Why do we eat our own?

[TwixVoy]

It seems to me that a large amount of the population wants to bring everyone down.

Take teachers - or other government workers - for example. Many people like to attack them for having things EVERY worker should have. Things such as a pension, decent health care, and wages one can support themselves on.

Union workers also seem to get attacked by non-union workers for them same reason.

What the attitude seems to boil down to is "I wish I had those things. So instead of forming a union and doing the organizing (that they did) necessary to get these things I just want them to have those things taken away"

It seems to me that instead of organizing and working together collectively towards our common good we just eat our own. So maybe you are working at a non-union shop and you are pissed your health care sucks, but the union shop in town offers great health care. So instead of working to get better health care for you and others your plan is to demand the union health care plan be turned to shit too? Huh?

I can promise you that the union worker has a LOT more in common with you than the CEO of your company who has given you crap health care so he can have a bigger bonus. Why not attack the CEO rather than other workers who are just trying to live a decent life?

I wonder when people will wise up and realize this kind of race to the bottom thinking is hurting every citizen (with the exception of the top 1%) in this country.

[jdlh8894]

1. It's not a "race to the bottom"

There are a quite a few people in this US of A that don't like being told what they are or aren't supposed to do. WE ARE THE PEOPLE!

[sui generis]

2. "I wish I had those things"

Nailed it in one.

Even if "those things" are ephemeral and change nothing in the real world. For instance, raising taxes on the wealthy does not cure poverty.

Reducing spending, regulating labor, manufacturing and education cures poverty. Managing the trade deficit cures poverty. Giving Americans a public health plan would go a long way to curing many of the ills that follow from poverty.

Raising taxes on the Evil Rich? It'll make some fool slack-jaw feel better that they've used the mighty u.s. government to sock it to the man who has kept them down, but if they really gave a half a flying flipping shit about real issues they'd see it wasn't a real solution.

[county worker]

7. Reducing spending, regulating labor, manufacturing and education cures poverty

Do you understand what causes poverty? It is lack of income. Raising taxes that go to programs that have as their goal to reduce the results of poverty such as homelessness, crime, drug and alcohol abuse and mental health problems does more to reduce spending in the long run than anything you propose.

[sui generis]

20. oh god what a question

Do YOU understand what income is? It's not some magic thing that magically comes out of magical bank accounts.

Reducing spending on war goes to programs that have as their goal to reduce the results of poverty such as homelessness, crime, drug and alcohol abuse and mental health problems. Penalizing U.S. companies for shipping jobs overseas will actually create jobs here, not raising taxes.

To be clear I'm saying it's not either/or, but both; however, raising taxes on the wealthy by itself will not cure poverty or homelessness any more than it would cure male pattern baldness.

Oh and drug and alcohol abuse ARE mental health problems not "AND" mental health problems. I'm not defending avoiding taxes by any means, just responding to yet another 'tax the rich' and it will solve EVERYTHING meme.

[hfojvt]

28. the OP said nothing about 'taxing the rich'

so you are comparing the jealousy that a $7 no-benefits worker has of a $14 an hour +benefits worker to the jealousy both of those workers could have for some Walton heir who makes $500 million a year in capital gains and dividends.

You also said 'reducing spending' without specifying war, which is generally considered untouchable, especially with the hugh Tara threat. Reducing spending is a strange this to read here, considering it is the Republicans who have been squawking forever about spending and the deficit, meaning they don't like things like food stamps or the EIC.

But they have slashed taxes for the rich, at great harm to our common good, and you seem to be against reversing that for some reason.

[sui generis]

31. define "the rich"

if one more person uses that phrase without qualifying it in hard numbers or different from "someone who earns more than I do" . . .

Seriously, Reduce spending On The War. Read the words that are coming out of my keyboard, not somebody else's tea leaves.

Sorry - not frustrated with your response in particular, but cathartic taxation and real problem solution aren't even remotely related. 2 + 2 will not equal five no matter how many times we try.

Untouchable spending - don't care about that. Every dime that YOU, not the rich, pay in taxes has a significant chunk that goes to Halliburton, L3, and every military parts manufacturer, project manager, and "supplemental" security detail, and somehow we think that taxing the rich (AS IF they aren't already taxed) is going to give us another 100 billion dollars a year? Not even remotely.

No. 2 + 2 = 4 still and again. If you want more money available to programs that will offset poverty, create jobs, and improve quality of life for everyone, then we have to do things to make more money available, and that means, stop spending money on other peoples' wars, and stop paying our private sector to backfill our military.

If you want jobs, which equals income, then make it extremely unsavory to outsource to foreign workers. If you want manufacturing IN AMERICA, then choke the trade inequity, which will make our manufacturing competitive AND provide jobs.

what the hell the faceless nameless "rich" have to do with this must be new math to me. Yes, everybody should pay more taxes, I've never said no to that, but we better be getting a national return on that investment.

FINALLY: and this is important. Effective tax rate means that if I make a 10 million dollars a year with 8 million in capital gains and 2 million simple taxable income, for me to pay my "rich person" exorbitant tax on that other 8 million I'm going to liquidate that non-capital to pay the tax bill. If enough of us liquidate every year, companies are going to tank in the market, and people WILL lose their jobs, not get new jobs or not get raises and benefits that make a job worth having. The middle class and the economy will still pay for that tax hike, and the rich will still be relatively rich.

Now I know some high school economist is going to come along all bluster and outrage at this observation, but IF IT COULD EASILY BE FIXED it would have been done already.

Or we could just go back to the squishy economy of the late sixties and early seventies, charge everyone over 100K a 70% tax rate and see how long it takes for educated americans to go expat in droves, exactly like they did in the late sixties and early seventies.

Then who are you going to tax?

[hfojvt]

34. define "spending"

I did read your words and they sounded like they came right from Grover Norquist or my uncle David's "Americans for the Prosperous"

"Reducing spending (n.b. war was not mentioned at first), regulating labor, manufacturing and education cures poverty. Managing the trade deficit cures poverty. Giving Americans a public health plan would go a long way to curing many of the ills that follow from poverty."

"the rich" does not have a universally accepted definition, but it is pure DU strawman that ANYBODY defines it as "somebody who makes more money that I do" even though such a person would logically be richER than me.

I think we can all agree that the Fab 400 are rich, and also that the other 13,776 families making over $10,000,000 are rich. For some more numbers, check this out http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/123 i would definitely include people making over $200,000 who are the top 2.67% of taxfilers and who make 29.3% of the taxable income. The next richest 8% had another 20% of the national income for a grand total of about 48% going to the top 10%.

The idea that we can't get another $100 billion from the rich is quite laughable considering that they got over $200 billion in tax cuts in 2005 alone. And now we have been paying interest (mostly TO the rich) on that $200 billion for over 4 years.

[sui generis]

35. laugh away - I'm just saying if your focus is taxing the rich

it's not helping the poor.

It's ineffective unless you change what it is we're spending it on.

And it assumes with greatest hubris that "the rich" don't have any choices about where they invest their money, or their citizenship.

[BeFree]

30. Income

SSI is, in a way, magical, and it does a great deal to reduce poverty.

What this 'magic' does is distribute money across a broad spectrum of citizens.
To keep it going, the rich will have to contribute more.

[sui generis]

32. sigh

tinkerbell, this one's for you:

[BeFree]

36. Yep

People who contributed little can get much.
They hardly invested, yet, they receive. Like manna from heavan.
Magicians pull the same tricks on their customers.

SSI is, in a way, like magic.

Of course, it only appears because people want and desire the flow of money.
And it comes from those who have some to give.
So, lets ramp that up, and get those who have more to give more.
It will be good for them to give more, and good for those who need it.

In a way, it's magic.

[county worker]

3. Recommend! I'm a government worker. Our budget expenses exceeds available revenue

by $38 million. So how should we make up the difference? The most popular idea is to cut services, cut salaries and cut retirement benefits. That may work but it is a short term remedy. Those ideas will put more people into a lower quality of life. For our department it means people will not get medical treatment or go homeless while us workers would take pay cuts and have no money for retirement.

Why don't we raise taxes instead? If we have a temporary economic problem, we could all contribute a little more taxes for everyone rather than hurt the few. A short term tax increase is my solution to our budget problem.



I know that the letters to the editor will say we should cut salaries and benefits of county workers and social services to the public. Yet a small increase in property tax rates would hurt those writers very little.

[proudohioan]

26. Yes, and most of those writers are under the impression

that county workers are earning an average of $150,000 per year!

Cutting the salaries of county workers will put those workers close enough to the poverty level to not make ends meet, but not close enough to qualify for any of the "social services" that those county workers provide.

Everyone always wants to balance the budget on the backs of government workers.

[ParkieDem]

4. Well, I can try to explain some of it

First, I think most of this "backlash," for lack of a better word, is against public sector employees. Most of them have a decent pension and healthcare provided in retirement.

For many public workers, they have the ability to retire much earlier than a comparable private sector worker. So, when private sector workers see their tax dollars going to people who retire early, it irks them.

My dad is a good example. He's 62. He used to love his job, but now his company is under new management and he hates it. He has good health insurance and a pretty good retirement -- not a defined-benefit pension, but a good employer match. However, his job does not provide retiree health insurance. He'd love to retire now, but he can't qualify for Medicare until he's 65. So, unless he wants to pay out the ass for health insurance (can you imagine the premiums for a 62-year old?), he's stuck in his job.

He's an accountant and works for a smaller company, so it's not like he can go out and start a union overnight. Plus, he keeps the company's books and knows (a) how much they pay in state/local taxes, and (b) how much his bosses make. He gets much angrier at the tax burden at his company than how much its owners are earning (which isn't an obscene amount).

So, when my dad sees public employees complain about benefits, it's aggravating to him. He doesn't begrudge them the pension or the benefit that they earned, but the reality is that more and more state and local governments are facing tremendous pension burdens, which can result in reduced services to the community. Just as Germans (who generally can't retire until 63) don't want to subsidize Greeks (who can generally retire at 58), my 62 year old father doesn't like the idea of subsidizing 55 year old public workers who have retired early.

[county worker]

10. I guess I am a public worker so here is my response.

My dad worked for NCR for 40 years. During that time he had a retirement plan and health care. Almost everyone did in the 50's and 60's. But for some reason pension plans and paid insurance was taken away for most of us. That was a result of the decrease in union representation.

I have good benefits because we are union represented. Our county did not go the way of private industry by taking away benefits.

Yet you want to take the place of the CEO's and take our benefits away. That is exactly what the OP is talking about.

Your solution should be to form unions. Corporations love the fact that we fight among ourselves rather than uniting.

[ParkieDem]

12. I understand

My dad's beef isn't with the fact that they have good retirement and health care. It's that they can take advantage of it so early. Local governments are getting squeezed by the fact that they are burdened by pension payments to individuals who may not be working for upwards of 40 years.

[county worker]

16. The pension plan is not causing the problem. The cause is the economy.

Our budget cuts are a result of lower property tax base, lower income tax revenue, less money from grants and medicaid and medicare.

Cutting out our retirement may do something for today but what do you do the next time? Does adding more people without a decent income going to solve the problem or add to it?

The reason why people can retire with a pension is because they worked for the government for 10 to 20 years. That is years of service to the public. The military get retirement after 20 years and so should everyone I think.

[TwixVoy]

22. Most of the pension funds are contributed by other government workers

In my state, for example, all government workers are REQUIRED to contribute 7% of their annual pay to the pension plan.... which is then paid out to government workers that have already retired.

You make it sound like government workers are not paying in to the plan, and instead the plan is being funded by tax payer dollars.

I don't know - I suppose in some states it may work that way? But in some the government workers are the ones who fund their own plan.

[hfojvt]

29. I don't know how true that is

In at least two states that I know of, state and local governments are not paying for their retired workers at all. Those payment, in Kansas, come out of the KPERS funds (there also seems to be a CalPers http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/about/facts/home.xml and something similar for Colorado http://www.copera.org/ ). There may be an indirect connection in that state and local governments need to pay for their current employees and the amount they have to pay is a function of the number of people who are retired.

However, on another point, you can only retire in Kansas at 55 by taking a 41% reduction in your pension and they do not pay for health care for retirees. At least the City I work for does not. Other schools and county and cities may do things differently. So any city employee retiring at age 62, the full retirement age, is still gonna have a health insurance problem as well.

[TwixVoy]

21. His logic is flawed though

Public workers may be able to retire sooner.... but during all those working years they are earning FAR less than their private sector counterparts. So there is a trade off.

Take administrative assistants in my states government. They make about $2K/month. Private sector administrative assistants could easily get up to $5k or $6k/month over many working years... compared to the public ones who are lucky IF they get a 3% increase annually.

[damyank913]

5. Some people are very much like crabs...

If you've ever watched a bushel of crabs; everytime one gets close to climbing out another one grabs him and keeps in the bushel.

[blueworld]

6. Funny you should bring this up

I had to watch CNN early this morning in order to avoid Morning Joe - the show that makes my bowels clench painfully. Anyway, they showed a "former GM CEO" who is now a "consultant" to GM at the humble non-union rate of $ 3,000.00 per HOUR.

Let me write that again. Three-freakin-thousand American Dollars per freakin-HOUR. Yet all they did during their debacle was whine and moan about the union salaries & benefits that were killing the U.S. auto industry!

He makes more in one day than a newbie auto line worker makes in a year! And after the company performance & success he delivered, of course they'd want to keep consulting him, right?

:rant:

[Fumesucker]

8. Union membership has been declining steadily since 1952 or so..

The chances of getting a union job are slim to zero, about the same as the chances of organizing a non-union business.

[county worker]

11. We all have a right to join a union and no employer has a right to a non union shop.

The problem is that we can't organize because of the threats to our lives and incomes. To get back to where we were in the 50's is to risk life and income. Those unions did not come about by people sitting back and complaining about the problem. They fought and died for the right to union representation.

Those of us who can should get away from our keyboards and unite to fight for progressive change.

[Fumesucker]

13. The trend has been toward less union membership for going on sixty years now..

Since well before the advent of the personal computer, let alone the internet.

So blaming people sitting at their keyboards is not really credible.

My son in law is a classic example, he is in a union, knows he has it made, and yet told me not long ago how he voted "for anyone with an R in front of their name".. He's a good guy and a good father and husband but is politically an idiot despite the fact he has two degrees.

[county worker]

18. The keyboard idea is that we should do as much time organizing as we do typing on our keyboards.

We all should put 5 to 10 hours a week in the community fighting for the changes we want. IMHO we do not know how to fight for what we want.

We can all describe the problems but we don't have workable solutions in my opinion. I wonder why we don't have meetings and groups like the tea party people do?

It is my personal belief that if we all felt it was our own personal responsibility to join together to get the things we want and did the things to get them we would get them. We think that we can vote for Obama and Congress and they will make the changes we want. I think we can see that it isn't working.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. I think you have made a very valid point....

There are two extremes....

1. I've got mine and screw you if you don't /Neo-con repuke RWingnuts

2. You have what I want! Since I don't have it, you can't have it either!!!!!!


Everyone should be concerned about others...particularly those that are less fortunate or less able to
take care of themselves. The sad truth is that none of us knows when we may be the one who is forced to do without...

It would seem to me that the more one has, the more one should be concerned about those less fortunate.

I wish I made enough money to have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes...even if that money would go to
subsidize health care for those around me who could not afford it as well as I could.

[slutticus]

14. 'cause we're all yummy.

[Echo In Light]

15. Divide & Rule works like a charm

[troubledamerican]

25. Only answer on this entire page I agree with. + 1

[Echo In Light]

27. Thanks

[DemReadingDU]

17. It should be us against the banksters, CEOs, lobbyists

and it will be, after the global financial Ponzi implodes leaving us poor and destitute, just like Bernie Madoff victims

[La Lioness Priyanka]

19. because oppressed people see other people like themselves as competition

for limited resources

they tend not to question why the resources are so limited in the first place

[Odin2005]

23. Divide and Conquer. Works every time.

[warm regards]

24. For the same reason they eat their own.

Everyone thinks they have the right answer and that everyone else is a complete idiot.

[Ron Green]

33. We haven't separated our happiness from economic growth,

either at the individual level or as a nation.