This is actually getting very interesting...
Article.
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This is actually getting very interesting...
Article.
Fantasy vs. Reality
In God we trust. All others pay cash that isn't fresh off the presses.
What's that now...
What's what?Quote:
Originally Posted by fraga
Union bashing is just part of the VRWC's bigger plan of bashing all of labor (the labor they haven't yet or can't get overseas), going back to St Ronnie sanctioning union-busting by busting the ATCs.
So Boutons, WHEN are you moving to Norway?
This is getting entertaining indeed.
Despite Public Perception, Government Workers Aren't Living Large
Though the media often reports on eye-popping, six-figure salaries of government officials, such as school superintendents and other political appointees, most public-sector workers don't do nearly as well. Typically, they earn about 6% less than workers in the private sector.
The average salary of a member of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the largest union representing government workers, is about $45,000, according to Kerry Korpi, the union's director of research and collective bargaining. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the median salary of a U.S. worker at $43,640. The average AFSCME member collects a pension of about $19,000 a year.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/me...ivin/19848851/
Boutons...it's real simple.
It's a free country. If they don't want to work in the public sector they don't have to.
Koch Industries Slashed WI Jobs, Helped Elect Scott Walker, Now Orchestrating Pro-Walker Protest
Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker is facing a growing backlash over his attempt to cut pay and eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in his state. Although Walker is claiming his power grab is an attempt to close a budget gap, the budget “crisis” was engineered by Walker as soon as he got into office. As Brian Beutler reported, half of the budget shortfall comes from Walker’s own tax cuts for businesses and other business giveaways enacted in January.
A number of the big business interests standing with Walker are beneficiaries of his administration’s tax giveaways. But the greatest ally to Walker is the dirty energy company Koch Industries. In response to the growing protests in Madison, Koch fronts are busing in Tea Party protesters to support Walker and his union-busting campaign. Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz reported on the involvement of Club for Growth and the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity in the pro-Walker protest scheduled tomorrow.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/18/...rty-wisconsin/
===============
Enrich and protect the corps, fuck the citizens.
That's how Repug/conservative America rolls.
So what activity for profit is not "dirty," at least for those of you in the asylum?
The govt didn't have to make the deals..I guess breaking contracts now is going to be legal.Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy
False equivalence much?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Looks like now the "Tea Party" is getting involved...SHOCKER!!!
I like how privatizing social security is more dangerous than trillion dollar pension plans to be paid for by a bankrupt government lulz
delete dubble post
It's way past time that American workers starting fighting back in the vicious class war being waged against them, as workers have started to do in the ME.
Egypt’s protests were a denunciation of neo-liberalism and the political suppression required to impose it.
Sound familiar? As it turn out in the States, security means endless war and nation building in other countries, judicial means shredding the Bill of Rights and an abandonment of the rule of law, and legislative means staggering tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate rule.Quote:
These policies included privatisation of public assets, opening up to foreign investment, 'streamlining' public services, eliminating trade regulations, leaving prices to 'market forces' and encouraging the private sector to play an ever larger role in the running of the state. This new policy orientation, noted Abdelazim, 'effectively confined the state to judicial, legislative and security - rather than economic - issues.'
It's time to put an end to Public Sector Unions. The country is going broke and can't afford to pay these outrageous costs.
Shouldn't people have the liberty to collectively bargain?Quote:
Originally Posted by Crookshanks
Not when their wages are being paid by taxpayers.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
Hah... the military would start shooting Americans in a second.Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt Bringdown
What does that have to do with anything? Do govt workers lose their liberties because they're paid through tax dollars?Quote:
Originally Posted by Crookshanks
I take some offense to that statement. We arent all mindless zombies ya know.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
I believe the point was made in another thread that, ideally, unions are meant to counter the greed of corporations. There's a certain level of job security when you're a state/federal employee that isn't there when you're just a cog in the private sector.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
While I'd agree that ANY worker in ANY sector should have a way to voice their opinions as part of an organized body when asking for reasonable work conditions according to their occupation, there's a ferociousness that these federal workers seem to be lashing out with when they're so easy to replace considering all the people with degrees that don't have jobs. There's a lot of problems in our institutions and I refuse to believe it's because some workers simply want collective bargaining agreements in place...shit output is shit output, and it needs to be recognized before any other demands are met. What about the demands of our institutions by the tax payers? The hyperbole about this being an assault on unions is asinine. I wonder how much the "union leaders" lose out on membership dues if the budget plan goes through...
Everyone is struggling, but those with federal jobs should be grateful they aren't working midnight shift as a cleaning woman at an hourly motel. If they're still pissed about something while the systems around them continue to fail on their watch, then fuck 'em. Fuck 'em in the ass and kick them out of the house so someone else can do the job right.
It's really simple. It's a free country. If they want to work in the public sector, they have the right to.Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy
And if employees sign contracts, they have he legal power to demand the other signer (the state) honor the contracts.
This fuck-the-employee is exactly like the loan business.
If a Corporate-American reneges on a loan contract (like the MBA did on its HQ building) with another Corporate-American, silence.
If a Human-American reneges on a loan contract (like underwater mortgage clients), then Corporate-Americans destroy their reputations among all other Corporate-Americans (which includes future employers), will hunt them down, sue them, and harass them for years.
12 Things You Need to Know About the Uprising in Wisconsin
What's happening in Wisconsin is not complicated. At the beginning of this year, the state was on course to end 2011 with a budget surplus of $120 million. As Ezra Klein explained, newly elected GOP Governor Scott Walker then " signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit."
Walker then used the deficit he'd created as the justification for assaulting his state's public employees. He used a law cooked up by a right-wing advocacy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC likes to fly beneath the radar, but I described the organization in a 2005 article as "the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money." Similar laws are on the table in Ohio and Indiana.
Walker's bill would strip public employees of the right to bargain collectively for anything but higher pay (and would cap the amount of wage hikes they might end up gaining in negotiations). His intentions are clear -- before assuming office, Walker threatened to decertify the state's employees' unions (until he discovered that the governor doesn't have that power).
But he's spinning the measure as something else -- a bitter pill state workers must swallow in order to save Wisconsin's government. So the first things you need to know are:
1. Wisconsin's public workers have already "made sacrifices to help balance the budget, through 16 unpaid furlough days and no pay increases the past two years," according to the Associated Press. The unions know their members are going to have to make concessions on benefits, but they rightly see the assault on their fundamental right to negotiate as an act of war.
2. There are already 13 states that restrict public workers' bargaining rights and it hasn't helped their bottom lines. As Ed Kilgore notes, "eight non-collective-bargaining states face larger budget shortfalls than either Wisconsin or Ohio," and " three of the 13 non-collective bargaining states are among the eleven states facing budget shortfalls at or above 20%."
3. This isn't just about public employees. What even a majority of the protesters don't know is that Walker's law would also place all of the state's Medicaid funding in the hands of the governor. State senator Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton -- one of the Dem law-makers who fled the state to block a vote on the bill -- told local media that this amounted to "substantial Medicaid changes" that put "the governor, all of a sudden... in charge of Medicaid, which is SeniorCare, which is BadgerCare ...and he has never once said what he intends to do” with those programs. But the provision led journalist Suzie Madrak to conclude that "the end game for all this is to defund state Medicaid programs and make it impossible to serve as part of the new health care safety net."
4. Health-care costs, rather than workers' greed, are what has driven up the price of employees' benefits. But generally speaking, those public sector health-care costs have grown at a slower clip than in the private sector.
5. Public employees' pensions account for just 6 percent of state budgets.
This has nothing to do with the state's fiscal picture. Aside from potentially undermining Wisconsin's public health-care system, it's really about destroying the last bastion of unionism in the American economy: public employees. As Addie Stan wrote on AlterNet's front page:
Walker is carrying out the wishes of his corporate master, David Koch, who calls the tune these days for Wisconsin Republicans. Walker is just one among many Wisconsin Republicans supported by Koch Industries -- run by David Koch and his brother, Charles -- and Americans For Prosperity, the astroturf group founded and funded by David Koch. The Koch brothers are hell-bent on destroying the labor movement once and for all.
Consider these facts:
6. Last year, more working people belonged to a union in the public sector (7.9 million) than in the private (7.4 million), despite the fact that corporate America employs five times the number of wage-earners. 37 percent of government workers belong to a union, compared with just 7 percent of private-sector employees.
7. Whether in the public or private sector, union workers earn, on average, 20 percent more than their non-unionized counterparts. They also have richer retirement and health benefits -- the “union compensation premium” rises to almost 30 percent when you include those bennies.
That workers can still negotiate from a position of strength somewhere in the US is simply unacceptable to the right, and that's what this is about. As you might expect, the tool they're using in their campaign is a pack full of lies and distortions about public employees. Here are some answers to those falsehoods:
8. Public sector workers have, on average, more experience and higher levels of education than their counterparts in the private sector (they are twice as likely to have a college degree).
9. When you adjust for those factors, they make, on average, 4 percent less than their private-sector counterparts.
10. Like any group of workers with a high union density, they have better benefits, on average. But even including those benefits, state and local employees still make less in total compensation than they would doing the same work in the private sector.
11. In 2007, the average pension for a public sector worker was $22,000. Not exactly caviar dreams.
12. Many public employees are not eligible for Social Security -- those pensions, and whatever they can put away on their own, is all that they'll have in their golden years.
(Unless otherwise indicated, you can find links to the data for all of the above in my piece, "Right-Wingers Using Public Employees as 21st-Century Welfare Queens.")
The Right has made great political progress getting Americans to ask the question: "How come that guy’s getting what I don’t have?" It’s the crux of the politics of grievance.
Progressives need to get Americans to ask a different question: "What’s keeping me from getting what that guy has?"
At least part of the answer is the Right’s decades-long assault on private sector workers’ ability to organize, and the latest battle is being waged in Wisconsin.
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews...g_in_wisconsin
========
When I lived in England, I heard the explanation that English workers looked at the hyper-wealthy and asked "how can I tear them down", where the American worker looked at the hyper-wealthy and asked "How can I become hyper-wealthy".
The VRWC's war on citizens has turned US citizens into the Englishmen. The VRWC difference is that the VRWC has totally fooled the bubbas into warring against their own interests, rather than warring against the real culprits, the VRWC.
But who benefits when the VRWC dupes/conscripts citizens into its the war on themselves, busts the unions, and reduces/stagnates all citizens' incomes? The VRWC.
Debunking Tea Party Talking Points in Wisconsin
The Tea Party groups that are coming to counter protest at the Wisconsin state capitol Saturday have been given an strict set of talking points to stick to from their controllers at the Koch Brothers front group Americans for Prosperity. When they arrive on their camels, scratch that, their astroturfing buses from both in and out of state, the following is what you can expect to hear over and over, along with my analysis debunking each point.
“Quick facts about Wisconsin’s Budget Repair Legislation”
The plan is about reform: Wisconsin’s Budget Repair legislation is about enacting modest – but critical – reforms to public sector entitlement programs that are long past due. The proposal takes on some of the most egregious violators of taxpayer dollars including public employee unions and public sector pensions.
This plan is about destroying the last stronghold of organized labor in America: the public sector. Union participation was over 1/3rd of the work force 50 years ago, but has dropped to less than 10% today, except in the public sector. This bill is designed to not only go after wages and pensions, but end the ability of state workers to collectively bargain in the future, something that has nothing to do with any supposed budget “crisis”.
Ending public sector collective bargaining: The plan would end the practice of public sector union bosses strong-arming politicians for exorbitant benefits and absurd contract concessions. The plan rightly calls for an end to the ability of certain public sector unions to band together to pressure policymakers into unnecessary contract concessions.
Conservative groups like AFP have no interest in preserving ANY collective bargaining. They understand that workers are much easier to control individually, and seek to lower wages, lessen safety regulations, and end grievance mechanisms to maximize corporate profits that go almost exclusively to the rich.
Respecting the taxpayer: When public sector workers – who are paid with taxpayers dollars – resort to bullying tactics to gain sweetheart contracts filled with plush benefits unheard of in the private sector the taxpayer loses every time.
This is an attempt to portray public employees as not critical to the state, but these people perform critical functions like plowing snow, fixing roads, and making the government run. Further, it is mysteriously absent why public workers such as firefighters, police, and state troopers unions are exempt from this bill.
Respecting the public’s trust: When teachers choose not to teach purely to pad their already lavish contracts with taxpayer dollars they are violating a sacred public trust. Using students and their parents as leverage in contract disputes is a tried and true practice of teacher’s unions that must end.
There is no evidence that teachers have ever pressured students or parents to attend these demonstrations. The value of a strong education depends on attracting talented professionals to schools, not chasing them away.
Stopping out-of-control benefit costs in the public sector: The proposal would prevent unions from forcing extravagant pension and health benefits on the state that only serve to further cripple state budget. Also, the plan would make the commonsense change that public sector wage increases could not exceed a cap based on the consumer price index (CPI) unless approved by voters.
o Also, some contracts would be limited to one year and wage rates would be frozen until the new contract is settled
There would be no serious crisis had Walker not rammed through tax cuts for the rich and big corporations. “Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit, but he and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes — or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues — the “crisis” would not exist.”
The public vs. private sector: In Wisconsin, private sector workers make 74% of their state-level public sector counterparts. This is the 48th worst pay differential in the nation and clearly shows that the public sector employee unions aren’t hurting for better pay or benefits.
This is a blatant lie. A study on this issue was just released a week ago that exposes it: “On an annual basis, full-time state and local government employees in Wisconsin are undercompensated by 8.2% compared with otherwise similar private sector workers.”
Paying a fair share: The plan also would help ease the tremendous financial burden placed on the state by its bloated pension plan by finally requiring some public workers to pay their fair share into the program.
o Overall, public employees would fund 50 percent of the annual pension payment – a total that would require a modest contribution of 5.8 percent of 2011’s salary.
Again, if the financial burden on the state is being caused by tax cuts for the rich and large, multinational corporations. Walker is deliberately making the budget situation worse in order to break the backs of public unions.
In typical Tea Party fashion, the talking points are filled with pejorative terminology like egregious violators, strong-arming, absurd contract, bullying, plush benefits, lavish contracts, extravagant health benefits, and bloated pension. They are designed from the top down to give the illusion of a common voice among conservatives about this issue, and like all propaganda, when the points are actually examined in detail, the whole charade begins to unravel.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/02/18...-in-wisconsin/
Politics are so much fun. You have Pelosi and company saying repugs want to shut down government and in Wisconsin you have dems hiding, freaken HIDING so they don't have to vote on the budget. You can't just raise taxes to balance a budget, you need to cut expenses. Cowards are avoiding doing their job they were voting in to do.
State and Federal governments have been reckless in writing checks other people have to cash. They have way, way, way overspent and thrown way way way too much money at public sector employees, it is time to make some adjustments...and what do they do...they freaken leave town. Oh and the best is the actual protest, the civility our public peeps are showing.
I don't know one person that is happy with the school system and the people teaching and running them. Not one. I can't think of anyone in here over the years that says that everything is good or even average. People are generally disgusted with our school system and yet in Wisconsin those peeps are being paid on average 50 G's maybe more, they are getting 30 g's in benifits, maybe more and they get 3 months off a year off.
And freaken barry saying this is an attack on unions. That dude freaken blows.
Typical, Jack Can't Read (probably Won't)
The WI "crisis" being used to beat on employees is totally manufactured by cutting taxes on corporations.
Another false "crisis" Brewer in AZ to deny organ transplants.
"Brewer eagerly signed tax cuts for businesses into law last week — cuts that will cost Arizona $538 million by 2018. Yet the governor has dragged her feet in offering the mere $1.36 million needed to save Courtney and her cohort’s lives, and she has consistently ignored 26 possible funding solutions from a member of her own party. "
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/19/...ut-transplant/
Poor, sick, old, young simply don't enough funds and lawyer lobbyists to counter the $Bs from the VRWC and their VRWC extreme activists in federal/SCOTUS judgeships.
How quickly we forget....40 hr work week...employer provided health insurance...workman's compensation...all thanks to Unions...they serve their purpose...
Avg UCA working hours are up, while in all other industrial countries the trend is down, to say nothing of 4-6 weeks paid vacation in other industrial countries.
How can anybody forget dubya's DoLabor upgrading 100s of 1000s of hourly employees to salaried so the wouldn't get any overtime?
On August 23, 2004, controversial changes to the FLSA's overtime regulations went into effect, making substantial modifications to the definition of an "exempt" employee. Low-level working supervisors throughout American industries were reclassified as “executives” and lost overtime rights. These changes were sought by business interests and the Bush administration, which claimed that the laws needed clarification and that few workers would be affected. The Bush administration called the new regulations "FairPay." But other organizations, such as the AFL-CIO, claimed the changes would make millions of additional workers ineligible to obtain relief under the FLSA for overtime pay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act
He can't. He needs a subsidy to afford it, and I bet their immigration policy requires you have a job lined up, or are independently wealthy, like most other nations do.Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy
That's right. They are stupid if they stay there but can find a better job elsewhere. If better pay and benefits aren't available to them elsewhere, then what right do they have to be "entitled?"Quote:
Originally Posted by CosmicCowboy
So now it's an 'entitlement' to be paid a livable wage with health benefits that won't bankrupt you if you become ill or have a accident?
Let's cut services many unemployed are using to survive, but give 54 billion of our tax money to oil companies...
That ain't my America....
I hope they all lose their jobs. It is stupid for unionized public employees to continue the money grab in a recession.
I hope they're fired.
I hope the unions are busted.
I hope the children of Wisconsin get real teachers instead of union hacks.
It's probably already been said but, I think the Wisconsin Unions should have taken a lesson from Ronald Reagan and PATCO. PATCO struck during a recession; Reagan fired them all and was handily reelected next go around.
The Wisconsin Governor seems to have been paying attention in the 80's.
"continue the money grab in a recession."
You Lie. They have already given up stuff.
The Kock Bros governor created the crisis by cutting taxes, just like Repugs do nationally.
Yoni, WC, Darrin are nothing but VRWC/Kock Bros shills.
I like how the GOP has sent in their "goon" squad. Just like Mubarak did......it won't work either. "bought" organizer can't beat real ones, because real ones are doing it for their lives and "bought" ones will quit before the malitov's start flying.
We need to move beyond the left-right conceptual framework - not to a squishy, suck-up center, but to rather an honest consideration of economic class and a subsequent elaboration of economic rights. Class: America's C-word, a taboo topic that the elites don't want us to think about. Is there any doubt that financial and economic elites don't actively organize and act on their interests? Isn't it about time for America's working class to start organizing and advocating for ours?
FDR's bill of economic rights is a good place to start:
Employment, with a living wage
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
Housing,
Medical care
Education
Social security
Other than that reference about monopolies and competition that's what responsible people do. They take care of that stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt Bringdown
Sometimes, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nbadan
Is it industry standard or not?
We live in a free society. if they don't like the pay and benefits they have, let them find a better job.
Why don't we start by making it viqable bor business to make a profit again, so they can increase the work force.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nbadan
Who's talking about giving money to oil companies? Nobody here that I know of.
Typical...
When you cannot argue the facts, you make shit up.
You don't belong in America. Your utopian dream is nothing but a fantasy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nbadan
LOL...Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
You're nothing but Loony Tunes...
The left is already far too organized and destroying this country with their nanny state and entitlement mentality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt Bringdown
Get out and work dammit.
It's not only Unions vs Repugs
It's Repugs vs the lower 98%.
Here's a good synopsis. VRWC/Repugs intentionally create deficits with $Ts in tax cuts for the wealthy, $Ts for bullshit, never-ending wars and occupation of the planet, and $Ts lost in tax revenues due to job and property value losses, then they blame it all on the government, at all levels.
Here's a good summary of the strategy.
Exposing the Republicans' 3-Part Strategy to Tear the Middle Class Apart -- What Are We Going to Do to Stop It?
By Robert Reich, RobertReich.org
http://www.alternet.org/story/149981/
The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class - pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of everyone else languish.
Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to shrink the pie even further with additional tax cuts for the rich - making the Bush tax cuts permanent, further reducing the estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent.
The strategy has three parts:
1. The Battle over the Federal Budget
The first is being played out in the budget battle in Washington. As they raise the alarm over deficit spending and simultaneously squeeze popular middle-class programs, Republicans want the majority of the American public to view it all as a giant zero-sum game among average Americans that some will have to lose.
The President has already fallen into the trap by calling for budget cuts in programs the poor and working class depend on - assistance with home heating, community services, college loans, and the like.
In the coming showdown over Medicare and Social Security, House budget chair Paul Ryan will push a voucher system for Medicare and a partly-privatized plan for Social Security - both designed to attract younger middle-class voters.
2. The Assault on Public Employees
The second part of the Republican strategy is being played out on the state level where public employees are being blamed for state budget crises. Unions didn't cause these budget crises -- state revenues dropped because of the Great Recession -- but Republicans view them as opportunities to gut public employee unions, starting with teachers.
Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are seeking to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio's Republican governor John Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a Republican-dominated legislature. New Jersey's Republican governor Chris Christie is attempting the same, telling a conservative conference Wednesday, "I'm attacking the leadership of the union because they're greedy, and they're selfish and they're self-interested."
The demonizing of public employees is not only based on the lie that they've caused these budget crises, but it's also premised on a second lie: that public employees earn more than private-sector workers. They don't, when you take account of their education. In fact over the last fifteen years the pay of public-sector workers, including teachers, has dropped relative to private-sector employees with the same level of education - even including health and retirement benefits. Moreover, most public employees don't have generous pensions. After a career with annual pay averaging less than $45,000, the typical newly-retired public employee receives a pension of $19,000 a year.
Bargaining rights for public employees haven't caused state deficits to explode. Some states that deny their employees bargaining rights, such as Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona, are running big deficits of over 30 percent of spending. Many states that give employees bargaining rights -- Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Montana -- have small deficits of less than 10 percent.
Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than have us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and heads of hedge funds - many of whom wouldn't have their jobs today were it not for the giant taxpayer-supported bailout, and most of whose lending and investing practices were the proximate cause of the Great Depression to begin with.
Last year, America's top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each. One of them took home $5 billion. Much of their income is taxed as capital gains - at 15 percent - due to a tax loophole that Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.
If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of 300,000 teachers. Who is more valuable to our society - thirteen hedge-fund managers or 300,000 teachers? Let's make the question even simpler. Who is more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?
3. The Distortion of the Constitution
The third part of the Republican strategy is being played out in the Supreme Court. It has politicized the Court more than at any time in recent memory.
Last year a majority of the justices determined that corporations have a right under the First Amendment to provide unlimited amounts of money to political candidates. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission is among the most patently political and legally grotesque decisions of our highest court - ranking right up there with Bush vs. Gore and Dred Scott.
Among those who voted in the affirmative were Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia. Both have become active strategists in the Republican party.
A month ago, for example, Antonin Scalia met in a closed-door session with Michele Bachman's Tea Party caucus - something no justice concerned about maintaining the appearance of impartiality would ever have done.
Both Thomas and Scalia have participated in political retreats organized and hosted by multi-billionaire financier Charles Koch, a major contributor to the Tea Party and other conservative organizations, and a crusader for ending all limits on money in politics. (Not incidentally, Thomas's wife is the founder of Liberty Central, a Tea Party organization that has been receiving unlimited corporate contributions due to the Citizens United decision. On his obligatory financial disclosure filings, Thomas has repeatedly failed to list her sources of income over the last twenty years, nor even to include his own four-day retreats courtesy of Charles Koch.)
Some time this year or next, the Supreme Court will be asked to consider whether the nation's new healthcare law is constitutional. Watch your wallets.
The strategy as a whole
These three aspects of the Republican strategy - a federal budget battle to shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the political power of the wealthy - fit perfectly together.
They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power.
What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest of us?
=============
So there you have it (it's not news to me), the Repug strategy as financed by the VRWC.
The Dems won't do anything, citizens' votes are meaningless as corruption has completely disenfranchised voters, so there's really no stopping the VRWC from raping America and continuing to push it into permanent, terminal decline.
we're still waiting for the 2001 tax cuts to get us the jobs!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
"Get out and work dammit."
good ol' WC, always a non-starter, all VRWC bullshit signifying nothing.
===================
The Unemployed Need Not Apply
The Federal Reserve is projecting unemployment to continue at or near 9 percent for the rest of the year. That is 13.9 million Americans out of work. Here is more grim news: Barriers to employment for jobless workers may be even higher than previously thought.
As the Fed updated its forecast last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission held a forum on discrimination against unemployed job seekers. Members of Congress had urged the commission to explore the issue, after reading press reports of numerous instances in which employers and staffing agencies refused to consider the unemployed for openings.
The message — “the unemployed need not apply” — has at times been explicitly stated in job announcements. In other cases, unemployed job seekers have reported verbal rejections after a recruiter or employer learned they were not currently working.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/op...gewanted=print
“the unemployed need not apply” sounds an awful lot like discrimination. I'm no legal scholar, but I'd like an advocate to look into it and nail those slimy HR motherfuckers to the goddamn Tree of Woe.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
I think the sentiment WC has, which I share, is that if people with jobs (and the job security federal jobs offer) want to spend their time organizing rallies and ditching work - get rid of them and let someone else that wants to do the job work. Sure, it's a dick thing to let Corps off on taxes and pin it on the workers...but they're not bitching about that, they're bitching about Union entitlements for positions paid by the taxpayers - positions that aren't getting the job done in the first place.
Nationwide Worker Solidarity Meetings Planned
Check the link above to see if there's one in your area. Of course, there's none in Texas...yet.
Quote:
"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society."
Martin Luther King Jr.
—Speech to the state convention of the Illinois AFL-CIO, Oct. 7, 1965
"want to spend their time organizing rallies and ditching work"
link? or is that just your VRWC-inflamed prejudice?
How much time do you think NFL/NBA/NHL players spend "organizing" against the owners?
"median family income down 8.1% since 2000"Quote:
Originally Posted by George Gervin's Afro
http://srph.it/i3idhh
As pitbull bitch would say, "How that trickle-y down-y laffer-y workin our fer ya?"
I heard once that once an unemployed person who was collecting unemployment is hired, that the employer pays a higher unemployment insurance rate. No idea if it's true, but I wonder...Quote:
Originally Posted by Stringer_Bell
And you never have solutions. Only ideas that make the economy worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
so you backhandedly admit there are problems?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Which of my ideas would make the economy worse?
Which of Repug/conservative/your ideas would make the economy better (for everybody).
there have been problems in this nation for decades. "Backhandedly?" WTF do you mean?Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
All of them. You are a true liberal to the core, and expect it is right to take from some to give to others. Not i agree there are times and circumstances this is necessary, but we have gone way out of control on social spending since the 60's.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
Many of them. We have discussed such things before. As it stands now, the biggest two thing I think would be to place tariffs on many incoming goods and stop taxing production and earnings. Tax consumption instead.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
Isn't this an oxymoron, besides the fact that trickle down didn't work and got us to this point?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
It's not trickle down.Quote:
Originally Posted by ElNono
Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin who is spearheading the GOP effort to crush collective bargaining, lavished relatively large salary increases on his staff when he was chief executive of the Milwaukee County Board. Walker surreptitiously did this in 2008 - without the approval of the county board itself and at a time that the county was facing a fiscal deficit, and Walker was about to lay off a large number of union workers. In addition, 700 county positions had already been left vacant due to budgetary pressures.
According to a 2008 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (MJS) article,which exposed Walker's illicit personal staff raises, one aide was to achieve a 26% increase - solely initiated and approved by Walker - even though the staffer, Tom Nardelli, was to receive tax-payer funded pensions that would exceed $35,700 a year. A member of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors called Nardelli's salary increase "obscene," according the MJS.
As with the current "budget crisis" in the State of Wisconsin, Walker was helping to create a budget deficit, while using the situation he is responsible for to try and break the unions.
According to a February 18 New York Times editorial, "Just last month, he [Walker] and the Legislature gave away $117 million in tax breaks, mostly for businesses that expand and for private health savings accounts. That was a choice lawmakers made, and had it not been for those decisions and a few others, according to the state's Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state would have had a surplus."
It's appropriate then to backtrack to 2008 and Walker's history of gilding the lily for his cronies while trying to break the back of working families becomes illuminated.
According to the MJS article entitled "Walker Issues Hefty Raises to Top Milwaukee County Aides":
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker wants a 26% pay raise for his chief of staff, former Ald. Tom Nardelli, while bypassing traditional County Board approval in quietly issuing large pay raises over the summer to several other top aides.
Nardelli would get the biggest pay increase of top-tier county officials, a nearly $20,000 raise to $95,000 a year. Seven county administrators also scored increases of up to 12.5%.
Some supervisors are upset about being left out of the decision-making process for many of the raises and say Walker's timing couldn't be worse. Heavily rewarding a few top managers while Walker puts final touches on a 2009 budget that's expected to call for scores of layoffs of union workers sends a message of callous disregard, critics of the raises say.
Among the other big winners among Walker's top aides was Mitchell International Airport Director Barry Bateman. His pay rises $13,595, or 11%, to $136,299 a year. Facilities Management Director Jack Takerian got an $11,771 (12.5%) raise, to nearly $106,000.
One of Walker's highly questionable claims in his Koch Brothers' efforts to squash unions by first going after public worker collective bargaining is that the union benefits are higher than in the private sector.
Yet, in 2008, the MJS reported:
Orville Seymer, field director for Citizens for Responsible Government Network, said the raises for Nardelli and some other Walker aides appeared excessive.
"I just think all these people are overpaid" and unlikely to command such salaries in the private sector, Seymer said.
In his stand-off as the point man for the Koch Brothers, Dick Armey, and the national Republican Party, Walker is doing in 2011 what he did in 2008: enrich his cronies and the well-off at taxpayer expense, create a budget crisis, and then using the budgetary problem that he is responsible for to crush the unions.
History repeats itself, doesn't it - and so does the hypocrisy that threatens the existence of the American working family.
http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12372
A few questions:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Do any other modern countries not have income tax?
Without income tax, how much would our other taxes have to go up?
If our consumption taxes went up, wouldn't you agree that would affect the poor more than the rich?
Don't you get it?Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
The biggest problem we have for elections is the people voting in politicians that will give them things. Everyone needs to pay taxes so that tax rate changes affect everyone. As it stands, most voters who pay no0 taxes don't give a damn about the rest of us. they need a stake in the burden too.
Fuck that entitlement mentality.
It isn't American.
You know, you didn't answer any of my questions WC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
And even those who don't pay income tax still pay consumption taxes, right?
Maybe, but that's still a bullshit excuse. When I read "unemployed," I didn't automatically think of people collecting checks...I processed it as people looking for work, straight up, without government assistance. It's not just people getting laid off from jobs, it's recent AA and Bachelor's grads, people go back to school but need to work to make ends meet in the household...lots of different circumstances as to why someone is "unemployed." I'd be furious if I was looking for a job and saw a warning that I shouldn't apply. :ihitQuote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Then again, even if it's not written down people still look down on applicants without current employers (active references).
I have explained this again and again in the past, and nobody addresses my main reasons.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
Who care what someone else does anyway? Should we be followers, or leaders?
All things equal, why should an employer want to pay more?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stringer_Bell
I don't know if that's even true. I just threw it out there. It's always been easier to find a job while employed rather than not. With as many people looking for work, both employed and not, maybe employers are trying to weed out the lazy. It's bullshit not to take the initiative and not work There are plenty of minimum wage jobs out there. Sure, they don't pay much, but they at least show that you have sound work ethics rather than relying on Uncle Nanny, or being an unknown factor.
WC's kinder and gentler attack on the bottom 4 quintiles, esp on the bottom 2 quintiles
flat income tax
consumption tax
both horribly, punitively regressive. Neither is remotely possible, except in his conservative imagination.
If conservatives/Repugs are for something, you can be damn reliably sure that it's bad for the country as whole and for the bottom 98%.
Whats really sad is that WC holds a job like this one and he has the political views he does.
I might make $50k/year if i work real hard forever but those unions in other states are terribads.
What a fucking idiot.
What...Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
Making everyone equally accountable is unfair?
Fuck you.
Is it really that hard to answer those questions? I'm not going to dig through all your posts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Your last two sentences make no sense. I have no idea what you're trying to say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Quote:
"All Knowledge is built upon instinctive belief, failing that there is nothing left." -Bertrand Russell
I do know we pay among the highest corporate tax rates. Most countries use a consumption tax, some an income tax also. We are not alone in hurting, but we need to balance the trade deficit. Do you have a better idea, instead of worrying about the other guy?Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
Unfair in the sense that it affects some much more than others. People struggling to survive are affected more by consumption taxes, aren't they?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
Now, if you wanted to get rid of sales tax on "staple" items, such as bread, that might be different.
Some countries have an income tax? Ok, so which modern countries DON'T have an income tax?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
And you're worrying about the other guy too, it's jus that your other guy is the rich one.
Why do those of you opposed take such a narrow minded view? There is no need to tax necessities. If you tax only what is not your basic necessities, it doesn't hurt those who only buy the basics.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
Have I ever said otherwise? I have always stated basic items, or in some other wording, that you don't tax food and the likes.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
Fair enough. What do you consider necessities?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
That would be debatable of course. Food in the stores, but not fast food. Diapers, bottles, toiletry items, etc. for starters.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
The Bertrand quote is in the context of sensory experience at the basest level not on you feel about very human constructs.
He was talking about how reflective light is perceived by the eye.
I am not sure how that is to be applied here.
Ok, so if we don't have an income tax, and we don't tax essentials, how would we pay for govt? (and yes I'm aware this would shrink gov and that is probably a feature and not a bug, however, not sure how you could even afford essential govt functions this way)Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild Cobra
whatever crosses his mind at the time. it should be obvious by now that WC's ethic is a reactionary one and has no real wordlview. thats why you see him parrot what he fed by his 'trusted' sources.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
Its why you can literally tell he is going off to wikipedia to form any opinion as he goes along.
he does not even know why he thinks what he thinks. its quite amusing.
he is a minion. a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power.
The dissonance is only apparent. Fair enuf.
only apparent if you have no idea of the context of the material or who Russell is or how he came to his conclusions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
basically absent of any logical construct that holds true. ie at the basest perception. once you have a framework it becomes different.
essentially its how he presented his rectification of the classical dispute between Hume and Kant but what you are claiming is that the quote would tend towards the notion that God must exist because you 'feel' he exists.
thus the end of the statement, 'there is nothing left.'
in this case there is a whole bunch of shit left.
I have some idea who Russell is but little idea how he reached his conclusions. Fortunately we have you to lecture us on that. Thanks for sharing.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
I saw an apparent conflict; it vanished on closer inspection. I didn't claim anything. You're just inferring I did.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
Have fun!
(molehill --> mountain)
I had it in my sig because I find the discussion fascinating. Sorry if my explanation was too much but quite frankly in a political forum i do not see how that is possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
Also attributing the conclusion to you was unfair. i was not trying to denigrate you. i was just trying to point out that the logical conclusion from the apparent dissonance is that.
I was just thinking to myself that the quote in and of itself draws no conclusions beyond to say that there is no conclusion.
whatevs sorry for being a pedantic fuck. i cannot help it. i do try though.
Eh, no biggie. I'm not sore, I'm just not sure I have anything meaningful to add. My hunch was, after all, wrong.
@Fuzzy:
fwiw I like/welcome your contributions to this forum, infrequent as they are. My thanks to you upstream was about as sincere as it was facetious.
BTW, what I meant by oxymoron is that if the economic crisis came about because of a halt in consumption, taxing consumption would be exactly the contrary of what you would want to do to stimulate it.
Plus it's not like we don't tax consumption already... I believe most States charge sales tax already in the vast majority of goods sold? (the biggest exception seems to be the internet these days)
This might be an opportune time for Governor Walker to push for voucher legislation in Wisconsin. After he fires about 15,000 teachers, kids are going to be needing an education...those tax dollars could be diverted to a comprehensive voucher program.
Awesome pic fraga.Quote:
Originally Posted by fraga
Man i hope this catches on. :lol
How humane of you, Yoni,Quote:
those tax dollars could be diverted to a comprehensive voucher program.
If I were a Wisconsin parent, I would want my child back in school. The sooner Governor Walker fires the crybaby teachers and figures out how to get the education system rolling again, the better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
Or, the picketers could accept the Governor's reasonable terms and go back to work.
http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townn...fb45.image.jpg
Here's what that cartoonist had to say...
Yeah, I bet this doesn't end well for the unions.Quote:
This debate over Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill has been difficult for me. I have progressive values. I believe in gay marriage, I believe in mass transit, I believe in global climate change, I believe in abortion rights, I believe in urban planning and I believe in a single payer health care system. But on the issue of public employee compensation and the role that their unions play in our government, I find myself siding with conservatives.
To me, it's unfortunate that these days we can't seem to be able to find a middle ground on a lot of this stuff. It has to be all or nothing. Walker said he didn't want to spend 15 months talking to the unions to reach an agreement, but his proposal shows that he doesn't want to talk to the unions at all. It's also two-faced to talk about this kind of reform but leave out other public service unions like police or firefighters...
I don't know if the 15 months number is a real figure, but I can see where that's inordinate and simply bad. I also have no problem with the workers paying part of their retirement/health coverage. The question to me is why not attempt to forth a proposal that meets everyone somewhat in the middle of the road?
:lol Yeah! How dare these workers request pension, or sick days, or retirement after working 30 years!?! What slackers!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Yonivore
@Yoni:
It was never going to end well for the unions, but yeah, you could be totally right in spite of your horrible record of predicting things here. :p:
Walker's program is political bullshit, haivng nothign to do with budgeting, which is used dishonestly as bludgeon the unions
================
Here's the problem, according to Walker's release:
The state of Wisconsin is facing an immediate deficit of $137 million for the current fiscal year which ends July 1. In addition, bill collectors are waiting to collect over $225 million for a prior raid of the Patients’ Compensation Fund.
There is a $137 million shortfall for this year. Regarding the Patients' Compensation Fund, Politifact reports that "a court ruling is pending in that matter, so the money might not have to be transferred until next budget year."
But here are three important points from the governor's release that show quite clearly that this bill has nothing at all to do with closing Wisconsin's budget gap in the near-term -- as an emergency measure that wasn't even subject to public debate.
1. "The budget repair will also restructure the state debt, lowering the state’s interest rate, saving the state $165 million." That's right, restructuring the state's outstanding debt yields more savings than the projected shortfall, and nobody is objecting to that provision.
2. "It will require state employees to pay about 5.8% toward their pension (about the private sector national average) and about 12% of their healthcare benefits (about half the private sector national average). These changes will help the state save $30 million in the last three months of the current fiscal year." Yes, those give-backs would yield less than 20 percent of what the debt restructuring would bring in. And, as I mentioned earlier, the public employees' unions offered to make those concessions in exchange for losing the provision that would bar them from negotiating their benefits package in the future, and the GOP flatly refused the offer.
3. The collective bargaining provision wouldn't kick in until after the current contracts expire, meaning that the measure would yield exactly zero savings in the current budget.
Random Lengths News' Paul Rosenberg caught this, and adds that Walker is also sitting on an "unused cache of $73 million" in the state's economic development fund -- "more than twice what’s being sought from public sector workers.”
Samuel Smith at Scholars and Rogues has more detail.
AlterNet also reported over the weekend that while far too many pundits continue to buy Scott Walker's spin that the Wisconsin uprising is a response to the state's public employees being asked to shoulder more of the burden for their health-care and pension costs, the reality is that it's really all about the union-busting.
According to the Milwaukee Business Times, the unions have in fact agreed to all of the GOP's demands on wages and benefits, in exchange for Republicans dropping the provision that would strip them of the right to negotiate in the future:
Although union leaders and Wisconsin Democratic Senators are offering to accept the wage and benefit concessions Gov. Scott Walker is demanding, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said today a bill taking away collective bargaining rights from public employees is not negotiable.
Democrats and union leaders said they're willing to agree to the parts of Walker's budget repair bill that would double their health insurance contributions and require them to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary to their pensions. However, the union leaders want to keep their collective bargaining rights.
"I have been informed that all state and local public employees – including teachers - have agreed to the financial aspects of Governor Walker's request," Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Waunakee) said. "This includes Walker's requested concessions on public employee health care and pension. In return they ask only that the provisions that deny their right to collectively bargain are removed. This will solve the budget challenge. This is a real opportunity for us to come together and resolve the issue and move on. It is incumbent upon Governor Walker to seriously consider and hopefully accept this offer as soon as possible."
However, Fitzgerald said the terms of the bill are not negotiable, and he called upon Democrats who left the state this week to stall a vote on the bill to return to the Capitol.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149986
What do you mean?Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
There would be a tax on items like TV's, VCR's, etc. Change from no income tax, and to a sales type tax on all non essentials.
It just comes to what is classed as an essential and what isn't. The money would still be there. I'm all for "The Fair tax" with very minor changes.
You obviously miss the point of the sign.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
No, actually they wouldn't. The US military trained and indoctrinated the Egyptian military.Quote:
Originally Posted by baseline bum
Kent state aside, I don't see that happening unless things really really started coming apart at the seams.
The military would face an extremely well-armed uprising, and would be sorely outnumbered were that to happen.
"Kent state aside"
Kent State is not the best example. Much more indicative of law enforcment, now much more militarized, is the shooting of blacks in the Watts riots. Bull Connor is another example.
I have no doubt that, now with the highly inflamed, polarized environment, that the police, National Guard, and mercernaries would/will fire on US citizens.
There are Nazi SS Troops/blackshirt/jackboot/Vichy types in every society, ready to start killing fellow citizens when the authorities give the sign. And there are also the millions, like Germans, who would keep their heads down, keep quiet, rather than be "resistance" fighters.
Leader Of Egyptian Unions To Wisconsin Protesters: ‘We Stand With You As You Stood With Us’
One of the most underreported stories about the pro-democracy movement in Egypt was the role of labor unions in the demonstrations, many of which were protesting against neoliberal right-wing economic policies just as much as they were protesting against the Mubarak dictatorship. During the uprising in that country, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka praised the role of organized labor, saying, “The people’s movement for democracy in Egypt and the role unions are playing for freedom and worker rights inspires us and will not be forgotten.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/21/...ons-wisconsin/