Posted on 10/22/2013 12:30:26 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
In a shot across the bow of political moderates, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka threatened Monday to use Big Labor's resources to unseat any Democrat who supports entitlement reform.
Trumka made the comments in a speech at the annual meeting International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans in Las Vegas.
He was reacting to reports that lawmakers may pursue some type of restraint in the ever-rising costs of programs like Social Security and Medicare.
"Let me just say this one for the record. No politician — I don’t care the political party — will get away with cutting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits. Don’t try it. And this warning goes double for Democrats. We will never forget. We will never forgive. And we will never stop working to end your career," Trumka said.
He denied that there was any real economic problem related to entitlement growth: "We live in a time of self-imposed scarcity. Our American economy produces far more than enough wealth to go around, but, as working people, we see less and less of the wealth we produce."
His comments indicate the AFL-CIO will invest heavily in primary challenges against Democrats who back a deal. That's a tactic today usually associated with the Tea Party and the Republican office-holders it opposes, but Big Labor has often used the strategy, too.
In 2010, organized labor spent heavily to defeat then-Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln. Labor leaders were upset Lincoln had opposed union lawyer Craig Becker's nomination to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker was recess-appointed to the NLRB by President Obama. He now serves as the AFL-CIO's top lawyer.
Lincoln won a bruising primary but lost the general election to Republican John Boozman.
Either we cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid OR we do what the other liberals want and cut defense contracts and all of the union jobs that go with them.
Dickie Trumka is a self-avowed communist. That says it all, right there!
Speaking of union bosses.....
Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi:
When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.
Like millions of other Americans, our members are front-line workers in the American economy. We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision.
Now this vision has come back to haunt us.
Since the ACA was enacted, we have been bringing our deep concerns to the Administration, seeking reasonable regulatory interpretations to the statute that would help prevent the destruction of non-profit health plans. As you both know first-hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and met with a stone wall by the White House and the pertinent agencies. This is especially stinging because other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their respective grievances. Most disconcerting of course is last week’s huge accommodation for the employer community—extending the statutorily mandated “December 31, 2013” deadline for the employer mandate and penalties.
Time is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for you. We have a problem; you need to fix it. The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios:
First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.
Second, millions of Americans are covered by non-profit health insurance plans like the ones in which most of our members participate. These non-profit plans are governed jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act. Our health plans have been built over decades by working men and women. Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans.
And finally, even though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies. Taken together, these restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours unsustainable, and will undermine the health-care market of viable alternatives to the big health insurance companies.
On behalf of the millions of working men and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.
We believe that there are common-sense corrections that can be made within the existing statute that will allow our members to continue to keep their current health plans and benefits just as you and the President pledged. Unless changes are made, however, that promise is hollow.
We continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions.
We are looking to you to make sure these changes are made.
James P. Hoffa
General President
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Joseph Hansen
International President
UFCW
D. Taylor
President
UNITE-HERE
Do they honestly believe what Democrats say, especially when they are trying to end the economy as we know it?
Transcript of Pelosi, House Democratic Leaders, and Economists’ Press Conference Following Economic Forum
October 22, 2009
Q: Can you give us an update on the health care … [inaudible] … how close were …
Speaker Pelosi. Here’s where we are. I have been in a meeting for four hours, but when I talk to the Members again today I will be talking to them about that issue of fiscal soundness, which is what we heard over and over again from our experts. They talked about how we needed to be fiscally sound, but we needed to invest in jobs.
But they said in the health care bill we really have to do the job of taking down cost. We said that that was a universal message. And that is what our purpose is, is to improve quality, lower cost, expand coverage, and retain choice for those who like what they have.
And in doing so, as the President has said: “Health care reform is entitlement reform and entitlement reform is essential to lowering the deficit.”
The AFL CIO will still work with the Dems and GOPe to pass Illegal Alien Amnesty and Free Trade....so they will not be off the plantation for long
Um, Trumka--we're producing less and less wealth, period. As the number of producers continues to decline, and the number of takers increases, that pot of wealth will just keep on shrinking. Wealth redistribution schemes were never designed to give the takers a comfortable lifestyle--they are meant to give bare subsistence and foster dependency so that the recipients of the redistributed wealth keep voting a certain way.
Bump!
“Parasite threatens host with boycott...”
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