T-shirt material right there.
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 08/09/2010 9:57:34 AM PDT by timesthattrymenssouls
You'd have to be nuts to think that we, that is--us, that is--the United States of America, can continue along this path: public employee retirees that collect north of $100,000 per year in pension benefits. In perpetuity.
Indulge me for just a moment: In the small little county in which I live we have an exclusive club. It is a rather small club at the moment--535 members. Though it is growing rapidly, adding over 100 new members in the last year alone. That's almost 25% growth. In a sluggish, no growth economy. This particular club doesn't actually DO anything. Rather, it is a club where the members are rewarded just because.
Because they are part of the cabal that makes all the rules.
The club of which I speak is a subset of the Contra Costa County Employees Retirement Association (CCCERA) and includes those public employees who have retired with pension benefits in excess of $100,000.00 per year. $100K! Guaranteed. No matter what.
I don't know a business that provides a defined benefit plan any longer. That is not to say they don't exist. But, it is to say they are rare. Because defined benefit plans are expensive and businesses (you know, the entities that must match revenues with expenses, that can only spend what they take in, based on the value they provide to their clients rather than government which holds the arbitrary ability to increase revenues via tax increases totally disconnected from any value added and not in the least voluntarily paid by those who provide the revenue ) must manage their affairs responsibly. They will not be around for long if they continually spend more than they take in. That's just the way it is. Ugly, heartless capitalism, that is.
So here are the ugly facts from an article written by Bill Gram-Reefer on Halfway to Concord:
The club represents 7.3% of all county retirees but they receive 23.8% of the benefits. The Club costs the public $5,766,927 each and every month. Guaranteed. No matter what. The number one position in the club is held by a retiree who receives an annual retirement benefit of $291,000. And, it should be noted, despite the budget shortfalls in our county and our state and our country, his benefits rose last year.
It should not be lost on any of us that while the rest of the population suffers (i.e., the private sector) the public sector is thriving. Since the private sector funds the public sector through the production of goods and services--that people actually want--there is something terribly wrong with this equation. The public sector cannot continue to grow while the private sector shrinks.
And that's the problem. In a nutshell.
Imagine government were a cancer. (Not too hard to do.) Imagine it could talk. What would it say? “I’m GOOD for you! FEED me!”
I will advance my idea again of how the USA can fix the staggering debt problem:
DECLARE NATIONAL CHAPTER 13 BANKRUPTCY AND APPOINT AN ALL-POWERFUL JUDGE TO DISCHARGE IT!
1. Pass a law (simple majority in Congress) to declare national bankruptcy.
2. The Bankruptcy Judge and his Trustees make all the decisions and kill all the sacred cows. Small Biz Administration, farm price supports, County Agents, Dept. of Education, National Public Radio, National Endowment for the Arts, unneeded military bases, numerous commissions, subsidies, grants, etc. would come under the knife or be eliminated. A million leftist GS14s would have to go flip burgers for a living using their liberal arts degrees.
3. Cut entitlements. Advance the age for collecting Social Security and Medicare. Re-examine every person on SSI Disability and make them prove they are disabled. Make it a priority to send sick illegal aliens back to their country of origin for medical care (off Medicaid). Cut Congressional pensions to ZERO since they got us into this mess. Cut Presidential pensions to zero. Cut civil service pensions to what the lowest GS4 gets.
4. Eliminate contracts. No government unions will be recognized.
5. Lay off 80-90% of all federal workers. Contract out every function that can be privatized.
6. Sell assets. GM/Chrysler stock, mortgages held by Fannie & Freddie, BLM land, some national forests, federal buildiings, mineral rights including offshore. All proceeds must be used to PAY DOWN THE NATIONAL DEBT.
How’s that for a start?
already posted http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2567354/posts
I believe contracts that are negotiated are based on votes of the workers and retirees. With limited fund young workers will be pit against the older retirees. The older will be sold out by the younger and those pensions will be clawed back.
Excellent. Great idea!
Ha!
Good piece. Passed it along to everyone I can.
This article identifies the culprits in this small county. They're going to start experiencing harassment - by the tax peasants who REMAIN in the county. The wiser peasants will move somewhere where they don't have to pay the local "protection fees" to the .govthugs.
LOL! The remaining public sector "millionaires" will have to start robbing EACH OTHER at gunpoint at the end of the day...
You described the problem well...in a nutshell.
Can you do the same with how to fix it?
T-shirt material right there.
Keep going!
Abolish the EPA,FDA,FEC,FCC, government schools ,government grants, NASA etc.
Government/socialism doesn't work. Even the holy NASA is doing Muslim outreach and global warming studies. That nut Hansen at NASA gets over a $100,000 per year to propagandize about a hoax. This proves government agencies are accountable to no one and so they must be abolished.
Ah what you think is a solution, in the hands of your government is a disaster. Through the simple expedient of outsourcing to private contractors, the usual lid on total numbers of public employees is not just lifted, but blown off like the cover on an ICBM silo. There is no end to the bureaucratic tasks that one group of contractors can make up for another group of contractors to then answer. Privatization is the biggets fraud ever invented on the taxpayer. It assumes that someone responsbile is setting budget, scopes of work and number of contractors that can sign on.
Of course, nothing of the sort happens.
You control outsourcing via the budget. I have seen poor outsourcing at NASA where every GS has his own posse of contractors.
However, contractors are almost always cheaper than civil servants doing the same job.
I will never forget the first time I went to Warner Robins Air Logistics Center. The supervisor who was to meet with me was DRUNK at 0900. When I walked into the shops I found people smoking, drinking coffee, and playing cards. To my shock I found out that they were not on break; they were supposed to be working. When some of the ALCs were privatized, most of the foolishness stopped.
Send me in an an IG and I WILL CUT THE WOERKFORCE 80% MINIMUM WHILE MAINTAINING FUNCTIONS.
Elect conservatives in the fall. Hold them to the following:
1) cut taxes across the board
2) do not fund health care
3) cut budgets and eliminate earmarks
4) pay cut for public sector employees across the board
For starters.
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