From the Washington Post:
“The nation’s largest federal workers union is taking to the airwaves to defend rank-and-file federal workers against growing anti-government sentiments. The American Federation of Government Employees plans to spend about $200,000 to air a 60-second radio ad in more than 30 markets, including Washington and several Southern cities, a spokeswoman said. The ad features AFGE President John Gage and workers from the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, who tell listeners to ‘trust’ them as they carry out their work. … And a VA registered nurse says: ‘I care for veterans like family.’
‘You can trust us. We work for you,’ Gage says at the end. ‘We want people to know what those irresponsible ploys really mean,’ Gage said in a statement announcing the ad buy. ‘They mean reductions in Social Security for our seniors. They mean reduced services for our veterans. And, they mean fewer guards at our federal prisons. The men and women of the federal service are not nameless, faceless bureaucrats. They’re what hold our nation together.’”
If you’re buying the crap in that ad I have swamp land in Southern Arizona you may be interested in.
With the unions for federal employees, car companies and the teachers all to prop up the corrupt unions a caller to the Rush Limbaugh show provides this alarming little tid-bit concerning the fact that federal employees don’t produce products.
CALLER: The only comment I had on this particular instance was that the one guaranteed result that I see out of federal employees that the manufactured product is more and more federal employees based upon their interpretation of their guidelines and statutes — oh, wait a minute. Now they’re interpreting statutes. Oops.
RUSH: So you think that the biggest manufactured product of federal employees is more federal employees?
CALLER: Well, basically I agree with you in one aspect, that I don’t see any other actual product.
RUSH: Well, yeah. The Chevy Volt. I goofed up on this, too, yesterday.
CALLER: Well, I agree with you on that, too, but the main thing that I see and let’s see, I’m 50 years old, retired, union labor worker, blah, blah, blah, blah.
RUSH: Wow. How’s the pension working out?
CALLER: All I ever saw out of government was, “Oh, oh, no, no, you can’t do that, you qualify — oh, you own a real car? Oh, no, you can’t get that.”
The point of bringing up this call is the high-lighted portion where the caller admits he is 50-years old and a retired union labor worker. Yes, he is collecting his pension. Nice retirement if you can get it.
The system is broken, the unions continue to receive billions in bailouts, the union employees are paid considerably more than private sector employees and the retirement funds for union employees are guaranteed on the backs of the American taxpayer.
We’ve become bailout nation for the unions and pals of the Marxist regime in Washington. Indeed!
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Last evening in the car I’m listening to the Mark Levin Show and guest host Inga Bark. She spent most of 3-hours discussing Bell, California and although this story broke a few weeks ago I never heard about it. Fasten your seat belt; this is the tip of my iceberg.
Former Bell City Manager, Robert Rizzo, was living the high life off the taxpayer’s dole. His salary was $787,000 per year with perks increasing Rizzo’s compensation to more than $1.5 million. Rizzo’s benefits package — which covers time off as well as retirement, medical and other types of insurance — shows he was paid for time off that amounted to more than 20 weeks per year. Rizzo was to receive $386,786 in paid vacation and sick benefits this year on top of his base salary. Documents appear to show Rizzo was being paid for 107 vacation days and 36 sick days a year and the city paid $48,996 annually into Rizzo’s deferred compensation plans.
Bell also paid $20,496 into Rizzo’s 457 plan, which is similar to a 401(k) for government employees. According to Rizzo’s contract, the city was to pay the full amount of his 457 plan in the first 10 days of the year, meaning he could benefit from an entire year of interest or investment gains.
We’re still looking at the tip of that Bell iceberg.
The city of about 40,000 residents came to national attention after the Los Angeles Times reported last month that Rizzo was being paid his hefty salary, Police Chief Randy Adams was being paid $457,000 annually, and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia received $376,000. Additionally, the mayor and three of the other four council members were being paid around $100,000 for their part-time jobs. (Here’s a little document listing all Bell government jobs.)
This is one fine example of government fraud. Resignations should not be enough; jail time would be in order.
Digging much deeper than the city of Bell we keep hearing about stimulus and the need to pay teachers, first responders such as police and firemen. We need all those jobs but is it necessary that government employees and teachers receive benefits above what the average taxpayer is receiving. Why do government jobs warrant higher pay?
The Wall Street Journal reports that personal incomes fell across the US last year except in areas with a high concentration of federal government jobs.
Washington DC was one of just three metro areas that saw both net earnings and personal income rise. And those gains were due entirely to the growth of the federal government; private sector compensation in the Washington metropolitan area actually fell. Nationally, private wages fell six percent in 2009 while government pay rose 2.6 percent.
USA Today reports that federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn.
Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The federal compensation advantage has grown from $30,415 in 2000 to $61,998 last year.
Chris Edwards, a budget analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, thinks this is a genuine problem.
“Can’t we now all agree that federal workers are overpaid and do something about it?” he asks.
These numbers don’t lie:
The Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk found that federal employees get paid 22 percent more per hour on average than private-sector workers. Throw in the lavish benefits that federal government workers receive, and federal employees earn approximately 30 to 40 percent more in total compensation than comparable private-sector workers.
* The federal pay system gives the average federal employee hourly cash earnings 22 percent above the average private worker’s, controlling for observable skills and characteristics.
* Including non-cash benefits adds to this disparity. The average private-sector employer pays $9,882 per employee in annual benefits, while the federal government pays an average of $32,115 per employee.
* Overall, controlling for other factors, federal employees earn approximately 30 percent to 40 percent more in total compensation (wages and benefits) than comparable private-sector workers.
* Federal employees enjoy job security irrespective of the state of the economy. Since the recession began, federal employment has risen by 240,000—12 percent. The unemployment rate for federal employees has only slightly risen from 2.0 percent to 2.9 percent between 2007 and 2009.
* Federal employees demonstrate with their actions that they receive better compensation in the public sector than in the private sector: They quit their jobs at one-third the rate of the private employees.
* Bringing federal compensation in line with private-sector compensation would save taxpayers approximately $47 billion in 2011.
Barack Obama requested a 1.4% across-the-board pay hike for the 2 million federal workers who are also eligible for additional seniority pay hikes. Jobs are being lost, and job growth is being killed by Obama policy, the government destroys private sector jobs but grows the government and those well-paid jobs all on the government dole and the backs of the taxpayer. Indeed!
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Unemployment benefits are creating jobs faster than practically any other program, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated a week ago.
Talking to reporters, the House speaker was defending a jobless benefits extension against those who say it gives recipients little incentive to work. By her reasoning, those checks are helping give somebody a job.
“It injects demand into the economy,” Pelosi said, arguing that when families have money to spend it keeps the economy churning. “It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name.”
Pelosi said the aid has the “double benefit” of helping those who lost their jobs and acting as a “job creator” on the side.
“It’s impossible to think of a situation where we would have a country that would say we’re not going to have unemployment benefits,” Pelosi said.
Video below, if you don’t mind the torture was watching and listening to “Dunce Pelosi.”
If not already very obvious, except for Democrats, the most obvious argument against extending or raising unemployment benefits is that it will make being unemployed either more attractive, thereby lead to higher unemployment. Empirical research supports this view.
There are five job seekers for every job opening, the unemployed are desperate for work and increasing unemployment benefits will have very little if any disincentive effect. Common sense indicates higher unemployment benefits will make unemployment less unattractive and thereby increase unemployment.
“Employers don’t usually hire people to assuage their consciences. They hire people to make after-tax profits. And if workers require more pay because of higher unemployment benefits, employers will hire fewer employees. Whether increased unemployment benefits incentivize workers to work less or disincentivize employers from hiring more workers, the effect will be the same—higher unemployment,” writes conservative economist Arthur Laffer.
The Obama administration claims that unemployment benefits are a great way to stimulate demand. Increased unemployment benefits operate quickly and the recipients spend what they get, which makes these stimulus funds the best bang for the buck.
Mr. Laffer puts the facts simply and even invokes Milton Friedman: (Emphasis LCs)
‘”The flaw in their logic is that when it comes to higher unemployment benefits or any other stimulus spending, the resources given to the unemployed have to be taken from someone else. There isn’t a “tooth fairy,” or as my former colleague Milton Friedman repeated time and again, “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” The government doesn’t create resources. It redistributes them. For everyone who is given something there is someone who has that something taken away.”‘
The problem with redistribution of wealth is the unemployed may spend more as a result of higher unemployment benefits, those people from whom the resources are taken will spend less. In an economy, the income effects from a transfer payment always sum to zero. Quite simply, there is no stimulus from higher unemployment benefits. Indeed!
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It’s a well know fact Barack Obama favors redistribution of wealth as he telegraphed this to Joe the Plumber near Toledo, Ohio in 2008 while campaigning. Obama’s actions and the actions of Congress to spend, spend and spend more is turning a once leader of free markets and capitalism into a welfare state that is growing by leaps and bounds each day.
Obama, who thinks he is King of the World, is telling G-20 countries to spend like America because it will fix the economic ills of the world. They aren’t in agreement with a proven failed system and the Europeans are using Greece as a fine example of debt explosion and welfare entitlements will get you.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is continuing to push his tax-extenders bill. Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund. This provision ties right into the current administration’s philosophy on government welfare: grow the number of Americans dependent on government by increasing spending.
Current policy continues to throw good taxpayer money after already poorly spent money that continues to grow federal bureaucracies instead of move people off the federal dole and poverty.
President Lyndon B. Johnson announced his famous “War on Poverty” in 1964, his intent was to win the war by eliminating the causes of poverty. He actually promised to shrink, not enlarge, the welfare state. As history tells us this hasn’t work out too well, in fact, the complete opposite occurred. Of course, Johnson was the man who brought us complete and total involvement in Vietnam and history isn’t too kind about that result either.
Let’s chew on the numbers and some facts:
With the current state of the nation’s debt, Barack Obama plans to spend $10.3 trillion more over the next 10 years.
In 1996 the Newt Gingrich led Republican Congress force fed Bill Clinton into accepting welfare reform. The results were very good:
The Heritage Foundation suggest a formula of principles to get the United States back on track to financial stability:
1. Slowing the growth of the welfare state. After the recession ends, Congress should roll back welfare spending to pre-recession levels and then cap it at the rate of inflation.
2. Promoting personal responsibility and work. Similar to the TANF reforms, other large programs such as Food Stamps and housing assistance should include work requirements.
3. Providing a portion of welfare assistance as loans rather than as grants. Government assistance can incentivize behaviors that lead to increased dependence. To reduce this risk, some welfare assistance should switch from grants to loans that must be partially repaid.
4. Ending the welfare marriage penalty and encouraging marriage in low-income communities. The decreasing rate of marriage is the greatest cause of child poverty. Today, the out-of-wedlock birthrate in the United States is at an historic high. Marriage penalties, present in many current welfare programs, should be reduced or removed, and information on the importance of marriage should be provided in low-income communities.
5. Limit low-skill immigration. A significant portion (15 percent) of welfare spending goes to homes headed by lower skill immigrants with a high school degree or less. The government should limit immigration to those individuals who will be net fiscal contributors, meaning they will pay more in taxes than they take in benefits. Also, the government should not provide amnesty to illegal immigrants, as doing so would instantly add millions of people to the welfare roles.
The Obama administration and Congress continue to go in the opposite direction that will attain financial stability through fiscal responsibility. They continue to extend unemployment, pay for ill-gotten mortgages for the unemployed, bailout their political friends and cronies and raise taxes on individuals and job creating businesses.
Instead of rolling back entitlements news ones are buried in every tax laden, spending crazy piece of legislation signed into law at a record pace with no end in sight. This is bad medicine for the United States and Obama is recommending this same prescription for other countries.
Fortunately, those countries are starting to see the light of debt, entitlements and the creation of welfare states.
Self-reliant individuals and stable families are greatest weapons against poverty not encouraging individuals to jump on the government dole and Obama express to permanent subsistence. Indeed!
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