Miliary Ain't What it Used to Be

The Bastards!!

Today I found out that over the next 10 years I can expect to see a 10% decrease in my military retirement. In the recently passed (House of Reps) Ryan/Murray budget plan is going to reduce the cost of living adjustments for military retirees to CPI less 1% until I turn 62.

And it could very well be more than a 10% reduction as the decrease will be compounded over the years.

Stunning on two fronts here.

First: Ryan!! Good grief, what a heartbreaker. Two years ago when he was Romney's running mate I really though he had grassroots conservative chops. I think we all did. He said all the right things about smaller government and liberty. He was what the ticket needed (supposedly) to overcome the deserved RINO tag affixed to Romney. He was even looking like a viable candidate in 2016.

But it looks like that wasn't exactly true.

Secondly: Senator (D) Patty Murray. She is from my neck of the woods. She made sneaker footwear in the rarefied air of politics famous before that nutjob in Texas was even out of grade school. But as you may have noted, she is a democrat through and through. I would never vote for her in a million years. And I say this even with the full knowledge that she chairs the veterans committee in the Senate and has for a few years. As far as I can tell she has been a strong advocate for veterans, but generally speaking, I'm not a single issue voter.

But this budget deal screws us veterans. I know that a lot of folks out their view our retirement as some sort of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But as a retired E-8 (second highest enlisted rank) after 27.5 years, it not even close enough to live on, especially with a mortgage and two teenage boys. I feel that Sen Murray has really let us down

NOTE: while receiving about 70% of my pay sounds like a lot to those who did not serve, I'm actually bringing home about 65% each month what I made every two weeks. My actual take home retirement pay is now about 40% of what i was making while on active duty. While active duty I didn't pay for health and dental and paid very little to cover my family (it was once ALL free). My life insurance payments for $400,000 benefit was about $20.00 a month is now about $145.00. If I died while on active duty my wife would have received a monthly survivor benefit. To keep that now that I am retired we pay over $180.00 a month. One more thing to consider. Not all of us fall into great mid-level or higher government jobs. I worked retail and drove a truck for two years before I started working for the railroad. Don't get me wrong, having the retirement pay is nice and it does a great job of supplementing the work I have now. But to have 10% cut from my earnings over the next 10 years is going to hurt. Especially when I really do retire. That 10% loss will NOT be made up.

And while this new budget does ask the government civilian work force to start paying more into their retirement earnings, it grandfathers current civilians. Only new hires will be expected to pay more into their retirement accounts. This cut to military retirement pay will impact both current active duty AND retired military personnel.

California Pensions and Worthless Recovery (UPDATE)

A couple of posts worth a read over at one of my bloggers-in-arms, Doug, at Director Blue.

The first one is school administrator pensions being paid by the state of California to public school administrators. See more information on the state of spending in California at "UPDATE" below.

When I first look at the post, my eyes went directly to the chart. The thing that stood out to me was there were several retirees who are actually earning more in retirement than they earned while actually on the job.  Come to find out, once I read the text, that this situation is not uncommon: one third of the retirees are earning more than while employed.

I just hope that when this all comes crashing down, we all aren’t going to be held responsible for bailing out these ridiculous pension plans.

Make sure you click through the link to the full story provided by Doug. I have to give props to the Sacramento Bee, a notoriously left leaning publication, for running this expose.

The second post is a great summation of just how wonderful of an economic president Obama has turned out to be. NOT!

Many links provided that show just how bad this guy has done leading us out of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and how his policies have actually stunted the recovery.

Quick look:

-Our debt will be 101% of GDP by 2021. This is Greece-like.

-By 2035 our interest payments will 9% of the entire economy, currently 1%. Where are the cuts or additional revenue going to come from? Talk about a killer to the economy.

-The glitch in Obama that adds 3 million middle class to the roles of Medicaid. I blogged about this the other day. I guess we have found out about the bill now that it is passed.

-The collapse of Medicare and Social Security. You know, a few years ago, President Bush looked at privatizing Social Security and was slammed by the liberal press and democrats. I wonder if people are starting to relook this. Yes, it is true that private investments are not a guarantee, but are you going to collect SS in 25 years if things don’t change?

-The continuing downturn in the housing market. The nest egg that people were counting on has nearly disappeared.

-Job creation has been pathetic. Here is a story from my local area. So many jobs have been lost since the start of this recession that it will take years to recover. Normal recoveries have a growth near 9%, we current stand a little less than 2%, which does not grow jobs.

I really hope the folks that vote this time around finally get their heads out of their rear ends and send this president packing. He is over his head and is not good for America, at least not a growing America.

UPDATE

Sister Toldjah has a great little post about how state employees continue to feed at the trough of taxpayer money despite the current financial crises besieging the state of California. Good video!

Most Ignorant Politican List (This Could Go On Forever)

Today over at the Daily Beast is a story about the “Most Ignorant Politicians”.  After reviewing the article, I would like to give a little feedback on what I read. As I have said before, I do love lists.

First of all, any ‘dumb politician’ list that does not have Al Franken on it should be dismissed immediately.

I also must take the Daily Beast to task as the list is a little unbalanced. The list of 10 politicians includes six Republicans and four democrats. Certainly they could have found at least one more democrat for the list among the 200 or so currently serving in Washington.  I already mentioned Al Franken.  What about Chuck Schumer, who wasn’t terribly bright to leave his phone line open while telling staffers and others how he was going to marginalize the GOP as “extreme”.

Wisconsin Unions Scramble to Get New Contracts in Place

In the state of Wisconsin a law takes effect the day after the Secretary of State publishes it. Under the law, the Sec of State has 10 days to publish the law once it has been signed into law.  The current Wisconsin Sec of State is Doug La Follette is a democrat who opposed the law and now is dragging his feet get the law in place, using the full 10 days, which is allowing unions and school districts to get new deals in place.  BUT, what is most interesting is many of the new contracts have several of the provisions Gov Walker has called for to help schools overcome a sharp decrease in funding that will be coming from the state. Several contracts call for increased employee contributions for both retirement funding and health care and small raises. (Read full story at Seattle Times)

There are also a few cases of contracts being awarded that are more generous then the ‘guidelines’ Walker has discussed.  These counties are going to pay for this short-sightedness in the long run. I for one do not feel sorry for them, although I do feel for general public in those counties that are paying more in the newly signed contracts.

Weekend Links

LOCAL:

1. King County (Seattle) has seen a slight uptick in the unemployment rate from Feb to Mar. As goes King County, so goes the rest of the state.  Since our region was probably hit last in the “Great Recession” we’ll also probably be last to feel the slow economic recovery. Overall, the unemployment rate has improved slightly over the past year.

2. The Washington State Legislature has tried in vain for several years to raise taxes on us but have failed miserably every time as residents have defeated legislation efforts with initiative. But I think Olympia has finally found a way to raise some tax revenue that won’t upset the residents too much. They are going after the Canadians.

3. While this news is terribly surprising to me, the man arrested for attempting to bomb the MLK Day parade in Spokane earlier this year has ad links to a white supremacist group. Kevin William Harpham, a former Fort Lewis soldier, has been arrested by authorities in Spokane and has been linked to the Neo-Nazi group, the National Alliance.

Seattle School Board to Fire Superintendent

Over at Big Government there is a story about some possible shady dealing between the school superintendent and the unions, which are linked through a health care provider that is the one of the most expensive providers around.

Well it looks like Wisconsin is not the only state to suffer from possible shady dealings at a high level.  Current Seattle Schools Superintendent, Maria Goodloe-Johnson is likely to be fired tonight by the Seattle School board after investigations revealed the misuse of public funds and mismanagement.

The investigations revealed:

A lack of management oversight and accountability allowed potentially fraudulent activity to persist for years without intervention;

Missed opportunities on the part of staff – in varying roles and at varying levels – to keep the school board properly informed;

A workplace culture within some parts of the Seattle Public Schools that caused fear of reprisal among employees who otherwise might report concerns;

Management’s failure to act upon employee concerns that are reported. (Source: Seattle Times)

Based on all that I read about this situation (began about two weeks ago), there are no formal charges of corruption that are to be brought forth. It seems that the school board is happy to hang their hat on the issue of mismanagement and leave it at that.  I would be curious to see if any of those businesses that received money from the Seattle school district are in any way linked to the soon to be fired superintendent. Smoke and fire go together, the last I heard.

SEIU Protest in Washington State?

Budget cuts in the State of Washington are starting to be felt. Over 17,000 “poor people” are about to be cut from the rolls of the state’s Basic Health Plan. Most of those dropped are at or above 133% of the federal income guidelines or have not established legal residency.

In light of all that is going on in Wisconsin and likely to happen in Ohio in the coming days, I wonder how many of Washington State workers would be willing to up their Health Care contributions to keep these other folks on the Basic Health Plan.