Kansas City Pension Meeting
Donald Trump does not insult the other people running for president nearly enough.
I mean that over the past few years, the Republican Party has deemed it sufficient for its politicians to have signed Grover Norquist's pledge not to raise taxes.
That's all the people need: a pledge not to raise taxes.
The signatures on those pledges require not sense of honor nor dishonor, no understanding nor misunderstanding, no intelligence nor stupidity, no religion nor atheism; just a signature.
In short, a show of ideology and an intemperate attitude has been substituted for governance. There are no ideas, no programs, no plans, and even no indication by the white mainstream politicians that anything is amiss.
Let's consider some things:
(1)
The promises of pensions will be ripped up and destroyed, not only Social Security, but private plans also.
a)Zero Hedge
"I Guess It's Food Stamps": 400,000 Americans In Jeopardy As Giant Pension Fund Plans 50% Benefit Cuts
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/18/2016 23:56 -0500
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-02-18/i-guess-its-food-stamps-400000-americans-jeopardy-giant-pension-fund-plans-50-benefi
Dale Dorsey isn’t happy.
After working 33 years, he’s facing a 55% cut to his pension benefits, a blow which he says will “cripple” his family and imperil the livelihood of his two children, one of whom is in the fourth grade and one of whom is just entering high school.
Dorsey attended a town hall meeting in Kansas City on Tuesday where retirees turned out for a discussion on “massive” pension cuts proposed by the Central States Pension Fund, which covers 400,000 participants, and which will almost certainly go broke within the next decade.
“A controversial 2014 law allowed the pension to propose [deep] cuts, many of them by half or more, as a way to perhaps save the fund,” The Kansas City Star wrote earlier this week adding that “two much smaller pensions also have sought similar relief under the law, and still more pensions are significantly underfunded.”
“What’s happening to us is a microcosm of what’s going to happen to the rest of the pensions in the United States,” said Jay Perry, a longtime Teamsters member...
and
b)The Kansas City Star
Solution needed to cuts proposed for retirees depending on Central States Pension Fund
Lewis Diuguid Feb. 18, 2016
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/lewis-diuguid/article61160257.html
People who work all of their lives and then retire, plan diligently and bank on receiving a fixed income that will enable them to live a comfortable life. There isn’t a lot of wiggle room for unexpected expenses or extravagances.
That’s why hundreds of people turned out Tuesday at Bartle Hall to protest a controversial 2014 law, allowing pension cuts by half or more covering Teamsters and other unions such as the International Association of Machinists. Recipients of the Central States Pension Fund have a right to be outraged over seeing a large chunk of their promised retirement income possibly vanish as soon as July 1.
[...]
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat...
...explained that the law was passed in 2014 as an add-on to a budget bill with no committee debates or hearings. He is seeking alternatives because the proposed cuts put $3 billion in Missouri pensions at risk. He also said he wants an investigation into how the Central States Pension Fund has been handled...
This will kill off the retired. It is like putting the elderly on an ice floe of white papers and giving them a push into the Arctic night.
Now the middle classes -or what is left of them - are to be destroyed by automation and the extensive use of robotics. Ask the people at Boeing.
We have already destroyed manufacturing by globalizing the factories oversea, and Ford recently announced it is building a new plant in Mexico, partly because the United Auto Workers had been successful in negotiating a new contract for its members.
These are major problems. Yet what do we do? We sign pledges promising not to raise taxes, we call out "Liar!" at a State of the Union address, we obsess over birth certificates, and we get apoplectic when a Supreme Court justice dies and the President has the temerity to follow the Constitution and appoint a successor.
Our political leadership class is empty.
It is empty men and empty women.
Their politics is trivial ideology, their religion is compulsion and rote, their ability to identify and address social problems is non-existent, when they do pass laws, they pass laws that cripple the lives of retirees and workers.
When you are completely out of touch with reality, the society suffers.
How much are our politicians out of touch?
Remember John Edwards? He thought he could parley a devoted wife dying of cancer and an on-going love affair with a campaign worker into a really effective presidential campaign! Now that is seriously out of touch with reality.
And he was supposed to be a friend of the little guy.
When you have created a vast group of disaffected people from whom you have stripped benefits and destroyed their means of living a good life, you will become prey to the demagogues.
Marie Antoinette and Children
When we cried that we and our children had no bread, Washington Republicans and Democrats have told us to use Food Stamps to buy cake to eat.
So far, Mr. Trump has not told us to eat cake.
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