Republicans Ready To Stop Pretending They're Fiscal Conservatives To Steal Worker Pensions

You may recall that millionaire greedhead Ron Johnson campaigned for Russ Feingold's Wisconsin Senate seat by pushing the "China model." He won and perhaps the China model will too. Our ruling elites have certainly giving it a good running start-- NAFTA, financial deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy and other devices aimed at destroying the middle class and concentrating the nation's ealth in fewer and fewer hands. Soon we'll all be slaves Chinese factory workers. And two of the Republican Party's most prominent-- and influential-- "big thinkers," Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist, have come up with yet another way to pauperize working families. They're trying to get fellow Wall Street zombie Paul Ryan, House Budget chair, to get behind legislation giving financially strapped states the right to file for bankruptcy and renege on pension and other benefit promises made to state employees. Gingrich: “I... hope the House Republicans are going to move a bill in the first month or so of their tenure to create a venue for state bankruptcy, so that states like California and New York and Illinois that think they're going to come to Washington for money can be told, you know, you need to sit down with all your government employee unions and look at their health plans and their pension plans and, frankly, if they don't want to change, our recommendation is you go into bankruptcy court and let the bankruptcy judge change it, and I would make the federal bankruptcy law prohibit tax increases as part of the solution, so no bankruptcy judge could impose a tax increase on the people of the states.”

Proponents of the measure-- which include Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington lobby group that fights tax increases-- said the legislation is desperately needed to clear the way for struggling states to slash costs before they go belly up, and should be regarded as a preemptive move that could preclude the need for massive federal bailouts.

“It's in the short-term and long-term interests of government workers and taxpayers to start those reforms now, rather than having to pick up the pieces after a crash landing,” ATR President Grover Nor-quist said in an interview.

“We are working with people inside and outside of Congress on this issue,” said Joe DeSantis, a spokes-man for Mr. Gingrich, whom Mr. DeSantis said is considering a bid to be the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.

...State and union officials vow to fight the bankruptcy initiative, which they fear would undermine state autonomy and be used to reduce promised benefits to government workers.

“I am unaware of any public pension plan that is requesting federal assistance,” said Keith Brainard, NASRA research director.

“Exaggerated reports on the financial condition of public pension plans are being used as a scare tactic to justify federal intervention,” Mr. Brainard added.

Said Mark McCullough, a spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, Washington: “This is another right-wing attack on behalf of their (the GOP's) anti-middle class, big-business donor base.

“It would amount to not just another attack on working families, but an attack on everyone from investors to retirees who would see the economy reel from the ripple effects of state bankruptcy as they pursue the goal of making American workers expect no better pay or benefits than workers in the developing world.”

So far, proponents of the legislation said they have not yet recruited a congressional sponsor for the proposed measure. “We're still shopping for the guy who is going to carry it,” Mr. Norquist said.

Nonetheless, union executives are concerned that the proposal-- which has been promoted on conservative websites recently-- is part of a well-orchestrated and hitherto underground campaign now surfacing as Republicans settle into leadership positions in the new Congress.

“This idea carries major negative financial implications for the states, their creditors and the companies that do business with them,” said Charles Loveless, director of legislation for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Washington. “A state going into bankruptcy would send shock waves through the states and could very well undermine our fragile national economic recovery,” he said.

“It is incredible to me that proponents of this portray themselves as advocates of state rights when what they're really doing is driving states into the ground,” Mr. Loveless added. “It's clearly in an effort to renege on public employee collective bargaining contracts.”

Ryan is sniffing out the political winds to figure out if he can get away with sponsoring the bill, considering the working family orientation of his own House district, a district that voted for Obama in 2008. Were he to sponsor this bill even the DCCC's hands-off policy towards him might not save his seat. But you can bet your 401K that if these clowns do pass some legislation it will reiterate the sanctity of contracts when it comes to multimillion dollar bonuses for Wall Street banksters who drove the economy off a cliff-- and financed the cushy careers of most of our political class. Feeling proactive at all today? Oh... and Wisconsin... this is what they elected to the U.S. Senate in replace of Russ Feingold (so at least we know who will carry the bill in the Senate):



And... on cue, Krugman column today discusses the canard that the reason the right is winning economic debates is because people have been brainwashed to believe, wrongly, that there’s something inherently moral about free-market outcomes. "My guess," writes Krugman, "is that this is only part of the story; there’s more than a bit of Ayn Randism on the right, but there’s also the appeal of simplicity: goldbuggism is intellectually easy, Keynesianism is intellectually hard, as evidenced by the inability of many trained economists to get it... [There is a] tendency to ascribe moral value to market values, and [a] need for a counter-narrative. I’m going to think about that; but right now, let me describe how I see the US income distribution in terms of justice or the lack thereof."

The first thing one should say is that our system does reward hard work, up to a point. Other things equal, those who put more in will earn more.

But a lot of other things are, in fact, not remotely equal. These days, America is the advanced nation with the least social mobility (pdf), except possibly for Britain. Access to good schools, good health care, and job opportunities depends on lot on choosing the right parents.

So when you hear conservatives talk about how our goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes, your first response should be that if they really believe in equality of opportunity, they must be in favor of radical changes in American society. For our society does not, in fact, produce anything like equal opportunity (in part because it produces such unequal outcomes). Tell me how you’re going to produce a huge improvement in the quality of public schools, how you’re going to provide universal health care (for parents as well as children, because parents in bad health affect childrens’ prospects), and then come back to me about the equal chances at the starting line thing.

Now, inequality of opportunity is only one reason for the inequality in outcomes we actually see. But of what remains, how much reflects individual effort, how much reflects talent, and how much sheer luck? No reasonable person would deny that there’s a lot of luck involved. Wall Street titans are, no doubt, smart guys (although talking to some of them, you have to wonder …), but there are surely equally smart guys who for whatever reason never got a chance to grab the 9-figure brass ring.

So economics is not a morality play; the social and economic order we have doesn’t represent the playing out of some kind of deep moral principles.... [A]nyone who claims that transferring some income from the most fortunate members of society to the least is a vile injustice is closing his eyes to the obvious reality of how the world works.