Posted on 05/18/2010 10:15:33 PM PDT by george76
The Senate has rejected an effort to prevent the federal government from rescuing states or municipalities facing a financial crisis.
Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire offered the proposal as an amendment to a broad financial regulation bill. Gregg said federal taxpayers should not have to bail out states that fail to be fiscally responsible. Several states face budget shortfalls, with California leading the way with deficit estimated at $19.1 billion.
Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, made an impassioned defense of the government's responsibility to provide aid if necessary.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What happened to Judd Gregg. He used to be a bit RINOish but he is great lately and sadly is retiring.
Of course, almost every state will be getting a bail-out because virtually every state is in the Red with their finances. If California is refused, every other state would have to follow this precedent. I am against bailouts, but if Germany and The United States can bail out Greece, and the U.S. can also bailout Criminal Banks and a few Auto Companies, we are certainly going to happily bail out our own states and this is exactly the arguments that are going to be made when that time comes. It’s going to happen, unfortunately, and the ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘support’ to make it happen will definitely be there.
Sure why not turn over municipal & county governments to The Furher too
Unions want their payoffs but the cookie jar is empty.
Exactly. It is the State public employee unions and their outrageous benefits and pensions that are bankrupting the States. If the Gregg amendment had been passed, the States would have no choice but to renegotiate all those union contracts. The Dims can’t have that happen.
We need to keep explaining these things to people between now and November. Because you know the MSM will spin it as “protecting the programs for the poor and elderly” rather than the union featherbedding the money will really go for.
Whew, hurry up November...
How much more damage can the scumbag Democrats do in 6 months?
I'm in awe over the stupidity of voters.
The States wouldn’t need to be bailed out if they were forced to renegotiate the bloated Public Employee Unions’ benefits and pensions contracts. If those were cut to the same level as private industry provides its employees, the States would be able to fund everything else. Such a move would improve their credit ratings and let them borrow short-term if necessary.
So squashing the Gregg amendment means the States will not have imminent failure as a legal justification to renegotiate those union contracts.
“I’m in awe over the stupidity of voters. “
As am I. I live in CA. We have a progressive income tax with a 10% top rate and a sales tax that is also 10%. But these are both so riddled with attempts to “unburden the poor” that each of these taxes would bring in more revenue if they were 3% each but without all the exceptions.
How stupid do voters have to be that they prefer what we’ve got over the broader 3% rates ? How stupid do they have to be to accept the Dim line that 3% is too high for some people to pay ? We have a celebration of underachievement run amok.
US taxpayers already provided partial bailouts to states. It’s called Porkulus.
I just finished reading the list of the Propositions pending in CA. One of them is called the “McCauley-Polsen Pension Recovery Act” and attempts to sidestep the bar on renegotiating union contracts with the Public Employees Unions.
Since those benefit payment amounts cannot be renegotiated for public employees already enrolled in those pension plans, this Proposition would eliminate that pension income exclusion from CA income taxes. Hey, I didn’t know that these outrageous pensions don’t even owe CA income tax, but apparently the pension income is tax-free !
Ordinarily, I’m not a fan of targeting specific groups or types of income for higher taxes. But ... I think these public employee pension incomes fall into the category of “ill gotten gains”, so I’m not at all averse to targeting them.
The Proposition is pretty tame and only makes that income taxable where it is mostly excluded just like SS income is. The top rate, therefore, is only 9.3%, and the brackets are the same as ordinary income taxes in CA. I’d go ahead and add a 90% marginal income tax bracket, withheld by CA from the pension payments no matter where the recipient now lives, on pensions and other benefits like healthcare valued above $50,000/yr.
Just like with the Maddoff Ponzi scheme, they “clawed back” profits from investors who had done nothing illegal but still benefited from the scheme. Let’s “claw back” from the recipients of these Public Employee Union schemes.
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