As I crawled through various national new outlets this morning, this headline jumped out at me. After reading the article, one thing struck me. Who wouldn’t argue against cuts in benefits provided to their industry?
Why does this author seem to insist that veterans don’t have the right to fight back against pay cuts and reduced benefits? I do think that there is some debate to be had about military pay and benefits, but to imply that veterans are “selfish” for fighting against cuts is absurd and unfair to all of our men and women in uniform. Why would it be acceptable for a labor union to argue for better pay, and yet not acceptable for our veterans to do so?
There are actually many valid questions and concerns raised in this piece, but they are all stained by the underlying tone that it is, for whatever reason, unpatriotic of veterans to demand good benefits and compensation. While there is a debate to be had about defense spending and military compensation, vilifying veterans for taking part in that debate is not the way to do it.
–Sam Hatcher
It's greedy government unions that are bringing America to its knees.
-3/31/10, postalemployeenetwork.com “Postmaster Potter has made headway in reducing work hours and the costs of benefits and pensions, but the average postal employee still makes $83,000 in salary and benefits a year, placing postal workers among the highest-paid government employees.”
-8/13/10 USA Today: Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
-8/15/12 USA Today/Gannet: The average federal pension pays $32,824; state and local government pensions average $24,373; the average military pension is $22,492; Exxon Mobil Corporation, a top pension-paying company, pays an average of $18,250.
-12/17/13 http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/2013/12/dc-far-outpaces-nation-in-personal.html
In terms of pure wages, D.C., on a per capita basis, was 79 percent higher than the national average in 2012. Employee benefits were 102 percent higher in D.C. than the U.S. average in 2012.
It is inevitable that social welfare states decline:
5/1/12 New York Times:
-In Spain, trade unions estimated that more than one million people had protested in 80 cities
-Spain has slipped into a recession for the second time in three years, joining 11 other European countries officially in recession
-Labor unions have warned of mounting unrest if the center-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy pushes ahead with austerity measures to meet its budget-deficit targets while 5.6 million people — almost a quarter of Spain’s work force — are unemployed.
-The German Federation of Trade Unions said more than 400,000 members had turned out for protests and marches over austerity measures
6/1/12 breitbart/AP: “Eurozone unemployment stays at record 11%”
Unemployment in Spain is 21.7%; in Greece it’s 16.1%; Ireland, 14.7%.
6/22/12 Daily Mail, London: “Starving Greeks queue for food in their thousands as debt-wracked country finally forms a coalition government… but how long will it last? Desperate Greeks lined up for free food handouts yesterday as a government was finally formed. The alliance vowed to renegotiate crippling bailout terms in order to ease the hardship faced by citizens.”
7/19/12 BBC: Spain anti-austerity protests end in unrest. Protesters set alight rubbish bins as riot police charged them in the city centre, near the parliament building. Public sector workers crowded the streets of Madrid, Barcelona and several other cities, chanting slogans against government "robbery".
Among those protesting were firefighters and police officers, as well as health and education workers.
It took the USSR 70 years to crumble. The democrats will see to it that we "get there" in a much shorter period of time.
opensecrets [a company that tracks campaign contributions as reported by the Federal Elections Commission]:
“Public employee unions [including government teachers] represent workers at every level of government – federal, state and local.” They gave 94% of their political contributions to democrats.