It is probably true that most Americans do not
begrudge other Americans reaping the benefits of hard work whether it is
their possessions, a good job with decent wages, or a secure
retirement. However, repugicans and their money-machine, the Koch
brothers, begrudge any American having anything and over the past six
years in particular they have been on a tear to strip every and anything
of value from the people if they can keep it for themselves. In many
cases, even when they will not profit from stealing from the people, it
appears that the Kochs and repugicans just refuse to allow Americans
not in the richest one-percent to have anything and if they cannot have
it, no-one can.
Since most Americans are not like the Kochs, repugicans came up with a devious plot to garner support for taking
things like good wages, employment benefits, sick leave, overtime pay,
and pensions from those that have them. How? By repeating ad nauseum
that they are paid for by beleaguered taxpayers and kill other
Americans’ opportunities for jobs and prosperity. This is particularly
true in terms of retirement benefits and Social Security; even though
those are paid for by the people expecting to receive them.
In states with Koch-repugican governors, and
nationally as well, the persistent repugican claim is that any kind of
pension, whether it is Social Security or a private plan, is welfare
funded by other taxpayers. They have succeeded in convincing many
Americans that slashing pensions, privatizing Social Security,
withholding state pension payments, or cutting employee wages is not
only fair, but provides relief for put-upon taxpayers and prevents
elderly freeloaders from living on welfare. It is a favorite scheme in
states with repugican governors with valuable assistance from the
Koch’s State Policy Network (SPN) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC); and they are successful.
First, taxpayers
do not
pay for public employees’ pensions regardless what the Kochs, repugican governors, or SPN and ALEC say. What taxpayers cannot
comprehend, but the Koch-repugicans know is true, is that pension plans
are the direct result of deferred compensation packages most public
employees participate in. What that means is that the money an employee
could have received as part of their regular salary is, instead, placed
in the state-operated pension fund; a place where the funds are
professionally invested and managed.
Every state’s public employee pension plan is
negotiated in good faith between the state and public employees with NO
input from the taxpayers because they have no stake one way or the other
in how the public employees fund their own retirement or are paid
benefits when they retire. The Koch brothers’ two “social charity”
tax-exempt organizations, SPN and ALEC, have perpetuated a devious plan
to force employees to pay more than they already are into their own
pensions that are nothing more a means of forcing employees to take a
very substantial wage cut; typically from 9% to over 15%. The employees
get nothing extra when they retire and the pension funds are not any
better off; it is just a means of cutting wages.
The actual amount of money state taxpayers pay for the “welfare gift” to public employee’s pensions is
zero.
In fact, “for every dollar a retired public employee draws as part of
their pension, they have invested 100 cents.” Still, repugicans claim
that it is unfair for the taxpayer to have to pay for public employees’
pensions when they can hardly afford to invest in their own retirement
and many Americans fall for the lie.
There is even a more devious plot underway in many repugican states to cut current and future retirees’ pensions that
involve providing tax cuts for the rich and corporations. In states like
Kansas, and
New Jersey,
as just two examples, repugicans created revenue shortfalls due to
substantial tax cuts for the rich and to fund the tax cuts refuse to
make regular payments into the public employee pension funds.
Underfunding, or not funding at all, pension funds is a deliberate plot
to create ‘pension fund crises’ that gives repugicans a reason to cut
retiree benefits under the guise of keeping the retirement fund solvent.
It is worth noting again and again, taxpayers do not pay for public
employees’ pensions, and the lack of a pension funds’ solvency is not
because employees are not paying their fair share.
In fact, something else that is not public or
private employees fault, but they paid the price, is that the shrub-repugican 2008 financial crisis caused many, many pension funds to
lose trillions of dollars in investments that state administrators used
to pay retiree benefits. Like everything repugicans are guilty of, it
is the American people who end up suffering the long term consequences
for repugican cabal fiscal malfeasance, and in the case of pension funding and
retirees benefits, both current and retired public employees are being
forced to pay the price in wage cuts and reduced retirement benefits;
all to perpetuate tax cuts for the rich that are driving repugican
states’ revenue shortfalls.
Every one of the Republican states
deliberately-created pension fund crises will affect Americans now and
over the long term. It is all to hasten fruition of the Kochs’ vision of
an America where the masses suffer poverty to provide more wealth for
the one percent. The Kochs have tasked their two state-level
organization, SPN and ALEC, to promote what they purport are “local
interests to radically remake governments in a way to undermine all
public institutions and the rights of workers; particularly public
sector workers.”
The executive director of the Center for Media and
Democracy, Lisa Graves, issued a report last year on the activities and
goal of SPN and said their so-called “state interests” belied a larger
Koch purpose; to take their operation national and eliminate all public
sector workers’ rights to their pensions, sick pay, living wages, and
protections at the federal level. It is why Washington Republicans
continue warning that unless Social Security is drastically cut now,
Americans’ children and grandchildren will “be saddle” with paying for
the unwarranted welfare today’s retirees are receiving.
Through their various organizations and the
Republican establishment, the Kochs have convinced a fair number of
Americans that everything Americans work for and deserve from decent
wages, sick leave, overtime pay, Social Security, and pensions are being
stolen from other Americans. Republicans claim that sick leave,
overtime pay, retirement benefits, and good wages are stealing jobs from
other Americans; and many Americans fall for the lies or Republican
states would not have right to work laws or successfully cut retirement
benefits with substantial support from voters.
Most Americans do not begrudge other Americans from
enjoying the fruits of their labor, but most Americans have been
bombarded with a carefully scripted narrative that anything other
Americans have earned was stolen from them. Although Republicans are
primarily to blame, between timid Democrats and conservative media, most
Americans will never realize how stupid and greedy they are until
Republicans get around to stealing whatever they have left; at the rate
this nation is going, there will not be much to take.
