Wisconsin Recall Results
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-06-06/wisconsin-recall-results
Governor Scott Walker survived an attempt to oust him from office. Wisconsin voters also gave him a place in history: It was the first time a U.S. governor has won a recall election. The recall campaign came about after the Republican governor stripped away collective bargaining rights for public workers. Walker's win was a blow for Democrats and unions. Republicans say their victory shows voters want leaders who will make tough fiscal decisions. Whether the Wisconsin results are a bellwether for the 2012 presidential race remains to be seen.
Guests
Chris Cillizza
author of The Fix, a Washington Post politics blog, managing editor of PostPolitics.com and author of the book, "The Gospel According to The Fix."
Molly Ball
staff writer for The Atlantic.
Craig Gilbert
Washington bureau chief, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Douglas Belkin
reporter, The Wall Street Journal.
Comments
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Consider this: Most American jobs in the private sector are predatory and result in no net public good. They annoy, exploit, waste and pollute while enriching the most corrupt and ruthless element. At least the work public employees do mostly serves universal human needs. (Don't confuse public sector workers with politicians bought by oligarchs.)
pisces62 wrote:
"I really get tired of people saying public works retire at a certain age...."
Who was this in reply to, pisces?
ecgberht--I was not writing to you or about you. Just an opinion which had absolutely nothing to do with unions. Just paying 'people' to work period. What is it that we want the world but give a rock for the pleasure? i don't get it. Maybe, I believe in fairness. Their packages are not that great. i do not care what the stats say. I am in a position to actually see comparable pay. A sister with a college degree is a public worker, HR head. She makes $20,000.00 less a yer than one here, not the head and her benefits are not as good as ours and she has not had a raise in 7+ yrs. When I started my job, over 25 yrs ago, I could conceivable get as a raise up to 10% taking performance, attendance and etc. into the mix. I averaged about 9% and now it is across the board 2.5% for all. RX's were free, health insurance was free. No longer for either. Private sector.
Pancake,
Yes, correct, mostly, though statistics I've read date the decline in wages to the Reagan years. I was still in school when Carter was in. In my personal experience, the Clinton years were the only years when average working people could actually get ahead. The only time in my adult working life when you felt like you could actually have an impact on how your life turned out, though I was absolutely apalled when he got behind NAFTA. Comes BUSH, and my husband now makes less than he made in 2000. Also must mention that I live in Washington DC and the economy and real estate here hasn't taken NEAR the hit much of the rest of the country has.
ecgberht--I just read the post and put out a general statement. I cannot remember who wrote it but it is further back.
avintageyear wrote:
"Remember Bush's Soc Sec privatization and how wonderful that was going to be?"
Yes, I remember. Apparently you don't. Under the Bush plan the actual DOLLARS would be put into an account whether you could get your hands on it or not is irrelevant. The relevant part is that Teddy Kennedy couldn't get HIS hands on it, which is why he was so adamantly and dishonestly opposed to it. ("You'll be gambling with your SS!").
Do you understand the difference between actual money and an IOU? An IOU is worth exactly the value of the paper it is printed on when it is time to collect and the ower doesn't have the money to pay you.
Sad, YOU suggest a person should get something for nothing i.e. non-dues-payers should get the same bennies that dues-payers garner via tough negotiation.
Your logic is as faulty as your spelling "heard" (sic) not "herd" ..... "labour" (sic) - a British version?
Walker played bait-and-switch in his first campaign - said NO intent to assault wage bargaining - ended up trying to cut pensions. The infamous video showed his real intent - "divide and conquer" not only public but private unions - gave away his sneaky dastardly real self.
Regarding the ratio of bennies in public vs private, you take a simplistic approach: e.g. totally ignored facts like differences in required (expensive) education, differences between professional wages vs unskilled.
IF you had a Masters/PhD (years, debt, money on those degrees), would you expect to be paid less or more? I am not talking about license branch clerks or road repair workers.
Regarding the actual bennies, a teacher with 32 years of service with a Masters gets a pension of about $1,900/month and pays $860/month for a single health package, $1,908month for a Family. At $1900 a month divided by YOUR 4.5 ratio means private sector folks are getting only $423 a month in pension. SORRY - your stats are far away from reality. BTW, teachers' health packages are private ones (especially since school districts negotiate with private insurers to purchase them) - co-pays, deductibles, lifetime limits, annual limits etc. - not "lavish". NOTE: unions are not the ones who obtain insurance or control hiring or firing - that's done by school boards and principals; unions negotiate for due process BEYOND contractual trial periods (e.g. 3 years' trial for a new teacher).
"IF I knew the facts" ----- Ha! enjoy smoking the truth..... or whatever YOU are currently toking. IF TEACHING IS SO CUSHY, WHY ARE YOU NOT A TEACHER??
pisces62 wrote:
"i do not care what the stats say."
These were BLS numbers. You are presenting a few anecdotes.
I'll try to go back and find that earlier post. Thanks for the clarification.
Ecgberht: not sure which "Wisconsinite" you are referring to, please clarify.
ecgberht--It is not an anecdote when you know the people. it is an anecdote when you quote someone. When you have 'hands' on a problem or a situaltion, it is acceptable as a fact and not , well I read...... Keep reading. My family is not an anecdote. They are statistics that are provable. I just walk down to the justice center, stand in the hall and ask anyone. You read stats someone else put together and I am not denying a lot of it, just giving mine and voice you can see and hear.
avintageyear,
Yes, it was you. When you said, "I'm a Democrat, work in the private sector, have friends with government jobs, and I can tell you first hand, these people are living in a parallel reality. They are not stupid people but they truly cannot comprehend the fears and concerns people in the private sector have."
Perhaps I mistook your meaning, and based on subsequent posts, perhaps I did.
LibVet--Another thing they do not get. here, in Ohio, teachers and other public workers do not get Medicare PT A when they retire. We in the private industry do. They do not get Social Security. Their pensions are their Social Security into which they do pay just as we pay into ours. No 401K's to supplement their pensions, either, unless they open a retirement account of their own. Their out of pocket can be very high including deductibles. Their healthcare is self-pay and not insured. which mean the claims are paid according to the the dictates of the states/counties/municipalities. if not for a federal mandate, most would not cover mammograms.
LibVet, are you suggesting there are still private sector pensions? Not that I'm aware of. Plus, private sector pension funds can monkeyed with, and are, legally, all the time. A good read on this is the book "Retirement Heist" by Eileen somebody (can remember her last name), came out Fall 2011.
Personal anecdotes: brother-in-law put 34 years in with Bethlehem Steel, monthly pension should be $4700, instead he's getting $1400/mo through PBGC. My husband starts a very very small pension next month from a large corp he spent 15 years with, but every year a letter comes listing the % of benefits they can cover with current assets in the plan, as follows: 2010, 103%; 2011 89%; 2012, 87%. You get the picture, really gives you a feeling of security!
Regarding public pension plans: some are in better shape than others, but they've been permitted to operate for years and years under looser accounting rules-- in other words, how much the town, county, or state could get away with putting in each year-- than even Wall Street is permitted to use.
OK fine, so public pension plans are in trouble, as are private sector plans. But how is it OK for private sector employees' pensions to be wiped out/reduced when the plan goes bust, but NOT OK for public employees' pensions to be wiped out/reduced when the same thing happens? Instead, the government expects the taxpayer to pay more taxes to make up the diff... and I sense it is this sort of thing upon which the Walker recall turned...
ecgberht--NOW, to you. I remember the privitization President Bush spoke of. Acutal money in the bank. The same as Medicare before Reagan? Actual money in the bank. It should have been stipulated no president or any one could use it to balance the budget, which is didn't under Reagan. He had to go back after those roughly 25% across the board tax cuts 2 months after implementing them. Per economists after the economic failure of 2008, if it had been implemented, people would have lost every dime. Then what. Teachers and i know of 4, including my sister, lost upwards of $20,000 with the ENRON fiasco from their pensions. Some were about to retire and could not. i do not trust them with the way it is handled now. Free money to play with on Wall Street. Are you kidding me???? Lord knows I lost a lot in 2008 and for a good while after.
pisces62 wrote:
"It is not an anecdote when you know the people."
Well ... yeah, that's sort of the definition of an anecdote "a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident ". An anecdote is A SPECIFIC case. It may be quite valid but it can't be extrapolated to a larger population. That's the only point. pisces, I don't mean to disrespect your specific situation or your family at all. But statistics are statistics. If you don't trust the BLS, then that's a different matter, but, you can't generalize a specific case or even a few cases to the population.
As I have often pointed out here, anecdotes, especially with regard to political questions, are meant to play to the emotions. The classic example that I always think of is Louise Slaughter talking about the woman who had to wear her dead sister's false teeth as an argument for ACA when 1) Medicaid would cover her, and 2) ACA would not. It plays to the emotions. Statistics do not. They just present numerical facts. Now, Benjamin Disraeli said, There are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics. There's a nugget of truth to that, but as long as statistical measures are valid, reliable, and not taken out of context, they are the only decent measure we have.
avintageyear--What you don't seem to get, your husband and you will get Social Security. Here, in Ohio, if their pension plan is gutted, they get nothing. No social Security because they do not pay into it, just the pension plan. THAT IS their social security. What should they do, then. Starve? Get nothing? What? They also do not get Medicare Pt A which covers hospital, skilled nuring, etc. They would have to pay that out of pocket at $20K + for in hospital care or over $6k a month for skilled nursing if needed? What. that comes out of the pension, too. What should they do??
It's a shame that a couple of callers are so ignorant of just how offensive their comments were to others. One guy said corporate money bought this vote. A lady said the non-stop conservative radio talk shows influenced the outcome (conveniently disregarding the liberal cable TV shows, BTW). Both of these folks somehow magically possess an immunity to the influence of corp spending on elections and the constant barrage from radio talk show hosts (clearly their views haven't changed). Yet according to them others ARE influenced by these factors. How can that be? What superior quality do they possess that the rest of us yahoos lack so that we fall prey and have our postions altered while they are able to stand by their beliefs? Guess what, you misguided two -- we're all capable of free thought. If I think Obama has done a horrible job as President, corps and Hollywood elite donating more to his campaign won't change that. And conservative talk shows are on the air so much because there's an audience for it. People listen to what they agree with, not what they disagree with.
pisces62 wrote:
"Per economists after the economic failure of 2008, if it had been implemented, people would have lost every dime. "
Per which economist? Paul Krugman?!
Absolutely false. First, any funds deposited up until 2008 would have been cut approximately in half - not depleted entirely. Those losses are practically all recouped, as you seem to know.
"Then what. Teachers and i know of 4, including my sister, lost upwards of $20,000 with the ENRON fiasco from their pensions. Some were about to retire and could not. i do not trust them with the way it is handled now. Free money to play with on Wall Street. Are you kidding me???? Lord knows I lost a lot in 2008 and for a good while after".
Under the Bush plan, people nearing retirement would not have participated - they would have no money in a private account to lose. Anyone in their early 50's and younger could have participated and would have selected from a handful of very conservative investments in stocks and bonds. Investment in the U.S. stock market, beginning in youth has been the single best investment you could make for a secure retirement, bar none, for the past 70 years. Not government IOUs (read: T-bills).
The bottom line to this was, Congress would not let go of the slush-fund that is the Social Security program and they used every fear-tactic in the book to make sure their little piggy bank remained undisturbed.
Ecgberht: Regarding privatization of Soc Sec, Bush sold it as a way for people to "get a better return" for themselves than Soc Sec would give them. He made it sound like, if you were smarter than the average bear (and aren't we all?) and could beat the market, you would reap the benefits. That's the part that sucked NON-DETAIL-ORIENTED PEOPLE in. He conveniently left out the detail in his rah rah speeches that it was never going to really be "your" money, just another annuity. That detail appeared on page A26 of the Washington Post, and how many people read these days, much less the Post, much less actually turn the page after the jump and keep reading?
2 questions regarding the trust fund issue you raise:
How can the U.S. govt stiff Chinese holders of U.S. debt? Answer: Default
How can the U.S. govt stiff U.S. taxpayers who also hold U.S. debt by virtue of paying in to SS and Medicare all their working lives?
Answer: Legislation.
This is why Republicans are going after SS and Medicare. Legislation is easier than default, especially with a NON-DETAIL-ORIENTED public. We've paid in over $469,000 into SS and Medicare so far and we're still paying in. Trust me: we will. be. collecting. our. social security. Yes. We. Will.
ecgberht --Yet, you see why I would be wary of them? No, it will not affect me, now, at 63 but it can effect the future. Republicans never liked it or unions, calling it socialism. They never liked anything aginst their idea of the status quo. Including civil rights and I cannot for the life of me trust them, now.
Pisces62: regarding SS, remember in 2000 when Al Gore talked about a "Social Security lock box?" Anyone of voting age in 2000 that did anything other than vote for Gore-- voted for Bush, Nader, or didn't vote at all-- voted for this.
As for the EnrOFF travesty, Enron isn't the only company who made employees park their retirement money in company stock, Merrill Lynch did (and still does) the same thing. Merrill employees watched $1,000,000 in retirement funds (prior to 2008) turn into $50,000. Friend who'd left in 2002 regretted leaving but at least was able to pull her retirement $ out of Merrill stock. Since 2008, she realizes how lucky she was.
This is what comes from no regulation of the private sector.
Pisces62, just saw your comment regarding Ohio teachers pension, I live here in Washington DC, don't know details on how things work in Ohio. I do know that in this area, in Maryland especially, income, property, and user taxes are being raised to cover public pension fund deficits. For my private sector brother-in-law who now receives $1400/mo of the $4700/mo pension he earned over 34 yrs of service to Bethlehem Steel, no such bailout is-- or ever will be-- in the works.
Bush Soc. Sec privatization. The greatest plan for filling the pockets of money managers ever conceived. Give every worker in America 15% of their income to invest in whatever they choose. Who will be doing the actual purchase of the investment? Money managers. Then as the investment grew, they would of course get 10% as a "manager's fee" and another 1% "reporting fee" and whatever fee they could come up with. Try to regulate it and the conservatives would cry about how regulating it would crush the market, the free market must be allowed to be free to collect as many fees as it can.
Looking back how would the economic collapse of 2008 have affected the amount in you privatized Social Security account? Depends on a lot of factors but I bet 4 years later would not have gained back the losses you sustained in 2008. Nobody has in their 401k's.
Stupidest idea EVER!
avintageyear--i agree. I would love to see how much money the private sector pensions lost over the years. We had one major good year in the 90's i believe. When there was still a National City Bank Fund and those of us who diverted some money into it, cleaned up. Now, they are gone. What damage has been done by none caring big banks and Wall Street as long as they got theres. Everything is playing out like 1929 down to the inflated housing market bust.
avintageyear wrote:
"He made it sound like, if you were smarter than the average bear (and aren't we all?) and could beat the market, you would reap the benefits. That's the part that sucked NON-DETAIL-ORIENTED PEOPLE in. He conveniently left out the detail in his rah rah speeches that it was never going to really be "your" money, just another annuity."
If that's the case, avintageyear, you shouldn't have any trouble sourcing that. Sorry, "I read it in the Washington Post" does not count. I have read some pretty far left websites from 2004 in an attempt to find it - I couldn't. SOME plans have been suggested that would entail annuities, but I don't believe the Bush plan did.
"Trust me: we will. be. collecting. our. social security. Yes. We. Will."
Maybe. But personally, I've never counted on it. I once read somebody's post on a MB that said SS could never default - because all the FG had to do was print the money to cover the need.
How's THAT for non-detail-oriented!
avintageyear--They are not bailing out any one here, they were firing left and right and freezing salaries. They will pay more, themselves, towards their pensions and health care but that's about it. Kasich could not get a tax raise to invest in Microsoft, here, in this anti-tax climate.
pisces62 wrote:
"Republicans never liked it or unions, calling it socialism. They never liked anything aginst their idea of the status quo. Including civil rights"
Oops apparently they like it more than Democrats did. Sorry, gotta bring up those pesky "facts" again, pisces:
The original House version:
Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
Cloture in the Senate:
Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%–34%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%–18%)
The Senate version:
Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%–31%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%–18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:
Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%–37%)
Republican Party: 136-35 (80%–20%)
ecgberht:
Context please. What are these facts you are presenting?
Ecgberht: I did read it in the Washington Post, not on any website. It was a very detailed article, believe it was on a Sunday, in early 2005, some time after Bush's late Jan State of the Union speech. I'll try to find it. Don't know where else details of this might be as it (thankfully) never came to pass. I'm puzzled as to why the Washington Post doesn't "count." Also, what does MB stand for?
Many of your statements are simply false, Mike.
"15% of their income to invest in whatever they choose"
Investment choices would be severely limited.
"Money managers. Then as the investment grew, they would of course get 10% as a "manager's fee" and another 1% "reporting fee" and whatever fee they could come up with. "
Investment fees in these types of accounts are typically very small. That is the case in my personal 401K, for example. I generally choose among similar broad investments by FEE because the less the fees, on average, the better you do. Anything above about 1.5% (not 10%!) for me is too steep. If you are picking investments charging you a 10% fee, you're a sucker.
"Looking back how would the economic collapse of 2008 have affected the amount in you privatized Social Security account?"
If you were in your mid to late 50s it wouldn't have affected you at all (except in any investments outside of SS, of course). Now it is 4 years later and, even if you are now in your late 50's (a worst case scenario) you still have time to recoup, PLUS, you have fantastic gains on new money since you were still contributing when the DOW was in the 6000s. Do you people know anything about investing in stocks at all?