Sunday, December 26, 2010
President Meets with Union Bosses to Discuss Government-Union 'Partnership'
The U.S. Department of Labor, which has become akin to the Ministry of Workers' Councils, regularly issues a newsletter via e-mail and posts it on the Ministry's website. This week, among other items touted, was this little gem on union bosses meeting with President Obama to discuss growing the economy and the government-union partnership. Nothing like growing the Democratic Party by growing greedy public unions. Obama and the Democratic Party keep growing the public unions with our tax dollars while businesses and the private sector keeps paying for their impotent policies. We can't keep paying these unions what they want. And we sure as heck shouldn't be making them bigger and unbearable. We've seen what happens when the public unions don't get what they want and demand. Do you think it's a good idea to grow these public unions and pay their randoms?
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so...Presidents meet with all sorts of people.
ReplyDeleteOMG he met with both sides.....OMG that fucker...
(AP)After business executives had their turn at the White House, President Barack Obama is giving a shot to union leaders fuming over the tax bill he intended to sign a few hours after Friday's meeting.
But Obama doesn't meet with all types. He only meets with like minded unions types. He doesn't give a shit about business types. You know the job creaters?
ReplyDeletePresident Barack Obama signed recently an emergency employment bill that is expected to save 300,000 jobs, mostly in schools and police departments. Obama did not hesitate to sign the bill into law when it was proposed this week by the U.S. House of Representatives, despite its $26 billion price tag.
ReplyDeleteThe end of summer is drawing near, and children will soon return to school, meaning politicians are facing added pressure to make quick decisions when handling the jobs picture in the education industry. The states that have been hit hardest by the nation’s struggles have had to lay off teachers due to budget cuts. The quick decision to sign the emergency bill ensured many schools would maintain enough staff members to accommodate children returning in the fall.
Congressional Republicans generally did not agree with the bill and saw it as a “giveaway to teachers’ unions and an example of wasteful Washington spending that voters will punish the Democrats for in this fall’s elections,” according to the Associated Press.
Where Will the Money Come From?
The $26 billion in aid is expected to come from the closure of a tax loophole used by corporations across the nation and also by cutting down on food stamp benefits for the underprivileged. The average New York City family on federal aid would see its monthly food stamp allotment drop to $230 from $290.
The bill will provide $10 billion to school districts to rehire laid-off teachers and also to protect the jobs of other teachers. This is expected to save an estimated 160,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The other $16 billion will be used to extend increased Medicaid payments for states. Police would also reap benefits from this bill because the financial relief from the Medicaid would allow the states to keep more than 150,000 police officers and other public workers on payroll.
Democrats and Republicans at it Again
As has been their habit of late, Democrats and Republicans disagreed on what the repercussions of this bill could do for the U.S. Democrats think the bill will save the necessary jobs of hard-working people who contribute to society, whereas Republicans think the bill will add to imbalances in state funding and negatively impact states’ ability to pull themselves out of debt. Many advocates for the poor and see the cuts to food stamps as an unjust way to solve the problem. Others are worried that the bill might harm businesses and negatively impact job creation.
The affected states are busy altering their budgets in expectation of the extra funding, but many do not know exactly how much they will receive.
anon, (chris, john whomever you are) ,
ReplyDeleteDid you notice what i posted. He met with business people first (despite your calims otherwise)
So here lets get a little rundown on the people he's not meeting with...
By Juliana Gruenwald
December 15, 2010 | 8:30 AM
President Obama will meet Wednesday with nearly two dozen CEOs from some of the nation's top companies including some tech and telecom executives to discuss among other things ways to keep the economic recovery going.
Among those expected at the closed White House meeting include Motorola co-CEO Greg Brown, Cisco CEO and Chairman John Chambers, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Partner John Doerr, Intel CEO Paul Otellini, Comcast CEO and Chairman Brian Roberts, and Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt.
Anon our busy little op-ed bomber...
ReplyDeleteJoe The reason hes finally meeting with CEOs is he discovered majority of his advisers have never been in Private Sector. What a idea actually ask the people who Run companies. What a idea to ask people who actually create and hire Citizens to work. Took him couple years and mid-terms but MAYBE hes got it now. Naw! never mind.
ReplyDeleteAl, he's met with business executives the entire time he's been in office.
ReplyDeleteYour Al's heimers has come back big time.
Your as bad as Bruce.
Joe now that one hurt! Joe meeting with them and Listening to them are two different things.
ReplyDeleteI've been around for thirteen presidents and other than Jimmy Carter the last Demoncrat I voted for I have less confidence in Nobama for one reason. He puts his Ideaology before anything else and to me that is unexceptable. He will now talk of working together and it will seem he is pivoting. I just do not beleive his beliefs will allow him to put country over his Ideaology. Why did He go after social issue(Socialized Insurance) before targeting Economy and Job Creation? That action to me is unforgivable and pure ideaology driven. Without STRONG eeconomy and Jobs his Social agenda is MOOT! But that Bruce comment OUCH!
It's funny how Joe complains about cut and pasting and he's an offender as well. You libs are amazing when it comes to having a double standard. I can't wait till everyone is treated equal in this country. Al, well pointed out about the token CEO's. It is obvious that Obama and Democrats in general don't listen to the business world. The left look at the businesses as the people that make them work. We, conservatives look at the businesses as those that give us work. See we fundamentaly look at work differently. It come right down to their laziness. In a factory you can tell the difference betweeen a liberal and a conservative just on how hard they work and the pride they take in their work.
ReplyDeleteIn light of the NLRB’s attacks on business this week, this this little piece is striking, as it is the epitome of why the economy still sucks unemployment remains high.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. Department of Labor, which has become akin to the Ministry of Workers’ Councils, regularly issues a newsletter via e-mail and posts it on the Ministry’s website. This week, among other items touted, was this little gem on union bosses meeting with President Obama to discuss growing the economy and the government-union partnership.
[Screenshot below the fold just in case...well, you know.]
Obama, Solis and Labor Leaders
President Obama, Secretary Solis and key White House staff met last week with a dozen leaders from several national labor unions to discuss ways to work together to strengthen the economy. The group talked about creating good jobs for the American people, and how the partnership with labor unions is essential to growing our economy and continuing our recovery. The president and the labor secretary also highlighted critical steps that the administration has taken and pledged to continue to work closely with organized labor in the coming months on important economic issues.
It’s funny that the administration still refuses to admit that unions are the antithesis of private-sector job creation. In fact, it seems the only way unions create jobs is to buy politicians who steal other people’s money, then reward the union bosses with taxpayer dollars and government-approved discrimination.
_________________
“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776
It is hard to imagine a more diverse pair of places that have been overrun by the infestation of public-sector pension problems than Prichard, Alabama and the withering Garden State of New Jersey. One might expect the problems in the Garbage Garden State of New Jersey, which is home to such luminaries as Grover Cleveland, Thomas Edison, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and (the fictitious mob boss) Tony Soprano, and where a senator-turned-governor sleeps with a union boss and still nearly wins re-election. However, unlike New Jersey, Prichard, Alabama is hardly an example union bosses run amok—in fact, as a Right-to-Work state, 12 percent of Alabama’s workforce is unionized. Nevertheless, both are the latest examples in a string of bad news stories involving public-sector pensions.
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday, Bloomberg reported that New Jersey’s underfunded pension problem grew by more than $8 billion (or 18%) in the last year, as the state failed to pay its pension obligation.
New Jersey’s pension-funding deficit increased by $8.05 billion, or 18 percent, this year to $53.9 billion as the state failed to make contributions.
The unfunded pension liability was $45.8 billion as of June 2009. New Jersey also faces an unfunded liability of $66.8 billion for providing medical care to retired public employees, the treasury department said in a statement today. [Emphasis added.]
But that’s just the partial picture for New Jersey.
Additionally, the state has a $66.8 billion unfunded promise to future and current employees for lifetime health benefits, the report found.
[snip]
“If all the required contributions to the pension funds had been made over the last decade, New Jersey would still not have enough money to pay all the benefits state and local governments have promised to public employees,” Treasury Spokesman Andy Pratt said in an e-mail.
As New Jersey heads down a likely path of no return, it is worth noting that the town of Prichard, Alabama has already reached that point and has stopped paying its retirees and filed for bankruptcy (twice). While the town’s failure to make payments to its retirees is wreaking havoc on those retirees, as the New York Times notes, how it is handling its issues is also being watched throughout the rest of the nation.
This struggling small city on the outskirts of Mobile was warned for years that if it did nothing, its pension fund would run out of money by 2009. Right on schedule, its fund ran dry.
Then Prichard did something that pension experts say they have never seen before: it stopped sending monthly pension checks to its 150 retired workers, breaking a state law requiring it to pay its promised retirement benefits in full.
[snip]
So the declining, little-known city of Prichard is now attracting the attention of bankruptcy lawyers, labor leaders, municipal credit analysts and local officials from across the country. They want to see if the situation in Prichard, like the continuing bankruptcy of Vallejo, Calif., ultimately creates a legal precedent on whether distressed cities can legally cut or reduce their pensions, and if so, how.
“Prichard is the future,” said Michael Aguirre, the former San Diego city attorney, who has called for San Diego to declare bankruptcy and restructure its own outsize pension obligations. “We’re all on the same conveyor belt. Prichard is just a little further down the road.”
Interestingly, while New Jersey’s pension problems are, in part, due to years of mismanagement and negotiating with public-sector unions, Prichard’s retirees are not unionized. Nevertheless, though not as rich as other public-sector pensions, Prichard’s plan seems flawed and doomed to failure from its outset.
ReplyDeletePrichard’s plan enabled employees to retire in their 50s, and the city’s contribution to the pension plan was 10.5% of the employees’ pay (the employees paid 5.5%). In simpler terms, for every $100 that an employee earned, the employee would put $5.50 toward retirement and Pritchard was expected to put $10.50 toward the employee’s retirement—paid for, of course, by tax revenues. Yet, as has happened with cities and states all across the country, Prichard’s tax revenues have fallen victim to people and businesses leaving. As a result, with a poorly designed pension model, it is little wonder that the city has run out of money to pay its retirees.
It is problems like those happening now in Prichard, Alabama and threatening New Jersey and a host of other states and municipalities which should have people across the political spectrum concerned. However, one thing that is not needed is another federal bailout as the New York Times editorial board seems to pushing.
Adding further debt to our nation’s morass by engaging in another (largely) union bailout will be political and economic suicide for any politician that pushes it. However, increasing taxes to cover public-sector debts is also a non-starter—especially in a state like New Jersey which is already overtaxed as it would likely add to more individuals and businesses leaving the state, further exacerbating the problem. Instead, politicians (of both parties) are going to have to be more realistic with the public-sector workers.
Like so many of us in the private sector, public sector employees will have to face a more austere future. That may, by necessity, mean getting less in retirement and/or working longer. However, if they are not willing to face that fact now, the alternative, as those retirees in Prichard, Alabama are experiencing, will be devastating.
Vice President Joe Biden, bless his heart, is promising that there’s going to be a tax hike (including one on small businesses) in 2013. This, despite the fact that that the Republicans used their 58/42 minority in the Senate and 256/179 minority in the House to somehow prevent the current ruling party from moving ahead on the promised tax hikes: no doubt the President will make a speech and shine the light of his countenance upon the 112th Congress, thus causing them to tremble and flee the righteous Hope-and-Change of the Lightworker. Or the President will pout, which will probably have roughly the same effect.
ReplyDeleteVP Biden also promised that the administration would be hiking the death tax, speculated that the next post-DADT repeal step for the White House would be addressing the ’so-called’ DOMA (although Biden apparently neglected to mention why he voted for it in the first place, just like a majority of his party’s Senate caucus), and walked back the White House’s walkback on Biden’s recent unilateral declaration that we’d be out of Afghanistan by 2014. Biden then ritually slew a baby harp seal wrapped in the American flag on national television; the Vice President managed to gouge out the heart with his bare hands and offer it up to President Obama before somebody managed to switch to commercial.
Seriously: why do they let this man out without a keeper?
Joe said..."Anon our busy little op-ed bomber..." right after he bombed us with op-ed. You are one f#cked up person Joe. But like a chimp in a zoo you make me laugh.
ReplyDeleteWell said Anon.
ReplyDelete