Jeff Sessions is absolutely correct...these negotiations should be done in public AND it is obvious that Obama is not serious about compromising...not serious about reducing spending and frankly not serious about fixing America's fiscal problems.....the American people will pay dearly for his reelection.....Obama is the leader and ONCE AGAIN he is NOT leading....
Senator Blasts 'Secret' Fiscal Cliff Negotiations
1:08 PM, Nov 29, 2012 • By DANIEL HALPER
In remarks on the Senate floor today, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions blasted President Barack Obama and congressional leadership for holding "secret" fiscal cliff negotiations.
"I rise today to express my reservations about the fiscal cliff negotiations that are currently underway," said Sessions. "Over the last two years, Congress and the President have held an endless series of secret negotiations. There have been gangs of six and eight, a supercommittee of 12, talks at the Blair House and the White House. But the only thing these secret talks have produced is a government that skips from one crisis to the next. Everything has been tried but the open production of a 10-year budget plan as required by law and open discussions of the difficult choices."
Sessions, the highest Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, saved most of his criticism for the president. "President Obama campaigned on a tax increase of ‘only’ $800 billion," said Sessions. "But now the White House is demanding $1.6 trillion in new taxes. Don’t the American people have a right to see these taxes and where they will fall? Shouldn’t the President of the United States, the only person who represents everybody in the country, lay out his plan, or must that remain a secret too? Will it just be revealed to us on the eve of Christmas or eve of the new calendar year? We will be asked to vote for it, to ratify it like lemmings, I suppose."
The Alabama senator insisted Obama is not serious about cutting spending--or cutting government waste.
In fact, the President is giving speeches calling for even more spending. On Tuesday, he gave a speech in which he said he wants to use the tax hikes to ‘invest in training, education, science, and research.’ Investment, of course, is just code for spending.
Not once in the speech did he discuss entitlements, our $16 trillion debt, or the economic catastrophe that could occur if we don’t get off this unsustainable path.
The President will go out to the press and use all the buzz words—he says he’s for a ‘balanced plan,’ and talks about a ‘responsible path to deficit reduction.’ But where are the cuts? What is the plan? It seems to me the President’s plan is to talk in general, to meet in secret, and then, under threat of panic, to force through some deal that maintains the status quo: more taxes, more spending, more debt.
That’s why the process needs to be taken out of the shadows. With public debate, people would learn facts that are now obscured. ...
Meanwhile, as the President demands more taxes, he refuses to do anything about government waste. Lavish conferences, duplicative programs, billions in refundable tax credits being mailed every year to illegal immigrants. No one is managing this government effectively. Why should the American people send one more dime in taxes to Washington when we won’t reform and manage the money we are already getting from them?
And Sessions criticized the fiscal cliff negotiations for not including the Senate:
So I am concerned about the nature of these secret talks and the fact that the Senate is really not participating. News reports say that it is only the Speaker and the President of the United States who are negotiating. Apparently the Majority Leader of the Senate is not intimately involved, the Chairman of the Budget Committee is not involved, the Chairman of the Finance Committee is not involved. These are Democratic leaders in the Senate. Certainly Republican leaders are not involved.
The Senate is a great institution, and we ought to be engaged. The engagement of the Senate would allow the American people to know what’s happening. They are entitled to that. I believe we can do better. We must do better.”
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Obama - Still NO leadership...Only an incompetent campaigner....
Proof that this President has NO Leadership ability...all he is a campaigner....He needs to learn how to lead people..he also needs to learn the meaning of Compromise...I would encourage everyone to go to the White House Website and email Obama telling to get to leading the nation and stop the campaigning!!!
Republicans rip Obama for campaign-style approach to fiscal talks
Published November 27, 2012
FoxNews.com
- FILE: Friday, Nov. 16, 2012: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner outside the White House in Washington. (AP)
Frustrated Republican leaders took a swipe Tuesday at President Obama, reminding him “the election is over” as he opts for a campaign-style strategy to sell his tax-hike proposal to middle-class America and small business owners – rather than deal face-to-face with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The president met last week with House Speaker John Boehner at the White House and spoke with him over the weekend. But as members of Congress return this week to Washington, Obama is instead hosting a series of events aimed at selling his plan while pressuring Republicans to extend tax cuts only to families earning $250,000 or less annually, which amounts to a tax hike on high-income families.
“The target of the president’s rallies should be the congressional Democrats who want to raise tax rates on small businesses rather than cut spending,” Boehner spokesman Mike Steel said Tuesday.
The president has invited small-business owners from across the country to meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the impact of his tax policies on small businesses.
Among the 15 invited are Nikhil Arora, co-founder of Back to the Roots, west Oakland; David Bolotsky, chief executive officer of Uncommon Goods, New York; and Mandy Cabot, co-founder of Dansko, West Grove, Pa.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled the president’s shift Monday when he said: “The election is over” and it’s time for the president to present a plan that “goes beyond the talking points of the campaign trail."
Steel and other Republicans argue they are fulfilling their half of the bargain in the fiscal talks by agreeing to change the tax code to generate revenue to reduce the annual trillion-dollar deficits.
However, Democrats have to keep their end by presenting a plan to cut federal spending through such entitlement programs as Medicare and Social Security, they say.
Should the sides fail to strike a deal by Jan. 1, a mix of tax increases and federal spending cuts equaling roughly $1.3 trillion over the next decade would begin to take effect next year, which some economists say could plunge the U.S. economy back into a recession.
The president, who wants to extend tax breaks only for households earning less than $250,000 annually, is also meeting Wednesday with chief executive officers and middle-class taxpayers. On Friday, he is hosting a rally in the Philadelphia area where he is scheduled to lay out his plan to keep the country from going off the so-called “fiscal cliff.”
Meanwhile, Republicans will make their own appeal to Americans.
Boehner’s office said Tuesday that House Republicans will take their own message to small businesses across the country. Members in the coming days and weeks will hold events and visit local small businesses to emphasize “the threat to jobs posed by congressional Democrats’ small business tax hike.”
Obama and his Goons just keep lying and lying to the American People.....
The White House and Carney are just saying it's OK for Obama and his band of corrupt goons to LIE to the American people over and over again...and in this case for political gain...The American People should be outraged about this
White House blasts Republican ‘obsession’ with Rice and Benghazi
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee—flanked by fellow committee …The White House sharply escalated its attacks on Tuesday on Republican opponents of making Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice the next secretary of state, describing them as in the grips of a politically fueled "obsession" with incorrect "talking points" she used regarding the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya. Press secretary Jay Carney also said the United States still does not know who carried out the assault, which claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
"There are no unanswered questions about Ambassador Rice's appearance on Sunday shows" of Sept. 16, when she linked the strike to demonstrations fueled by Muslim anger at an Internet video ridiculing Islam, Carney told reporters.
"The questions that remain to be answered—and that the president insists be answered—have to do with what happened in Benghazi, who was responsible for the deaths of four Americans, including our ambassador, and what steps we need to take to ensure that something like that doesn't happen again," Carney said at his daily briefing.
His remarks came shortly after Rice acknowledged for the first time, in a written statement issued by her office, that her public comments that day were wrong because there was no protest outside the compound in Benghazi. In appearance after appearance, Rice had said that American intelligence had pinned the blame on the assault on extremists who took advantage of a demonstration outside the facility.
"Neither I nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the American people at any stage in this process, and the administration updated Congress and the American people as our assessments evolved," Rice said. Her comments came after she met on Capitol Hill with Republican Senators fiercely opposed to seeing her become secretary of state, perhaps the clearest sign yet that President Barack Obama wants her to succeed Hillary Clinton as America's top diplomat.
The ambassador, accompanied by Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, met with Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte, who have accused Rice (and the Obama administration in general) of misleading the public by tying the assault to the video. Republicans have suggested that the administration hoped to blunt the potential political impact of the attack—the first to claim the life of an American ambassador in 30 years—shortly before the election.
"Bottom line: I'm more disturbed now than I was before," Graham told reporters after the meeting. "We are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get," McCain said.
"The focus on—some might say obsession on—comments made on Sunday shows seems to me and to many to be misplaced," Carney shot back. "I know that Sunday shows have vaunted status in Washington, but they have almost nothing to do—in fact zero to do—with what happened in Benghazi," he added.
And neither, to hear Carney tell it, did Rice. "
Ambassador Rice has no responsibility for collecting, analyzing and providing intelligence, nor does she have responsibility as the United States ambassador to the United Nations for diplomatic security around the globe," he said. So why, then, did the White House anoint Rice the administration point person to answer questions about a possible intelligence failure and consular security? Why not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Director of National Intelligence James Clapper? Defense Secretary Leon Panetta? National Security Adviser Tom Donilon?
"She is a principal on the president's foreign policy team," Carney said. "It was entirely appropriate for Ambassador Rice to appear on the air to take questions about the president's approach to, and policy toward, the unrest that was occurring largely as a result of the video.
"To this day it is the assessment of this administration and of our intelligence community … that they acted at least in part in response to what they saw happening in Cairo and took advantage of that situation. They saw the breach of our embassy in Cairo and decided to act in Benghazi," Carney said. (In other words, according to one well-placed source, the perpetrators of the attack may have concluded that anger at the video gave them the maximum opportunity to get sympathy or support across the Muslim world, and might even inspire copycat attacks.)
In fact, Rice's much-dissected Sept. 16 comments broadly follow those lines. Rice said in repeated television appearances that American intelligence had pinned the attack in Benghazi on extremists who took advantage of a protest related to the video. There was no protest, as the administration has acknowledged.
Obama has fiercely defended Rice, while carefully declining to say whether he has picked her. Another leading contender is the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry.
McCain and Graham have pledged to try to filibuster her confirmation, but they are well short of the 40 votes needed to do so. ..
The reason that Carney dodges these questions is because Obama probably promised Rice consideration as Secretary of State IF she was willing to do his political bidding and go out and LIE to the American Public before the election...
<iframe src='http://widget.newsinc.com/single.html?WID=1&VID=23900356&freewheel=69016&sitesection=breitbart&w=640&h=480' height='480' width='640' scrolling='no' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0'></iframe>
It's Obvious to ALL that Obama and his goons were lying and are STILL LYING!!! Stand up Republicans....it's time to draw a line in the sand and take on Lying Barack Obama!
<iframe src='http://widget.newsinc.com/single.html?WID=1&VID=23900170&freewheel=69016&sitesection=breitbartprivate&w=640&h=480' height='480' width='640' scrolling='no' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0'></iframe>
White House blasts Republican ‘obsession’ with Rice and Benghazi
By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee—flanked by fellow committee …The White House sharply escalated its attacks on Tuesday on Republican opponents of making Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice the next secretary of state, describing them as in the grips of a politically fueled "obsession" with incorrect "talking points" she used regarding the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya. Press secretary Jay Carney also said the United States still does not know who carried out the assault, which claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
"There are no unanswered questions about Ambassador Rice's appearance on Sunday shows" of Sept. 16, when she linked the strike to demonstrations fueled by Muslim anger at an Internet video ridiculing Islam, Carney told reporters.
"The questions that remain to be answered—and that the president insists be answered—have to do with what happened in Benghazi, who was responsible for the deaths of four Americans, including our ambassador, and what steps we need to take to ensure that something like that doesn't happen again," Carney said at his daily briefing.
His remarks came shortly after Rice acknowledged for the first time, in a written statement issued by her office, that her public comments that day were wrong because there was no protest outside the compound in Benghazi. In appearance after appearance, Rice had said that American intelligence had pinned the blame on the assault on extremists who took advantage of a demonstration outside the facility.
"Neither I nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the American people at any stage in this process, and the administration updated Congress and the American people as our assessments evolved," Rice said. Her comments came after she met on Capitol Hill with Republican Senators fiercely opposed to seeing her become secretary of state, perhaps the clearest sign yet that President Barack Obama wants her to succeed Hillary Clinton as America's top diplomat.
The ambassador, accompanied by Acting CIA Director Michael Morell, met with Republican Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte, who have accused Rice (and the Obama administration in general) of misleading the public by tying the assault to the video. Republicans have suggested that the administration hoped to blunt the potential political impact of the attack—the first to claim the life of an American ambassador in 30 years—shortly before the election.
"Bottom line: I'm more disturbed now than I was before," Graham told reporters after the meeting. "We are significantly troubled by many of the answers that we got and some that we didn't get," McCain said.
"The focus on—some might say obsession on—comments made on Sunday shows seems to me and to many to be misplaced," Carney shot back. "I know that Sunday shows have vaunted status in Washington, but they have almost nothing to do—in fact zero to do—with what happened in Benghazi," he added.
And neither, to hear Carney tell it, did Rice. "
Ambassador Rice has no responsibility for collecting, analyzing and providing intelligence, nor does she have responsibility as the United States ambassador to the United Nations for diplomatic security around the globe," he said. So why, then, did the White House anoint Rice the administration point person to answer questions about a possible intelligence failure and consular security? Why not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Director of National Intelligence James Clapper? Defense Secretary Leon Panetta? National Security Adviser Tom Donilon?
"She is a principal on the president's foreign policy team," Carney said. "It was entirely appropriate for Ambassador Rice to appear on the air to take questions about the president's approach to, and policy toward, the unrest that was occurring largely as a result of the video.
"To this day it is the assessment of this administration and of our intelligence community … that they acted at least in part in response to what they saw happening in Cairo and took advantage of that situation. They saw the breach of our embassy in Cairo and decided to act in Benghazi," Carney said. (In other words, according to one well-placed source, the perpetrators of the attack may have concluded that anger at the video gave them the maximum opportunity to get sympathy or support across the Muslim world, and might even inspire copycat attacks.)
In fact, Rice's much-dissected Sept. 16 comments broadly follow those lines. Rice said in repeated television appearances that American intelligence had pinned the attack in Benghazi on extremists who took advantage of a protest related to the video. There was no protest, as the administration has acknowledged.
Obama has fiercely defended Rice, while carefully declining to say whether he has picked her. Another leading contender is the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry.
McCain and Graham have pledged to try to filibuster her confirmation, but they are well short of the 40 votes needed to do so. ..
The reason that Carney dodges these questions is because Obama probably promised Rice consideration as Secretary of State IF she was willing to do his political bidding and go out and LIE to the American Public before the election...
<iframe src='http://widget.newsinc.com/single.html?WID=1&VID=23900356&freewheel=69016&sitesection=breitbart&w=640&h=480' height='480' width='640' scrolling='no' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0'></iframe>
It's Obvious to ALL that Obama and his goons were lying and are STILL LYING!!! Stand up Republicans....it's time to draw a line in the sand and take on Lying Barack Obama!
<iframe src='http://widget.newsinc.com/single.html?WID=1&VID=23900170&freewheel=69016&sitesection=breitbartprivate&w=640&h=480' height='480' width='640' scrolling='no' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0'></iframe>
Monday, November 26, 2012
It's Obama's Move...But Don't Hold Your Breath...
Just One More dictatorship in the Muslim World...anyone that really believes that the Muslim Brotherhood and Democracy exist in the same world are just kidding themselves...it will be interesting to see what actions Obama Takes....being at very least muslim leaning if not a muslim himself he will probably take little or no action.....his lack of leadership will most likely show itself again here. Talk is cheap and unfortunately that's all Obama does is talk!
Egypt's President Moves Toward Dictatorship
Egypt remains in turmoil after its president decreed last Thursday that he was no longer subject to the laws of his country—giving himself power over the judiciary and other branches of government.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made his lunge for power shortly after helping to broker a fragile ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the extremist offshoot of his own Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda includes imposing Sharia (Islamic law), curbing the rights of women and religious minorities, abandoning Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and advancing Islamist causes around the world.
Reuters reports that about 370 people have been injured in clashes between protesters and police since Morsi issued his decree last Thursday. The president is meeting with judges today, supposedly on an agreement to amend his decree, but protesters say they want to see it reversed completely.
Morsi has set Egypt on a troubling new foreign policy course since coming to power in June. His government has distanced itself from Washington while cozying up to China, improving relations with Iran, and violating its peace treaty with Israel.
He has escalated Egypt’s cooperation with Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls Gaza and remains adamantly committed to Israel’s destruction. Morsi’s Islamist-dominated government has cracked down on Egypt’s media and has announced that Egyptian journalists will be put on trial for “insults” to the president. Morsi’s government is systematically clamping down on Egyptians’ political, social, and cultural freedoms. Yet the Obama Administration naively continues to court it as a partner.
Morsi may calculate that his help in administering Band-Aids to the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict will make the United States and others who give aid to Egypt think twice before trying to reverse his power grab.
The Obama Administration was working on an aid package to Egypt that includes forgiving approximately $1 billion of Egypt’s debt to the United States. This is in addition to about $1.5 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.
When protesters tore down the American flag at the U.S. embassy in Cairo on September 11, Morsi’s public reaction was nonchalant. Instead of immediately denouncing the attack and taking action to upgrade security around the embassy—as Libyan and Yemeni leaders have done after similar events—Morsi waited a day before casually issuing a mild rebuke to the rioters via Facebook.
The Obama Administration should leverage U.S. aid to pressure the Egyptian leader to respect the rule of law, abide by the decisions of Egypt’s courts, and abandon his drive for absolute power. Morsi has exploited external crises in the past to advance his own ambitions. In August, he used a Sinai terrorist attack that killed Egyptian soldiers as a pretext to purge the Egyptian army of its top Mubarak-era holdovers. Now he has done the same with the judiciary.
Egypt’s judiciary also has pushed back against Morsi’s power grab. The Supreme Council of the Judiciary denounced Morsi’s unilateral assertion of power over the judiciary as “an unprecedented attack on judicial independence.” The Judges Club, an association of judges made up of many appointees by the Mubarak regime, called for a strike by courts across Egypt.
But the judges alone will not be enough to reverse Morsi’s power grab. The key vote will be wielded by the armed forces. Morsi appears confident that he can count on support from key military leaders, whom he hand-picked after purging the top ranks of Mubarak loyalists in August.
While the army’s ultimate verdict on Morsi’s power grab is not yet apparent, Egypt’s investors voted with their wallets and withdrew their money from Egypt’s stock market, which plunged almost 10 percent on Sunday.
The big losers here are the Egyptian people. Their aspirations for freedom and democracy will likely get lost in the shuffle as Egypt’s “Arab Spring” descends into an Islamist winter. But the United States and its allies—particularly Israel—will also find their national interests undermined by the anti-Western drive of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt's President Moves Toward Dictatorship
Egypt remains in turmoil after its president decreed last Thursday that he was no longer subject to the laws of his country—giving himself power over the judiciary and other branches of government.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made his lunge for power shortly after helping to broker a fragile ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the extremist offshoot of his own Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda includes imposing Sharia (Islamic law), curbing the rights of women and religious minorities, abandoning Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and advancing Islamist causes around the world.
Reuters reports that about 370 people have been injured in clashes between protesters and police since Morsi issued his decree last Thursday. The president is meeting with judges today, supposedly on an agreement to amend his decree, but protesters say they want to see it reversed completely.
Morsi has set Egypt on a troubling new foreign policy course since coming to power in June. His government has distanced itself from Washington while cozying up to China, improving relations with Iran, and violating its peace treaty with Israel.
He has escalated Egypt’s cooperation with Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls Gaza and remains adamantly committed to Israel’s destruction. Morsi’s Islamist-dominated government has cracked down on Egypt’s media and has announced that Egyptian journalists will be put on trial for “insults” to the president. Morsi’s government is systematically clamping down on Egyptians’ political, social, and cultural freedoms. Yet the Obama Administration naively continues to court it as a partner.
Morsi may calculate that his help in administering Band-Aids to the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict will make the United States and others who give aid to Egypt think twice before trying to reverse his power grab.
The Obama Administration was working on an aid package to Egypt that includes forgiving approximately $1 billion of Egypt’s debt to the United States. This is in addition to about $1.5 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.
When protesters tore down the American flag at the U.S. embassy in Cairo on September 11, Morsi’s public reaction was nonchalant. Instead of immediately denouncing the attack and taking action to upgrade security around the embassy—as Libyan and Yemeni leaders have done after similar events—Morsi waited a day before casually issuing a mild rebuke to the rioters via Facebook.
The Obama Administration should leverage U.S. aid to pressure the Egyptian leader to respect the rule of law, abide by the decisions of Egypt’s courts, and abandon his drive for absolute power. Morsi has exploited external crises in the past to advance his own ambitions. In August, he used a Sinai terrorist attack that killed Egyptian soldiers as a pretext to purge the Egyptian army of its top Mubarak-era holdovers. Now he has done the same with the judiciary.
Egypt’s judiciary also has pushed back against Morsi’s power grab. The Supreme Council of the Judiciary denounced Morsi’s unilateral assertion of power over the judiciary as “an unprecedented attack on judicial independence.” The Judges Club, an association of judges made up of many appointees by the Mubarak regime, called for a strike by courts across Egypt.
But the judges alone will not be enough to reverse Morsi’s power grab. The key vote will be wielded by the armed forces. Morsi appears confident that he can count on support from key military leaders, whom he hand-picked after purging the top ranks of Mubarak loyalists in August.
While the army’s ultimate verdict on Morsi’s power grab is not yet apparent, Egypt’s investors voted with their wallets and withdrew their money from Egypt’s stock market, which plunged almost 10 percent on Sunday.
The big losers here are the Egyptian people. Their aspirations for freedom and democracy will likely get lost in the shuffle as Egypt’s “Arab Spring” descends into an Islamist winter. But the United States and its allies—particularly Israel—will also find their national interests undermined by the anti-Western drive of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
More Negative consequences of the Obama Reelection....This Nation Will Go To Hell Under His "Leadership"
Should We Pay Government Employees More?
Federal employees—who work on average a month less than private-sector workers and get paid more—are lobbying for higher pay.
Government unions know that Congress is looking for ways to nip and tuck the federal budget, and they’re counting on being left out of the deal.
“The Federal-Postal Coalition—a group representing more than two dozen federal employee unions—pleaded with Congress on Monday to spare their members in any deal related to the ‘fiscal cliff,’” Government Executive reports.
Government unions went all out to re-elect the President—the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent more than any other outside group on Obama’s campaign. While only about seven out of 100 private-sector workers are unionized, in government, that number rises to 36 out of 100.
Now they’re complaining that they don’t get paid enough.
Federal employees and Members of Congress are working under a two-year “pay freeze,” though “individual employees still remain eligible for raises if they receive promotions, step increases or performance awards,” explains Government Executive.
Of course, these are employees who are paid by the taxpayers. So their compensation deserves every measure of scrutiny. Unfortunately, faulty comparisons to the private sector have been muddying the waters—something Heritage’s Jason Richwine and the American Enterprise Institute’s Andrew G. Biggs have been working to correct.
When Richwine and Biggs wrote in The Washington Post November 18 that government unions were using bogus numbers to push for raises, a firestorm of reader comments erupted. As of this morning, there were 2,480 comments on the piece.
One of the main issues: “The Federal Salary Council, an advisory body of academics and leaders of public employee unions, suggested last month that federal workers are underpaid by an average of 35 percent relative to nonfederal employees.”
What’s behind the huge gap the council is claiming? For starters, a huge omission: benefits packages. Richwine and Biggs note:
First, the pay agent doesn’t consider fringe benefits, even though benefits for federal workers are famously generous. In addition to a 401(k)-type pension with a handsome employer match, federal workers receive a traditional defined-benefit pension—for which they contribute less than 1 percent of salary—as well as retiree health coverage. A Congressional Budget Office study published in January found that the federal retirement package was 2.7 times more generous than what is paid by large private-sector firms. Federal workers also receive more paid vacation and sick days.
According to their own reporting, government employees work fewer hours than private-sector employees. To measure this in the fairest way possible, the American Time Use Survey allows workers to record all of their time, including any hours spent working from home or outside normal business hours. Using this data, Richwine found that government employees worked about one month less per year than private-sector workers.
And not only do they work less, they get paid more.
A January 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) showed that federal government employees receive substantially higher compensation than similarly skilled workers in the private sector. The report’s methodology and conclusions were broadly similar to previous studies from both The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. Richwine, Biggs, and Heritage’s James Sherk concluded:
Federal compensation should be scaled back and reallocated to reward the most productive federal workers. The government should replace the seniority system with performance pay, paying higher salaries to good workers without guaranteeing raises for mediocre performers.
Government unions worked hard to re-elect President Obama, and now they’re expecting a payout at the expense of taxpayers. Any suggestion that their pay is below market levels is completely false.
Federal employees—who work on average a month less than private-sector workers and get paid more—are lobbying for higher pay.
Government unions know that Congress is looking for ways to nip and tuck the federal budget, and they’re counting on being left out of the deal.
“The Federal-Postal Coalition—a group representing more than two dozen federal employee unions—pleaded with Congress on Monday to spare their members in any deal related to the ‘fiscal cliff,’” Government Executive reports.
Government unions went all out to re-elect the President—the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent more than any other outside group on Obama’s campaign. While only about seven out of 100 private-sector workers are unionized, in government, that number rises to 36 out of 100.
Now they’re complaining that they don’t get paid enough.
Federal employees and Members of Congress are working under a two-year “pay freeze,” though “individual employees still remain eligible for raises if they receive promotions, step increases or performance awards,” explains Government Executive.
Of course, these are employees who are paid by the taxpayers. So their compensation deserves every measure of scrutiny. Unfortunately, faulty comparisons to the private sector have been muddying the waters—something Heritage’s Jason Richwine and the American Enterprise Institute’s Andrew G. Biggs have been working to correct.
When Richwine and Biggs wrote in The Washington Post November 18 that government unions were using bogus numbers to push for raises, a firestorm of reader comments erupted. As of this morning, there were 2,480 comments on the piece.
One of the main issues: “The Federal Salary Council, an advisory body of academics and leaders of public employee unions, suggested last month that federal workers are underpaid by an average of 35 percent relative to nonfederal employees.”
What’s behind the huge gap the council is claiming? For starters, a huge omission: benefits packages. Richwine and Biggs note:
First, the pay agent doesn’t consider fringe benefits, even though benefits for federal workers are famously generous. In addition to a 401(k)-type pension with a handsome employer match, federal workers receive a traditional defined-benefit pension—for which they contribute less than 1 percent of salary—as well as retiree health coverage. A Congressional Budget Office study published in January found that the federal retirement package was 2.7 times more generous than what is paid by large private-sector firms. Federal workers also receive more paid vacation and sick days.
According to their own reporting, government employees work fewer hours than private-sector employees. To measure this in the fairest way possible, the American Time Use Survey allows workers to record all of their time, including any hours spent working from home or outside normal business hours. Using this data, Richwine found that government employees worked about one month less per year than private-sector workers.
And not only do they work less, they get paid more.
A January 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) showed that federal government employees receive substantially higher compensation than similarly skilled workers in the private sector. The report’s methodology and conclusions were broadly similar to previous studies from both The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. Richwine, Biggs, and Heritage’s James Sherk concluded:
Federal compensation should be scaled back and reallocated to reward the most productive federal workers. The government should replace the seniority system with performance pay, paying higher salaries to good workers without guaranteeing raises for mediocre performers.
Government unions worked hard to re-elect President Obama, and now they’re expecting a payout at the expense of taxpayers. Any suggestion that their pay is below market levels is completely false.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
More Reasons why the Reelection of Obama will Disasterous for America and Especially for the Middle Class....
Can Hostess Save the Twinkies from the Union?
Taking down the Twinkie. Clogging Wal-Mart parking lots on Black Friday. Messing with a major airport on the day before Thanksgiving.
If unions are trying to be more popular with the American people, they’re doing it wrong. Americans have gone crazy over the possible loss of Twinkies, Ho Ho’s, Ding Dongs, and Hostess CupCakes after the company said it was shutting down because its bakers’ union opted to walk off the job for a strike. People are already asking exorbitant prices on eBay for boxes of the packaged treats.
Hostess and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) have agreed to enter mediation with a bankruptcy judge, who said there are “serious questions as to the logic behind the decision to strike.” More than 18,000 jobs are at stake.
A Washington Post blogger says that “The AFL-CIO plans to try to turn this into a ‘teachable moment’ and a ‘national discussion.’” Union membership has been declining in the private sector, and the groups are desperate to reverse that trend. But shutting down one of America’s beloved brands certainly isn’t going to win lots of friends.
Obviously, poor management helped get Hostess to this point, and contested payouts for managers are causing controversy. Megan McArdle explains that paying incentives to managers to stay on during a rough bankruptcy transition isn’t unusual—it’s hard to convince people to stay and steer a sinking ship. Unfortunately, sometimes that means senior leaders could try to take advantage of this situation to get more money for themselves on the way down.
But McArdle reports that the current management “opened the books to the unions, paid senior management virtually nothing, and tried to cut deals that would save the company and salvage something of the grossly underfunded multi-employer pension plans of which they were a part.” The new managers did everything unions typically ask for in such situations.
It was enough to satisfy the Teamsters, who also represent employees involved in distributing the products. They came to a deal with the company to continue work.
Yet the bakers walked out. Their union didn't file any objections to the bankruptcy plan when the judge proposed it in August. Instead, the union’s leaders called for a strike. The strike was authorized with a voice vote—a public vote in the union halls—and the union leadership refused the Teamsters' request for a secret ballot vote on returning to work.
Why would the union do this? James Sherk, Heritage’s senior policy analyst in labor economics, says:
Either the union leadership was (a) utterly incompetent, or (b) was willing to sacrifice its members' jobs at Hostess in order to send a message to other firms that it would play hardball and they should not ask for concessions. Either way, it was not looking out for its members at Hostess.
Hostess is just the latest in the upward trend of labor strikes. After falling for decades, the number of strikes in the U.S. is climbing. In 2009, there were five major work stoppages (involving 1,000 or more employees). In 2011, there were 19.
Even when workers don’t walk off the job, unions are looking to cause chaos. A union-backed group is planning to stage protests at Wal-Mart stores on Black Friday. And unionized workers with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are planning a protest at Los Angeles International Airport tomorrow—one of the busiest travel days of the year.
The aviation company in that case says the majority of its workers voted last year to leave the union. “Our employees are now earning more per hour than under SEIU and are happy to be free of them,” said Joe Conlon, Aviation Safeguards’ regional vice president.
Many Hostess employees probably wish they had the same opportunity to vote. However, they never got that choice. Once they’re in, unions remain certified indefinitely; they do not have to stand for re-election. Instead, new workers must accept the union’s representation as a condition of employment. Just 7 percent of private-sector union members voted to belong to their union.
The only way to get rid of a union is by filing for decertification—an extremely difficult legal process. Had Hostess workers gotten to vote, they might have opted for a more reasonable representative who would actually look out for them. This is why union representation should be voluntary—or, at the very least, unions should have to regularly stand for re-election.
Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is moving in the opposite direction. His National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently changed the rules so that unions can cherry-pick who gets to vote in union elections. This will allow unions to disenfranchise those workers who don’t want to take the risk of strikes bankrupting their company, too.
When the President returned to Washington after the election, one of his first meetings was with union leaders. After spending heavily in the election, the unions are keen to use the political process to boost their ranks. Their membership may be dropping, but union power in Washington is growing.
Taking down the Twinkie. Clogging Wal-Mart parking lots on Black Friday. Messing with a major airport on the day before Thanksgiving.
If unions are trying to be more popular with the American people, they’re doing it wrong. Americans have gone crazy over the possible loss of Twinkies, Ho Ho’s, Ding Dongs, and Hostess CupCakes after the company said it was shutting down because its bakers’ union opted to walk off the job for a strike. People are already asking exorbitant prices on eBay for boxes of the packaged treats.
Hostess and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) have agreed to enter mediation with a bankruptcy judge, who said there are “serious questions as to the logic behind the decision to strike.” More than 18,000 jobs are at stake.
A Washington Post blogger says that “The AFL-CIO plans to try to turn this into a ‘teachable moment’ and a ‘national discussion.’” Union membership has been declining in the private sector, and the groups are desperate to reverse that trend. But shutting down one of America’s beloved brands certainly isn’t going to win lots of friends.
Obviously, poor management helped get Hostess to this point, and contested payouts for managers are causing controversy. Megan McArdle explains that paying incentives to managers to stay on during a rough bankruptcy transition isn’t unusual—it’s hard to convince people to stay and steer a sinking ship. Unfortunately, sometimes that means senior leaders could try to take advantage of this situation to get more money for themselves on the way down.
But McArdle reports that the current management “opened the books to the unions, paid senior management virtually nothing, and tried to cut deals that would save the company and salvage something of the grossly underfunded multi-employer pension plans of which they were a part.” The new managers did everything unions typically ask for in such situations.
It was enough to satisfy the Teamsters, who also represent employees involved in distributing the products. They came to a deal with the company to continue work.
Yet the bakers walked out. Their union didn't file any objections to the bankruptcy plan when the judge proposed it in August. Instead, the union’s leaders called for a strike. The strike was authorized with a voice vote—a public vote in the union halls—and the union leadership refused the Teamsters' request for a secret ballot vote on returning to work.
Why would the union do this? James Sherk, Heritage’s senior policy analyst in labor economics, says:
Either the union leadership was (a) utterly incompetent, or (b) was willing to sacrifice its members' jobs at Hostess in order to send a message to other firms that it would play hardball and they should not ask for concessions. Either way, it was not looking out for its members at Hostess.
Hostess is just the latest in the upward trend of labor strikes. After falling for decades, the number of strikes in the U.S. is climbing. In 2009, there were five major work stoppages (involving 1,000 or more employees). In 2011, there were 19.
Even when workers don’t walk off the job, unions are looking to cause chaos. A union-backed group is planning to stage protests at Wal-Mart stores on Black Friday. And unionized workers with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are planning a protest at Los Angeles International Airport tomorrow—one of the busiest travel days of the year.
The aviation company in that case says the majority of its workers voted last year to leave the union. “Our employees are now earning more per hour than under SEIU and are happy to be free of them,” said Joe Conlon, Aviation Safeguards’ regional vice president.
Many Hostess employees probably wish they had the same opportunity to vote. However, they never got that choice. Once they’re in, unions remain certified indefinitely; they do not have to stand for re-election. Instead, new workers must accept the union’s representation as a condition of employment. Just 7 percent of private-sector union members voted to belong to their union.
The only way to get rid of a union is by filing for decertification—an extremely difficult legal process. Had Hostess workers gotten to vote, they might have opted for a more reasonable representative who would actually look out for them. This is why union representation should be voluntary—or, at the very least, unions should have to regularly stand for re-election.
Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is moving in the opposite direction. His National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently changed the rules so that unions can cherry-pick who gets to vote in union elections. This will allow unions to disenfranchise those workers who don’t want to take the risk of strikes bankrupting their company, too.
When the President returned to Washington after the election, one of his first meetings was with union leaders. After spending heavily in the election, the unions are keen to use the political process to boost their ranks. Their membership may be dropping, but union power in Washington is growing.
Why would Anyone Believe Anything Fed to CBS?
Why would anyone believe anything that is leaked to CBS???...they haven't even been carrying the story and would report any lie or propaganda that was given to them without even questioning....If it was real it would have been fed to Fox and vetted there before being reported on... I have NO CONFIDENCE that this is anything other than more rhetoric from the Obama gang of goons.....we already know that Clapper is an absolute IDIOT....It's time for a special prosecutor to get the bottom of this once and for all....It's NOT OK to play politics with Americans lives and national security.
Sources: DNI cut "al Qaeda" reference from Benghazi talking points, CIA, FBI signed off
(CBS News) WASHINGTON -
CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the unclassified talking points given to Amassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack - with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes.
There has been considerable discussion about who made the changes to the talking points that Rice stuck to in her television appearances on Sept. 16 (video), five days after the attack that killed American Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, and three other U.S. nationals.
Republicans have accused her of making misleading statements by referring to the assault as a "spontaneous" demonstration by extremists. Some have suggested she used the terminology she did for political reasons.
However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too "tenuous" to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence. CIA Director David Petraeus, however, told Congress he agreed to release the information -- the reference to al Qaeda -- in an early draft of the talking points, which were also distributed to select lawmakers. "The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level -- which Rice, as a member of President Obama's cabinet, would have been privy to. An intelligence source says the talking points were passed from the CIA to the DNI, where the substantive edits were made, and then to FBI, which made more edits as part of "standard procedure".
The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He did ultimately review the points before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 15. They were compiled the day before.
Brennan says her source wouldn't confirm who in the agency suggested the final edits which were signed off on by all intelligence agencies.
Another source, a senior U.S. official familiar with the drafting of the talking points, tells CBS News the "controversy this word choice has caused came as a surprise."
"The points were not, as has been insinuated by some, edited to minimize the role of extremists, diminish terrorist affiliations, or play down that this was an attack," the official tells CBS News, adding that there were "legitimate intelligence and legal issues to consider, as is almost always the case when explaining classified assessments publicly."
"Most people understand that saying 'extremists' were involved in a direct assault on the mission isn't shying away from the idea of terrorist involvement," added the official. "Because of the various elements involved in the attack, the term extremist was meant to capture the range of participants."
Several militant groups have been eyed as likely culprits, including the Islamic extremist militia Ansar al Sharia, which was based in Eastern Libya and enjoyed huge power in Benghazi before the attack. Gen. Carter Ham, chief of the U.S. Africa Command, said recently that there were "linkages" between al Qaeda and some of the people who attacked the consulate and the CIA annex about a mile away.
CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, himself a former Deputy Director of the DNI's analysis division, explained on "CBS This Morning" in the weeks after the Benghazi attack why it has been so difficult for American intelligence agents to clearly identify and label the suspects in the assault.
"We want a wiring diagram," Miller said. "We want an organized picture: 'It was al Qaeda who ordered it, it was Ansar al Sharia who carried it out, it was this group that assisted. The problem is, the lines have blurred between those groups and their members. Ansar al Sharias are popping up in places like Benghazi, but also in Yemen, also in Tunisia, in all these countries -- and they're not al Qaeda, but they are reading from the al Qaeda narrative and they are being influenced by people who are formerly influential extremists in al Qaeda."
"The actual truth is, the picture isn't that clear, but we can piece it together, and that's not satisfying to people who are used to saying, 'You can attach this attack to that group,'" said Miller.
Sources: DNI cut "al Qaeda" reference from Benghazi talking points, CIA, FBI signed off
(CBS News) WASHINGTON -
CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the unclassified talking points given to Amassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack - with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes.
There has been considerable discussion about who made the changes to the talking points that Rice stuck to in her television appearances on Sept. 16 (video), five days after the attack that killed American Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, and three other U.S. nationals.
Republicans have accused her of making misleading statements by referring to the assault as a "spontaneous" demonstration by extremists. Some have suggested she used the terminology she did for political reasons.
However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too "tenuous" to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence. CIA Director David Petraeus, however, told Congress he agreed to release the information -- the reference to al Qaeda -- in an early draft of the talking points, which were also distributed to select lawmakers. "The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level -- which Rice, as a member of President Obama's cabinet, would have been privy to. An intelligence source says the talking points were passed from the CIA to the DNI, where the substantive edits were made, and then to FBI, which made more edits as part of "standard procedure".
The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He did ultimately review the points before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 15. They were compiled the day before.
Brennan says her source wouldn't confirm who in the agency suggested the final edits which were signed off on by all intelligence agencies.
Another source, a senior U.S. official familiar with the drafting of the talking points, tells CBS News the "controversy this word choice has caused came as a surprise."
"The points were not, as has been insinuated by some, edited to minimize the role of extremists, diminish terrorist affiliations, or play down that this was an attack," the official tells CBS News, adding that there were "legitimate intelligence and legal issues to consider, as is almost always the case when explaining classified assessments publicly."
"Most people understand that saying 'extremists' were involved in a direct assault on the mission isn't shying away from the idea of terrorist involvement," added the official. "Because of the various elements involved in the attack, the term extremist was meant to capture the range of participants."
Several militant groups have been eyed as likely culprits, including the Islamic extremist militia Ansar al Sharia, which was based in Eastern Libya and enjoyed huge power in Benghazi before the attack. Gen. Carter Ham, chief of the U.S. Africa Command, said recently that there were "linkages" between al Qaeda and some of the people who attacked the consulate and the CIA annex about a mile away.
CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, himself a former Deputy Director of the DNI's analysis division, explained on "CBS This Morning" in the weeks after the Benghazi attack why it has been so difficult for American intelligence agents to clearly identify and label the suspects in the assault.
"We want a wiring diagram," Miller said. "We want an organized picture: 'It was al Qaeda who ordered it, it was Ansar al Sharia who carried it out, it was this group that assisted. The problem is, the lines have blurred between those groups and their members. Ansar al Sharias are popping up in places like Benghazi, but also in Yemen, also in Tunisia, in all these countries -- and they're not al Qaeda, but they are reading from the al Qaeda narrative and they are being influenced by people who are formerly influential extremists in al Qaeda."
"The actual truth is, the picture isn't that clear, but we can piece it together, and that's not satisfying to people who are used to saying, 'You can attach this attack to that group,'" said Miller.
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