As 9/11 was a lying pretext for Iraq war, Katrina/Rita are being exploited to accelerate the destruction by libertarian Repugs of the federal govt.
The worse govt works, the more people will hate it, which is what the Repubs want.
======================================
washingtonpost.com
Trims Proposed to Federal Retiree Benefits as Part of Plan to Pay for Hurricane Relief
By Stephen Barr
Thursday, September 22, 2005; B02
Federal retiree health benefits and pensions have been off-limits to budget cutters in recent years, but a group of conservative House Republicans yesterday included them in a budget package to pay for hurricane relief and recovery efforts.
The group, the Republican Study Committee, laid out a list of budget options, dubbed "Operation Offset," estimated to save $500 billion over 10 years. The options ranged from delaying next year's start of the Medicare prescription drug benefit to charging federal employees for parking.
"We're asking Americans to tighten their belts; by golly, the federal government should, too," Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) said.
But the insurance and pension proposals from the group, which has more than 100 House members, were met with quick opposition from an influential House member and a key employee group.
"Any talk of cuts to federal employee or federal retiree benefits is a complete non-starter," said Robert White , a spokesman for Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who chairs the House committee that oversees federal workplace programs.
The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, which has about 400,000 members, will oppose the recommendations, a spokesman said.
Charles L. Fallis , NARFE president, called it "ironic" that the Republican Study Committee "would offset Katrina relief by cutting the earned economic and health security of the very federal workers that are laboring to get Gulf Coast businesses and residents back on their feet."
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, noted in a statement that the House is taking steps to curb government spending. "My door is always open to any member who wishes to build consensus on reducing unnecessary spending," he said. "My preference is to consider any proposal in a thoughtful, deliberate manner rather than reading about it in the newspaper."
Many of the proposals for budget savings have been discussed for years but have failed to win support in Congress because moderate Republicans and Democrats are reluctant to tinker with benefits promised government workers as part of their overall compensation.
In its briefing paper, the Republican Study Committee called for reducing health insurance benefits for retirees who had relatively short federal careers. The change would bring the retirement benefit in line with private-sector companies and produce savings of $6.3 billion over 10 years, the committee said.
Employees currently qualify for insurance coverage in retirement if they have been enrolled during their last five years of service and are eligible to receive an immediate annuity.
On pensions, the conservatives proposed using a five-year average of an employee's highest-earning years to compute retirement benefits instead of the current three-year average. Five-year formulas are common in the private sector, the group said. The change would produce savings of $5.2 billion over 10 years, the committee said.
On employee parking, the House conservatives said that the government owns or leases more than 200,000 parking spaces and allocates them to employees, in most cases at no charge. Requiring employees to pay commercial rates -- averaging about $130 monthly -- would provide $1.5 billion over 10 years, the committee said.
So roll back your raises and staff budget increases while you're at it and close your gyms and end your subsidized health care."We're asking Americans to tighten their belts; by golly, the federal government should, too," Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) said.
It's a start.
I doubt they will do this.. i'll raise if it really get's proposed. I get 40% of my salary (top 3) and health insurance (I am disability retired from the Federal Courts)...
That would suck to cut it I can barely make ends meet as it is.
So liberals would rather be broke and weak?
Sorry....that just sounded funny.
Who the are they kidding? They rolled over for Bush and his Medicare giveaway.
But it all makes sense. If old economy companies with defined benefit plans are going to go through chapter 11 to heave their pension obligations on the Feds it kinda makes sense in this day and age to see the Feds start reneging on some promises of their own.
PS...anyone who thinks the GOP's are "starving" the "beast" (that allusion is appropo) needs to end the spin cycle.
Funny...especially coming from boutons, who I'd never figure would flub an insult on a Republican. That would suggest that Repubs were showing fiscal restraint.
http://www.harpers.org/ElectingToLeave.html
How To Renounce Your Citizenship
Electing to Leave
A reader’s guide to expatriating on November 3
Posted on Wednesday, November 3, 2004. Originally from Harper's Magazine, October 2004. By Bryant Urstadt.
SourcesSo the wrong candidate has won, and you want to leave the country. Let us consider your options.
Renouncing your citizenship
Given how much the United States as a nation professes to value freedom, your freedom to opt out of the nation itself is surprisingly limited. The State Department does not record the annual number of Americans renouncing their citizenship—“renunciants,” as they are officially termed—but the Internal Revenue Service publishes their names on a quarterly basis in the Federal Register. The IRS’s interest in the subject is, of course, purely financial; since 1996, the agency has tracked ex-Americans in the hopes of recouping tax revenue, which in some cases may be owed for up to ten years after a person leaves the country. In any event, the number of renunciants is small. In 2002, for example, the Register recorded only 403 departures, of which many (if not most) were merely longtime resident aliens returning home.
The most serious barrier to renouncing your citizenship is that the State Department, which oversees expatriation, is reluctant to allow citizens to go “stateless.” Before allowing expatriation, the department will want you to have obtained citizenship or legal asylum in another country—usually a complicated and expensive process, if it can be done at all. Would-be renunciants must also prove that they do not intend to live in the United States afterward. Furthermore, you cannot renounce inside U.S. borders; the declaration must be made at a consul’s office abroad.
Those who imagine that exile will be easily won would do well to consider the travails of Kenneth Nichols O’Keefe. An ex-Marine who was discharged, according to his website, under “other than honorable conditions,” O’Keefe has tried officially to renounce his citizenship twice without success, first in Vancouver and then in the Netherlands. His initial bid was rejected after the State Department concluded that he would return to the United States—a credible inference, as O’Keefe in fact had returned immediately. After his second attempt, O’Keefe waited seven months with no response before he tried a more sensational approach. He went back to the consulate at The Hague, retrieved his passport, walked outside, and lit it on fire. Seventeen days later, he received a letter from the State Department informing him that he was still an American, because he had not obtained the right to reside elsewhere. He had succeeded only in breaking the law, since mutilating a passport is illegal. It says so right on the passport.
Heading to Canada or Mexico
In your search for alternate citizenship, you might naturally think first of Canada and Mexico. But despite the generous terms of NAFTA, our neighbors to the north and south are, like us, far more interested in the flow of money than of persons. Canada, in particular, is no longer a paradise awaiting American dissidents: whereas in 1970 roughly 20,000 Americans became permanent residents of Canada, that number has dropped over the last decade to an average of just about 5,000. Today it takes an average of twenty-five months to be accepted as a permanent resident, and this is only the first step in what is likely to be a five-year process of becoming a citizen. At that point the gesture of expatriation may already be moot, particularly if a sympathetic political party has since resumed power.
Mexico’s citizenship program is equally complicated. Seniors should know that the country does offer a lenient program for retirees, who may essentially stay as long as they want. But you will not be able to work or to vote, and, more important, you must remain an American for at least five years.
France
Should one candidate win, those who opposed the Iraq war might hope to find refuge in France, where a very select few are allowed to “assimilate” each year. Assimilation is reserved for persons of non-French descent who are able to prove that they are more French than American, having mastered the language as well as the philosophy of the French way of life. Each case is determined on its own merit, and decisions are made by the Ministère de l’Emploi, du Travail, et de la Cohésion Social. When your name is published in the Journal Officiel de la République Français, you are officially a citizen, and may thereafter heckle the United States with authentic Gallic zeal.
The coalition of the willing
Should the other candidate win, war supporters might naturally look to join the coalition of the willing. But you may find a willing and developing nation as difficult to join as an unwilling and developed one. It takes at least five years to become a citizen of Pakistan, for instance, unless one marries into a family, and each applicant for residency in Pakistan is judged on a case-by-case basis. Uzbekistan imposes a five-year wait as well, with an additional twist: the nation does not recognize dual citizenship, and so you will be required to renounce your U.S. citizenship first. Given Uzbekistan’s standard of living (low), unemployment (high), and human-rights record (poor), this would be something of a leap of faith.
The Caribbean
A more pleasant solution might be found in the Caribbean. Take, for example, the twin-island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, which Frommer’s guide praises for its “average year-round temperature of 79°F (26°C), low humidity, white-sand beaches, and unspoiled natural beauty.” Citizenship in this paradise can be purchased outright. Prices start at around $125,000, which includes a $25,000 application fee and a minimum purchase of $100,000 in bonds. Processing time, which includes checks for criminal records and HIV, can take up to three months, but with luck you could be renouncing by Inauguration Day. The island of Dominica likewise offers a program of “economic citizenship,” though it should be noted that Frommer’s describes the beaches as “not worth the effort to get there.”
Speed is of the essence, however, because your choice of tropical paradises is fast dwindling: similar passport-vending programs in Belize and Grenada have been shut down since 2001 under pressure from the State Department, which does not approve. In any case, it should be noted that under the aforementioned IRS rules, you might well be forced to continue subsidizing needless invasions—or, to be evenhanded, needless afterschool programs.
Indian reservations
Our Native American reservations, which enjoy freedom from state taxation and law enforcement, might seem an ideal home for the political exile. But becoming a citizen of a reservation is difficult—one must prove that one is a descendant of a member of the original tribal base roll—and moreover would be, as a gesture of political disaffection, largely symbolic. Reservations remain subject to federal law; furthermore, citizens of a reservation hold dual citizenships, and as such are expected to vote in U.S. elections and to live with the results.
The high seas
You might consider moving yourself offshore. At a price of $1.3 million you can purchase an apartment on The World, a residential cruise ship that moves continuously, stopping at ports from Venice to Zanzibar to Palm Beach. Again, however, your expatriation would be only partial: The World flies the flag of the Bahamas, but its homeowners, who hail from all over Europe, Asia, and the United States, retain citizenship in their home nations.
To obtain a similar result more cheaply, you can simply register your own boat under a flag of convenience and float it outside the United States’ 230-mile zone of economic control. There, on your Liberian tanker, you will essentially be an extension of that African nation, subject only to its laws, and may imagine yourself free of oppressive government.
Micronations
The boldest approach is to start a nation of your own. Sadly, these days it is essentially impossible to buy an uninhabited island and declare it a sovereign nation: virtually every rock above the waterline is now under the jurisdiction of one principality or another. But efforts have been made to build nations on man-made structures or on reefs lying just below the waterline. Among the more successful of these is the famous Principality of Sealand, which was founded in 1967 on an abandoned military platform off the coast of Britain. The following year a British judge ruled that the principality lay outside the nation’s territorial waters. New citizenships in Sealand, however, are not being granted or sold at present.
A less fortunate attempt was made in 1972, when Michael Oliver, a Nevada businessman, built an island on a reef 260 miles southwest of Tonga. Hiring a dredger, he piled up sand and mud until he had enough landmass to declare independence for his “Republic of Minerva.” Unfortunately, the Republic of Minerva was soon invaded by a Tongan force, whose number is said to have included a work detail of prisoners, a brass band, and Tonga’s 350-pound king himself. The reef was later officially annexed by the kingdom.
More recently, John J. Prisco III, of the Philippines, has declared himself the prince of the Principality of New Pacific, and announced that he has discovered a suitable atoll in the international waters of the Central Pacific. As of publication, the principality has yet to begin the first phase of construction, but it is already accepting applications for citizenship.
Imaginary nations
Perhaps the most elegant solution is to join a country that exists only in one’s own—or someone else’s—imagination. Many such virtual nations can be found on the Internet, and citizenships in them are easy to acquire. This, in fact, was the route most recently attempted by Kenneth Nichols O’Keefe, the unfortunate ex-Marine. In February 2003,
O’Keefe went to Baghdad to serve as a human shield, traveling with a passport issued to him by the “World Service Authority,” an outfit based in Washington, D.C., that has dubbed more than 1.2 million people “world citizens.” While laying over in Turkey, however, he was detained; Turkey, as it turns out, does not recognize the World Service Authority. O’Keefe was forced to apply for a replacement U.S. passport from the State Department, which rather graciously complied.
Upon his arrival in Baghdad, O’Keefe promptly set the replacement passport on fire. But he remains, to his dismay, an American.
If these guys renounce their citizenship, will they still get their retirement benefits?
http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Boards/re...gID=782&Lang=E
marrying a korean, and gaining citizenship?
Poster: amkorcoup Date: 3-Nov-2002
Question. I am an American Male, getting ready to marry a Korean Female. Is it possible for me to gain Korean citizenship? And obtain a Korean Passport? Or would I just be given a f3 visa? If you know, please let me know. Thanks...
Replies: Admin (4-Nov-2002)- re: marrying a korean, and gaining citizenship?
You can gain Korean citizenship, but there are complex requirements for language skills and I believe residence requirements.
Be aware that if you gain Korean citizenship, you would lose your U.S. citizenship. So if you wanted to visit the U.S. again, you would have to apply for a visa like every other Korean who wants to visit the U.S.
norlan (13-Jan-2003)- FVisa
Also, if you want to work, I believe it is the F-2 visa you want. That's what I have.
After 5 years on an F-series visa, you can get the f-5,which is like a permanent resident status--you can own property, etc.
I swear if Bush cuts my pension i'll eat crow and vote Demorat in 08...
I better send some email to RNC to start ing about it...
So my thinking Congress gets too many perks makes me unamerican?
Libertarian Seastead Project:
http://seastead.org/
Seastead.org
Mark Twain, 1800's: "Buy land. They've stopped making it"
Seasteaders, 2003: "Memo: Production Resuming"
This is the home of the Seasteading Project, which aims to build sovereign, self-sufficient floating platforms, thus creating new territory on the oceans. Our fundamental principle is to approach this ambitious vision in a realistic manner. This includes using conventional technologies whenever possible, coming up with profitable business models, and progressing by bootstrapping through a reasonable series of steps. There will be lots more here later as the project gets underway. For now, we have:
Seasteading - What's That? (A basic introduction to what we're about).
Frequently Asked Questions about Seasteading. Find the answers to your questions, or ask new ones.
Dynamic Geography: Blueprint for Efficient Government is the theoretical basis for our belief that floating cities will make government more efficient, responsive, and innovative.
The Seasteading Book Draft (~100 pages), which you can provide feedback on using the embedded comment links.
Seasteading Talks. Now With Video! Contains information like slides, handouts, text, audio, and video from the 4 seastead talks we've given thus far.
Coaststead or Baystead will be our first habitable prototype.
Seastead Lite will be our first ocean-worthy platform.
Web resources related to seasteading.
Locally hosted resources, such as Jim Lee's Floating Utopias paper.
Read News and Updates on the project as a LiveJournal or an RSS feed.
Ahh so your money is more important than helping the poor...
Seeing as we're talking about that money going to the hurricane victims, the only conclusion that can be made is you are a complete dumbass.Ahh so your money is more important than helping the poor...
"starving the beast" is not my phrase. It's been around at least since the Reagan openly started the war on the federal government as "the problem, not the solution".
"We're asking Americans to tighten their belts"
.... excluding the top 10%, of course. He's not "asking" Americans, only govt employees to tighten their belts, he's telling them it's a done thing. If you don't like it, quit (which is what the Repubs really want them to do, make govt smaller).
dubya isn't asking anybody to "sacrifice" voluntarily. Rove says that doesn't go over well with the base. dubya/Repubs are unilaterally sacrificing compensation to govt employees who have no vote in the matter. Of course, this will make govt employment less attractive, so the most attractive/talented candidates will work in the private sector, further crippling the beast.
The strategy of the incredible, budget-busting Repub expenditures, and starting a bogus $1T war is an essential part of that strategy, while cutting taxes, is to run up the fed defecit and interest payments on it so high that eventually the always unpopular question, even requirement, will come up, preferably under a Dem administration, of raising taxes. The Repugs will pillory anybody who talks about raising taxes. ie, the beast will have been starved, and the only option will to be continue hacking the beast to death, ie, cut/underfund govt programs, run the programs badly (like INS, DHS/FEMA, HUD) which primaily benefit the middle/lower end.
Wow...you sure told me...swifty.
....he said an hour later....
Sorry...I didn't realize you were hanging on my every word.
Just every hypocrisy and stupidity.
It took you a minute to come up with that?
Closing for the night. Sue me.
Okay
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