Posted on 12/20/2011 3:52:31 PM PST by rabscuttle385
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the failure of the House to approve the bipartisan Senate bill to extend the payroll-tax cut is “harming the Republican Party.”
Speaking Tuesday on CNN’s “Situation Room,” McCain said that while it’s inevitable that the tax cut will ultimately be extended, the infighting reflects poorly on Republicans and Congress as a whole.
(snip)
McCain was one of 89 senators who overwhelmingly voted to extend the payroll-tax cut through February to give the sides more time to come to an agreement on how to pay for it. House Republicans say that debate should happen now.
Some GOP senators — a number of whom are up for re-election next year — have blasted House Republican leaders for not getting rank-and-file members to back the Senate bill.
“It angers me that House Republicans would rather continue playing politics than find solutions,” centrist Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said in a news release. “Their actions will hurt American families and be detrimental to our fragile economy. We are Americans first; now is not the time for drawing lines in the sand.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Not true
I suspect that sometime in the future there will be changes to the rules effecting existing pension recipients. If you look at what is happening in Greece and Italy or what has happened in Germany, current pensioners are having their benefits cut. I am sure that eventually it will happen here including means testing COLA. The new pay scale has not been revised lower. Salaries are considerably higher than when I left the government in terms of my rank and grade in the Executive Service.
My previous statement was to point out the house bill has no contributions from the wealthy. In order to fix this budget mess ALL will need to pony up or there will be no bipartisan support and the gridlock will continue. 47% of Americans pay no Federal income taxes at all.
The wealthy are already paying more than their FAIR share in taxes. What is an equitable tax rate for someone earning over $100,000 or $250,000 or 1 million? And exactly who decides who is wealthy? What is your definition of wealthy?
Better to get over it now than later.
The House passed a bill ~ and the Constitution requires taxes and expenditures to start in the House, so there it is.
More than likely you will get back far more from SS than you paid in. Medicare recipients today get back three times more in benefits than they contributed. These are unsustainable Ponzi schemes, which is why they represent an unfunded liability of over $60 trillion. They will consume every penny of the federal budget and bankrupt the country unless they are changed.
Why Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme
Right now we have 53% of wage earners paying that tax.
They lied!
Time to trim the rolls of the people Republicans said would never need to pay the federal income tax.
Once again, that is a valid position. However the time to take that position is before you let Senators set you up to look stupid.
Postal employees and USPS have paid nearly 200% of what the actuaries say its going to cost for their retirements.
There really hasn't been a issue over federal employee retirements. There has, however, been a major public outcry regarding state and local pensions.
I'd take the ERISA and pass a law PROHIBITING it from picking up any state or local bankrupt retirement operations. Now that'd protect federal resources from criminal involvement ~ but not likely to see any Congress do that is there.
Republicans are not a majority in the Senate anyway.
We can't tax our way out of the entitlement problem. We need to privatize most of it and reduce benefits. In 1950 there were 16 workers for every retiree; today there are 3.3; and by 2030 there will be two workers for every retiree. By 2030 one out of every 5 Americans will be 65 or older--twice what it is now. We are an aging society where 10,000 a day are turning 65 and will continue to do so for the next 20 years. The promises the politicians made about SS and Medicare cannot be kept.
Yes I’m a conservative! No work, no food… more you work, more you eat.
When you the wealthy must be taxed more, you are no longer a conservative but a socialist. You want the government to be more engaged in the wealth distribution business. You want oeople to share their food with you because you believe they have too much.
They have been screwing with federal employee retirement benefits for sometime now. FERS, CSRS, and forcing all new federal employees hired after 1983 to join SS are just some of the changes made over the years.
Just like there is a SSTF, there is also a federal employee trust fund filled with the same kinds of IOUs, i.e., non-market T-bills. Trust Funds and Measures of Federal Debt So just like the SSTF, it represents an unfunded liability and is part of the $15 trillion national debt held under "Intragovernmental Transfers."
There really hasn't been a issue over federal employee retirements. There has, however, been a major public outcry regarding state and local pensions.
The issue is one of equity and fairness compared to the private sector. If you read the bill that passed in the House, they want the federal employee to pay more his/her own retirement, which would reduce the amount of money the taxpayer puts into the system by matching the employee contribution. It saves money. Federal employees have one of the best retirement packages of anyone. They can retire earlier, have a three legged stool of FERS/CSRS, SS, and the Thrift Savings Plan. Their retirement pay is linked to the same COLA as SS and they get 70% of their health care payments subsidized by the taxpayer in both employment and retirement. It's a great deal for the employee, myself included, but how long will the public put up with using their money to give public employees a better pay and benefits package than themselves?
At the same time your typical federal government employee has a HIGHER educational requirement than his private sector counterpart to draw the same pay.
Remember, federales only have ONE CEO and that's always overlooked in these pay comparisons.
LOL. Spoken like a true government employee. So the metric we need to use to gauge how good the federal retirement program is, is to measure it against the 7 million CEOs in the private sector. Yeah, that's the ticket. Maybe every federal retiree should receive the same golden parachute. They derserve it and I am sure the taxpayers would be pleased to support their betters in the lifestyle they have become accustomed to.
At the same time your typical federal government employee has a HIGHER educational requirement than his private sector counterpart to draw the same pay.
Having worked for the USG for 36 years, I have heard the same rationalizations ad nauseum. It is bogus and it is not only pay but benefits that must be factored in. It is the total compensation package that places federal employees among the very best in the food chain. And add to that job security.
Remember, federales only have ONE CEO and that's always overlooked in these pay comparisons.
And who might that be?
Why shouldn’t CEOs be included in any wage and salary analysis and comparison?
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