the continued lectures on how bailouts are saving our fiscal butts. I suggest if they had “the children’s” best interests at heart, they wouldn’t be robbing them of their future revenue. And I’m still waiting to see some indication that our fiscal butts were saved, other than the tarot card/parallel universe history that it would have been worse if we hadn’t spent ourselves into the abyss.
Not surprising, the measure is expected to pass the House, aided by GOPers Olympia Snow and Susan Collins from Maine. However, since no publication has of yet ID’d the specific House number, I am unable to determine which of the sundry FMAP bill proposals this might be, or just what states are included.
What we do know is that the Dems have been standing on shake ground with their fiscal record of spending, especially as compared to perceivable results in our ongoing high unemployment and continuing housing decline. With their power on the line in the midterm elections, the quest becomes the decades old playbook mantra… how best to portray a GOP aversion to spending as heartless, and economically counterproductive.
Always at the top is the “save a government job” talking point. One would think it rings of logic when adding layoffs of teachers, fire and law enforcement to the unemployment roles. But then few address the reality that paying a State’s payroll for a period of time does little to correct the problem, and is only akin to the habitual can kicking going on with current administrative and Congressional policies. Instead, it simply makes the States more dependent upon federal subsidies to support it’s out of control spending and hefty government pension plans.
Instead, perhaps it’s time to visit what many have considered unthinkable to know – creating State bankruptcy. And this is what co-writers, Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, adeptly argue in their NY Post op-ed today.
Absent endless federal subsidies, states will simply no longer be able to afford to give the unions everything that they want. And governors — many of them newly elected Republicans — will realize that they can’t even afford to honor agreements their big-spending predecessors OK’d.
The GOP Congress should then amend the federal bankruptcy law to provide for a way — now absent — for states to declare bankruptcy. (Municipalities can do so under current law, but states have no such relief.)
Here’s the key: The reforms must require that states abrogate their public-employee union agreements in the bankruptcy process, just as private corporations like Delta and Chrysler have done. The wage hikes, the work rules, the pension plans all go out the window.
Indeed, a legal restructuring of a State’s expenses would go a long way to breaking the labor union’s rigor mortis grip on budgets. And while austerity measures are difficult for many to accept, they are long overdue as a correction to decades of taxpayer funds’ abuse. As Byron York points out today, you don’t have to cut services in order to cut the deficit. You merely need to rein in the exaggerated generosity of federal employment pay scales and compensation packages, so they are more in line with the private sector. Citing Heritage studies and a USA Today article about the great imbalance between federal and private sector, York rightly points out that reducing that gap between public and private sector need no involve a “sledge hammer” approach, and could be accomplished by freezing federal wages and benefits until the private sector catches up.
This becomes even more important when you examine the job creation and losses since this administration has assumed power. While the private sector has shed jobs at an alarming rate, the federal government has added 200,000 jobs to the taxpayers payroll burden. And this doesn’t even include the huge government expansion of agencies created or expanded as a result of the enacted entitlement programs under Obama/Pelosi/Reid rule.
In the meantime, Obama’s admin is doing it’s part in deficit cuts by a proposal to eliminate the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) announced by Secretary Gates. As Max Boot points out in his Aug 9th post in Commentary Magazine, could the JFCOM tasks be done away with? Likely, tho what they do would have to be absorbed by some other Pentagon branch. And then there’s the pesky question of what to do about those 4900 employees that will find themselves out on the street.
In fact, the economic benefits of eliminating JFCOM are neglible in the real world…. and in fact cutting the entire Pentagon budget of $535 billion would do little to relieve this year’s federal budget deficit of $1.47 trillion. But it sure would leave the nation’s security – the primary function of the federal government, IMHO – as nonexistant.
But this is the way the Dem campaign spin will go…. bailouts for States to pay teachers and/or fire/police personnel payroll is good. Whittling away at the Pentagon budget is also good.
The question is, for whom? And how long are they prepared to rob the nation’s piggy banks to sustain the unsustainable State budgets?
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
The Stimulus and now this new bill has allowed the States to sidestep their balanced budget admendments … there will be a reconning … it will be ugly and you state workers will have only ourselves and your unions to blame …
There is nothing like buying the union vote with future tax increases.
Some day, the grandchildren of Snow and Collins will curse those names while they try and live off less than 10% of their paychecks, while the primordial creatures who can produce nothing but corruption and graft live off our stolen paychecks in perpetuity.
Mata, first let me say that I am glad your retirement didn’t last long. This is a great post. There is a mountain of directions for someone to go from here. I guess, in a nutshell, I would like to see the GoP candidates stand up and do what Christie from NJ is doing. Plainly state the case against the union leaders. This bail out isn’t going to benefit children any more than Santa Clause. And Santa works a heckuva lot cheaper. This bail out, much like drugs purchased for an addict, is going straight to fraud, waste, and graft. In short, it will be used to fund pensions, bloated salaries, and administrative political expenses. Once in the pension funds, the fund managers are free to loan it to whomever, at a ponzied interest rate which will float to the campaign funds of Democrats.
Governer John Engler of Michigan in the late 80’s and early 90’s cut actual spending in that state by 10% per year for 8 solid years. Not a single cop was fired, nor government program cut. Plenty of State workers were looking for private sector jobs to be sure. That was the last time the state of Michigan was in good fiscal shape. (It was disasterous before Engler took the reigns.) Since that time, Michigan has deteriorated like any zone in our country with unchecked Democrat governance.
Instead of sending JFCOM to the vault how about a RECESS (FURLOUGH) without pay or Air Travel for six months out of the year for the Parliament of Whores in DC, mobilizing 80,000 more troops to AFPAK to finish the Fight and WIN and having His and Her Majesty refrain from air travel for the remainder of the year?
The Pretender can video teleconference for the remainder of the year and save the Taxpayer some big bucks or travel on AMTRAK like his lap dog Biden. Imagine a whistle stop tour of America like Harry Truman did.
Let the economically illiterate ‘tighten their belts’ for a while like Working Class America is forced to do. After all, what is sauce for the Goose can be excellent sauce for the gander.
Lets see the Golden Boy “do more with less” like ISAF was ordered to do in AFPAK.
I bought 4 Horses yesterday and will be ordering three new trucks for my place, Nissans, American made in Canton, MS by Non-Union Labor. The Horses were American made as well
and are not from any Democrat stock. Good Morgans.
It’s like somebody is working down a list:
Disempower or eliminate private employee unions;
Eliminate private pension plans, default on what remains, and transfer private sector obligations to the taxpayers;
Disempower or eliminate public employee unions;
Eliminate public sector pension plans;
Eliminate public sector jobs, to the greatest extent possible.
Cut taxes at the top, eventually rendering unworkable whatever bothersome governmental agencies remain;
Privatize Social Security and other public social programs, funneling money into the private sector while rendering whatever remains of the previous systems increasingly less solvent.
It’s a great check list for bringing down the entire system, and eventually rendering the majority of the population powerless in the face of increasingly concentrated wealth. Government power would be replaced by corporate power. Voters, of course, don’t get to vote in corporate elections. But they would be entirely free to choose from whatever options concentrated wealth and power happen to feel like offering.
@Flyovercountry, thank you for the warm reception. While I very much still pine for “retirement”, I’m going to try and at least achieve a livable balance between the computer cyber world and a 3D life. But I sure found out that cold turkey from blogging is harder than expected… especially when that shall be unnamed heated, and still ongoing, battle rages. LOL
I’m with you on having GOP leaders do the hard thing and implement austerity measures in the states, and also in the feds. I’m not entire sure that they will follow thru with that. But Christy is certainly carving out a nice spot for himself by remaining true to his campaign promises to do just that. I’ve often said, I just don’t see the GOP 2012 star on the horizon yet, and think they are still out there… making a name for themselves by their actions. Also want to keep an eye on Paul Ryan in Congress. And a few younger jr Congressmen and women that are also walking the walk.
@Old Trooper 2, I suspected you’d eye that Gates proposal to trash JFCOM as nothing more than some ugly posturing. But we all had to know that this admin would be apt to first eyeball defense spending for cutting, in order to advance their entitlement mentality. Now the thing is, what are the Pentagon higher ups going to do about this?
@Greg, I’m not really sure what’s beyond your understanding about restructuring under bankruptcy, nor about the out of balance pay scales for government works and pension packages… all shouldered by the taxpayer.
You leaped to hyperbole on all of it, suggesting that restructuring under bankruptcy would “bring down the entire system”. What a bunch of hogwash, guy. When unions first formed, they had a loftier goal… safety concerns, etc. Now we have nanny federal regulations and PC hiring standards. Yet the unions, trying to be relevant, still thwart their own membership by driving up the costs of overhead unnaturally, making it difficult for private corporations to compete on the int’l level.
If a union contract is not interfering with either the business health of a private industry, or the state budget, fine. But when it’s breaking the bank, and the taxpayers’ shoulders, something needs to be done. A State’s denizens are not there to be slave to their legislation spending habits, nor to insure the health of unions. They have gotten a serious grip on local governments everywhere, and the effect of that is quite obvious.
Bankruptcy has worked to save many an endangered corporation. They can’t restructure without renegotiation of contracts to a more realistic figure. And they have the choice, just like a private corporation, to cooperate and have some relevance, or not and simply be tossed by the wayside. It is not in the best interests of a state to place their fiscal survival in the hands of unions. Just as a union, who breaks the bank for a private corporation, does their members no good when the company goes out of business. They are not the unions of the past.
I am so bloody sick of Democrat strawmen, and economic-illiterates somehow thinking corporations have “power”.
No one has ever been threatened with taxes, jail-time or the draft by a Microsoft, (whom one can vote out of ones life by loading Linux), and no one has proposed eliminating private unions.
I forget…was it government or Carnegie that interned the Japanese after forcibly taking their property….
Ummmm.
Greg. Look up the term: “Demicide”. Then after you’ve caught up, find us the equivalent corporate version.
Better yet; Look up the rate of Black single mothers pre 1960, and compare it to 2010.
Did a trillion dollars worth of government programs strengthen those families or not?
Or was it GM/IBM’s fault the numbers are as appalling as they are, because as you know, both of those corporations are now shells of what they were in 1959, and both hired Blacks long before the Equal Rights Amendment passed.
““Why wouldn’t House Republicans want to keep 310,000 teachers, first-responders and private-sector workers on the job instead of on the unemployment lines?” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said Monday.”
freakin liar. Because! They already have their allotment from the other 2 stimulous bills that has yet to be dispersed! These people are out and out liars and crooks. 😈
They are robbing us blind.
How does spending 26 billion dollars on a phony reason NOT TRANSLATE INTO MORE DEFICIT?
Even a third grader can see it does. Stupid f*cks needs to pack their bags and get the hell out of dodge. 26B big ones is a lot of stashola. Ask a third grader.
What the blind/ignorant left SHOULD be against is crony corporatism.
Like this asshole:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/08/confirmed-ge-chief-immelt-scolded-nbc-reporters-for-reporting-negatively-on-obama/
Politicians bought up by corporations, and unions, in order to get favorable tax codes, regulations, and influence.
The FairTax would stop this shit dead in it’s tracks, but the left doesn’t really care if the entire Dem Party is owned by CORPORATIONS like GE, Goldman, and Soros. (None of them unionized, btw.)
Not as long as they are on the “correct” side of the isle, that is.
Public unions…Pfft.
The People working for the People? Who do they negociate with if they strike? Themselves?
Oh wait…they don’t have to strike. They just vote themselves raises by buying politicians who they vote in, who will browbeat the rest of us into giving them raises, using baseline accounting rules and strawman guilt-trips! NOW I GET IT!!!!
If GM is now owned by the government, and GM has the UAW as it’s major stockholder (second only to the government, because we can’t buy-in yet), is the UAW now a public union? Will they strike against the government, or themselves next round?
Meh…They’ll go on strike against Bush.
Well done Mata, we sure need you!!!!
I listened to Mark Kirk R-IL take questions this morning on a local radio program, an interesting point he made to help stop the madness, at least in the lame duck session, would be to elect a Republican in at least one of the three states holding special elections for the Senate.
I know I’ve been out of the news loop for quite awhile, but it seems that news about these three elections has also been out of the news loop. Perhaps because no votes could put the hurt on the dem/socialist agenda.
Miracles can happen, turning all three seats would be a well deserved miracle for this country even if the candidates are slated to fill the seats for only a month preventing a whole lotta this:
http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x588239606/Phil-Kerpen-and-Joe-Calomino-Illinois-could-have-big-lame-duck-say
After the interview, I just had to google and found this in one of our major papers of record. 😉
“…it’s for the children, we have to give healthcare to the poor children, etc….” it’s strange, because every chance they get, they ABORT ‘the children’!!!!This bill they passed (without a name by way) was nothing less then reversed campaign contribution to libs. Don’t think for a minute, that this money is not being given back to help elect democrats. This is most pathetic group of people I’ve haven seen during my lifetime!
Well, you can always pay for a big chunk of it by closing a tax loophole that’s long made it more profitable for international corporations to relocate American jobs overseas. That’s what the democrats have just done.
Placing American workers, and public employees who protect and educate ahead of corporate special interests? We should all be outraged at this shocking example of misplaced democratic priorities.
@Greg… your list is excellent… It would be nice if all of the items you listed came to pass but really… it would only be a good start. Just like a 1,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean would be a good start.
You forgot a few though….
Eliminate congressional pensions
Eliminate closed union shops
Eliminate the ability of unions to contribute to political campaigns
Institute a fair tax that is identical for every American
Offer free transportation to any progressive/libtard that wants to emigrate to Cuba (Greg…. I’ve already called in your reservation, and tcdgf’s and Rich Wheeler’s and Real American Patriot’s… but you’ll all have to share the same stateroom)
Eliminate the Department of Education
Eliminate the Department of Labor
Return all federally owned land that isn’t a fort, port or national park to the States
oh hell… there’s just too many to list…. I’ll get carpal tunnel syndrome
Mandatory 50 year prison terms for voter fraud… put em on a chain gang building border fences.
Eliminate the Community Reinvestment Act
Make Obama give his Nobel Peace Prize money to the Treasury … oops… that’s already the law anyway…
@Greg
And just why is that ‘loophole’ being used? Maybe it’s due to the punitive corporate tax rates imposed on companies for the ‘privilege’ of doing business here. If the tax code was truly pro-business, and companies could produce here and make a profit(the goal of all business) without resorting to shipping jobs overseas, and yet they still shipped jobs overseas, then you would have a point. The corporate boards answer to their shareholders, not the entire population of the country. Their responsibility is to turn a profit for the company, and in turn, the shareholders. If they are forced, by the looting of profits due to an overreaching government, to ship jobs overseas in help their bottom line, then that is what they do. Yet, you vilify them, as if their sole purpose is to provide jobs and if they turn a profit or not, then so be it.
How many times must it be stated, here and elsewhere, that lower taxation in turn leads to increased economic activity, and as a result, higher federal revenue. It’s happened every single time it has been done. EVERY TIME! Yet, you would have everyone believe that the corporations are the ones at fault, and should pay their taxes, and should be forced to keep jobs here, even when it is detrimental to the future of that business.
Simply put, you wish for someone, either an individual or a company, to be raided and looted, for the sake of someone who is deemed to be ‘needful’, profits be damned. The only word that comes to mind is insanity, one of the definitions being, “extreme folly; senselessness; foolhardiness. “