Since 2008 the economy has been in freefall. and thanks to the bailout of the big Wall Street banks, the auto industry, and high unemployment, the federal and state deficits have ballooned out of control. Not only has this happened right here in the USA; it's been happening all across Europe as well, especially in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. So with the deficit spiraling out of control, the only way we can get it cut down to size is to stop spending all this money and start cutting all these services. It's time for Americans to sacrifice, so why not start by giving up all your savings in your 401(k) plans and using that to pay down our collective debt?
What the f%&!!, you're probably saying right now. Are you f@#&^(% serious? I worked all my good years to save up my 401(k) so I could have something to retire on, and you want to take my money away from me, you a$$#^*? You'll take my money out of my cold dead hands, you worthless piece of $#!+!!!
Granted, even the current crop of GOP sociopaths most likely wouldn't stoop so low at this time in history and suggest we raid the average American worker's 401(k) plans to pay down the public debt. But if you're a public sector employee, this is already happening.
With the economy tanking four years ago, one of hardest hit employment sectors has been the public sector/government employees. States that were pulling in hefty tax revenue during the housing bubble now find themselves strapped for cash. With many of these states mandated into passing balanced budgets, serious cuts were made everywhere, first by cutting services to the elderly, the poor, and students, and then by imposing wage freezes or furloughing employees, but when those came up short, they renegotiated contracts with police, firefighters, and teachers to accept less money and pay more benefits out of their own pockets. In many states, when that didn't work, they started laying off said policemen, firefighters, and teachers. And now that those measures haven't worked, they are claiming poverty and coming after the pensions of not only their current public employees but those retirees who worked in the public sector and are currently receiving benefits. This has been happening all across the country in state and local governments, and while Democratic governors and mayors like those in New York and Illinois have been reluctantly asking for serious cuts, the Republicans have been all to eager to swing the axe to the state and local budgets.
Now I don't know about you, but when I see public employees, I don't see some faceless bureaucrat who sits on his but all day and eats Cheetos while getting paid on the public dole. I see a policeman trying to keep our streets safe from crime, a firefighter who puts outs potentially deadly blazes and rescues people from a flooded river, a teacher who despite all of the crap he/she puts up with from parents and administrators does her best to educate the next generation of citizens, and the garbage collector and water reclamation engineer who take our waste off the street and the crap out of our water to make it safe to drink. Much of the work they do is absolutely essential to a functioning society, yet because the economy is bad we are all to hasty to dismiss their contributions as non-essential.
I had the pleasure of attending the annual Green Festival yesterday in Chicago and seeing Van Jones speak to the crowd. Van Jones got right to the point about the current state of our economy and addressed the issue about the national debt being a huge manufactured myth. He mentioned how too many politicians and interest groups are screaming poverty and saying we need to cut basic services and not raise taxes on the "job creators", yet these same groups are funneling money and jobs overseas while still taking advantage of essential services like roads, highways, and sewer systems which were built on taxpayer expense. His argument is that the country's social contract is broken. In the past business CEO's may have complained about excessive taxation and regulation, but as long as they were taking advantage of public services and becoming successful companies in the process, they kept their mouths shut. Today, however, these same CEO's expect preferential treatment while shunting their responsibilities to the public. Van Jones talked about OWS and how this was a decent first step, yet he criticized the progressive movement in general for sort of sitting on their hands after the election of Obama in 2008. He said it may have been out of naivete, expecting that things would return to normal politically after the election and underestimating the blowback by the GOP and the Tea Party groups which sprung up afterward. Now maybe 40 years of conservatives shaping and framing the public discourse has gotten the progressive movement's muscles a little flabby, but we need to keep up the pressure.
Mr.Jones also made a good point about the progressive movements in the country's history which sprung up. We remember Abraham Lincoln for freeing the slaves, but Lincoln wasn't an abolitionist. In fact, he went out of his way to avoid the slavery issue during the Civil War but the abolitionist movement forced him to deal with it. Teddy Roosevelt worked to break up the huge business trusts, but not before a massive union movement grew and demanded better working conditions. Much of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal came about from the efforts of activists years before, and he said Lyndon Johnson may have been the most liberal President in American history, passing the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, and Medicaid, but none of these would have occurred without the murders of Emmett Till, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney, and the four black girls burned in the church, and the protests that grew out those from Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Even Richard Nixon signed the Clear Air and Water Acts which formed the Environmental Protection Agency. Was Nixon a fervent environmentalist? No way!
We stand at a peculiar time in history. The social contract which formed the basis of our nation is under brutal assault, and it's up to us to make sure we protect working families and their futures. Otherwise, it may become reality for our private pensions and 401(k) savings to be raided to pay off the super rich.