September 28, 2009
Another Too-Short Weekend
This weekend was dominated by the healthcare debate, particularly Congressman Patrick Kennedy's controlled version of the town-hall meeting, which I liveblogged and videotaped. The casual viewer will see that Kennedy's expressed fears about political violence had no proximate basis. Which would seem to match a sort of meta-rhetorical theme, in that specifics of the Democrats' healthcare plan, such as the intention to tax the rich, have no proximate logic.
Meanwhile, the internationalistas are moving to assert their authority over the financial industry. A student of recent history should conclude that they're much more likely to take action on that front than on the front of Iranian intransigence.
Back in Rhode Island, things are pretty much as they've been: We're scaring away businesses, leaving our students ignorant, and shaking our heads at the sort of leader that we send to Washington.
Did you read the article in the Providence Journal opinion section by one of our glorious brain-dead state representatives? In the article, the windbag states that he is concerned about a certain segment of our population and their ability to retire with dignity. Hmmmmm. I wonder what segment could that be? Oh, yeah the PUBLIC SECTOR workers. Gee, it's just a cooincidence that the author of the article is part of that very PUBLIC SECTOR segment and has a few family members also within that oh-so-special, I-got-mine,now-you-get-yours segment. What does our glorious state representative suggest to make sure our hard working public sector workers can retire with dignity? That the taxpayers bailout ALL public sector pension plans across the board at an estimated cost of (in his opinion) ONLY a third of a trillon dollars. (Since we're dealing with a public sector-employed author, you'll have to triple that sum to get the actual final cost). This author has no shame along with no brains. He justifies this robbery of the public treasury based on the fact that the gold plated pensions were promised. Um, yeah. They were promsied sorta like social security retirement has been promised to both public and private sector employees alike. And where know where social security is headed. Don't you think it would be fair to save that one-third of a trillion dollars to help save social security first? The way things are going in the private sector, social security may be the ONLY pension private sector workers will have. Given this fact, wouldn't it seem more important to save social security rather than the gold plated public pensions? God forbid that the interests of private sector workers should ever be taken into account.
Posted by: WonderGuy at September 28, 2009 7:51 AMI "wondered" where Rep. Loughlin was coming from too. Does he really thing the GA is going to have any incentive to reform the pension system if the Federal Government bails them out? It's just a reward for bad behavior. I know he stipulates reform, but when does hitting the lottery ever curb spending habbits?
What's worse is that I cannot fathom how Rep. Loughlin thinks he can differentiate himself from Patrick Kennedy by proposing a taxpayer funded bailout of a corrupt system.
If anything, he's given Kennedy an excellent election-year idea for an earmark.
Posted by: George at September 28, 2009 11:23 AM