AFSCME launches ad calling for $1 trillion in relief aid for local governments

Thehill.com ^ | 7/26/20 | Alex Gangitano

[cotton1706]

The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME) launched a national ad calling for Congress to provide $1 trillion in financial assistance to states, cities, towns and school districts in the next coronavirus relief package.

The union that represents public sector workers will stress that without more funding, its members will be laid off or furloughed and schools won’t be able to open safely, according to plans first shared with The Hill.

“The coronavirus is wrecking state and local budgets. If the Senate doesn’t act, it will mean painful cuts to essential public services across America. Fewer teachers and nurses, longer response times, dirtier streets but some say our states should just go bankrupt,” the ad says, referring to remarks from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in April that local governments could declare bankruptcy.

[spokeshave]

Dan bongino was all over this in his Friday web show

[LegendHasIt]

Feel free to dun your members for the money, “AFSCAM”.

Or maybe you could even convince them to work for no pay and forgo their lavish pensions.

Keep your grubby hands out of our pockets.

[Blue Collar Christian]

People who get paid with other people’s earnings don’t seem to grasp where wealth comes from.

[Blue Collar Christian]

No, it was worth repeating.

[SierraWasp]

This is pure old featherbedding pure and simple! They’re feathering their own nest!! Government employees are already the most protected species on the planet!!! They are Civil Service! They have one of the richest unions in America! Nobody can fire ‘em!!! They have unlimited access to the megaphone of the media!!! They have unlimited health and huge vested pension benefits beyond all reason... Come ON already... The inmates of the deep state are taking over the danged asylum!!!

[Robert357]

I live in the Soviet of Washington, not far from Seattle.

The idea of federal bailout money for State and local government is something that I am against.

Let me explain. Do state and local government’s need the money? Absolutely. But they should be forced to implement painful cuts and live with that for at least a year before any financial help comes.

Local government felt that business and the jobs and tax revenues supplied by business was unimportant. Local officials need to understand what a blessing it is to have a business open, to have someone risk their life’s savings to open a business. Local government needs to understand that without business, they will not have funds to operate local government.

A federal bailout should not happen until state and local governments have learned some harsh lessons.

[Covenantor]

Saw all this happen on a smaller scale with NYCs impending 1975 municipal debt default. New York city's plea to president Gerald Ford to have the Federal government forestall bankruptcy were met with staunch refusal.

"His press secretary, Ron Nessen, said that Ford would continue to monitor the situation throughout the day, but wouldn't’t change his mind about granting assistance to the city. In Nessen’s words, “This is not a natural disaster or an act of God. It is a self-inflicted act by the people who have been running New York City.”

For more on the backroom deals read:

The Night New York Saved Itself from Bankruptcy

Note that Mayor Abe Beame had been NYC comptroller for two terms before being elected mayor. Having arrived in NYC in 1969 I wondered how the man who was responsible for the city's finances could not know of the precarious spendthrift nature of the situation.

[Red6]

Government employees live in a socialist world that is disconnected from reality.

Their socialist utopia with health care, retirelements, job security, automatic pay raises, and none of that tied to actual productivity, customer satisfaction, quality, value added in an economic sense...

Sure, they want more money to pay for their world. And who is paying for it?