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Biden is not serious about getting the debt under control

We came to the edge of the fiscal cliff, and we just started building a bridge and track just in front of the train, now we are stuck with it. If we stop laying the track, the train goes off the edge.
What does that even mean? Approximately where is "the fiscal cliff" for the United States? Where do you get the idea you're so much better informed than, say, the conservative banker types who run the Federal Reserve?
 
One of the lw fairy tales is that the"yes the Dems want more spending,but they are going to pay for it by taxing the rich"
wronggggggggggggggggggg

"
Yesterday I noted some analysis of the president’s budget from the center-left Tax Policy Center. Now we have some from the right-leaning Tax Foundation.

By these estimates, if enacted, the budget — which includes the Biden family and infrastructure plans — would hike spending by $4 trillion over ten years while raising $1.3 trillion in revenue. These numbers shift to $5 trillion and $3 trillion if you count tax credits as spending and toss in a promised $700 billion from better tax enforcement. (The tax credits include Biden’s big payments to parents regardless of whether they work, and the report treats such “spending through the tax code” as a revenue-reducer rather than spending per se.)

America has a population of roughly 330 million, so every trillion dollars represents about $3,000 per person.

The Tax Foundation also estimates the broader economic effects of the tax and spending changes: about 165,000 fewer jobs and 1 percent lower GDP in the long run, for example."

Please don't bother responding that the GOP isn't serious about it either . I've already said that umpteen times.
So we agree that nobody is serious about getting the debt under control. 🥱 Personally, I think it's time for innovation and creativity. Opening up a new sector in the economy so that we experience renewed growth will do more to get the debt under control than anything else. That's what the tech boom did in the Clinton years. It's also why I favor the Green New Deal.
 
Military budget is about 700bn. Debt is 30 trillion and going up about 1.5T a year. Managing spending in that category wouldnt make a dent. If you cut it in half, you might just cover the interest on the debt.
Now the 3 trillion in social spending...
Furthermore, its not a sacred cow. We CUT military spending in 2011 to 2014. It didnt really help, because mandatory spending kept going up.
What's important is interest expense as a percent of GDP. It's not exactly shocking:

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Republicans: tax cuts for the rich and the federal debt
 

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Oh---you are talking about 'teacher's contracts.......okay. Well, first of all, a community has more voters than the teaching staff, correct?? Whose fault is that then that "teachers elect board members" ?? What is wrong with boards being on the "teacher's side" ?? Don't the teachers wish the best for the kids??? What is going on in your school district ??

1) Like I said, I don't disagree it is the electorate's fault for poor turnout.
2) Teachers are like cops, healthcare workers, and similar professions. They start out with a genuine desire to help, but after a few years its a job and it is no longer about the helping people portion. It simple becomes about getting more.
3) The problem with being on the teachers side, at least where I am from (PA) is that the contracts are so generous they eviscerate the local tax base. I am from the Main Line of PA where teachers were all making ~90-100k at the mid career mark, were retiring in their 50s, with gold plated lifetime healthcare, retirement bonuses, and pensions @ 55 with 80% + inflation. It was hideously expensive and the local school taxes are ridiculous. My home in that area the taxes were ~30k a year. My taxes on a much larger, much higher cost lakefront home in TN are ~9k a year.

No one ever said it would stop people from voting-------Id laws "discourage" many people from voting , instead of ENCOURAGING the vote by making it easier to vote. Why would you want to make it harder to vote ???

There is a baseline minimum expectation in order for the public to have faith in elections, something we have seen collapse in the last few cycles. When Trump was elected you had tons of democrats screaming fraud. When Biden was elected the opposite. People don't believe in the election at this point. You have issues with absentee ballots, duplicate ballots, ballot harvesting, and voter identification. Society needs to have a belief in the election system or it is screwed. So I have no problem encouraging voting, but it has to be done the right way. That means voter ID rules, a ban on ballot harvesting, a ban on canvasing, reasonable absentee and early voting, and state issued ID voting. None of that stuff is radical and when I hear people scream you are infringing and disenfranchising someone with those requirements I ask why isn't that disenfranchisement when you require all of the same to purchase a gun?
 
Republican tax cuts for the rich and the federal debt

Keep repeating the same garbage, it makes it easier to copy and paste my response. Seriously, do you think you are convincing anyone of anything with such a bullshit chart? You would have to be a total moron to believe that actually showed anything.

As disingenuous as it gets, right there folks.

The chart shows marginal tax rates on the top, but are meaningless. Any serious look is based on effective tax rates. The US tax code over this time period has gotten *more* progress to become the most progressive in the world. The rise in debt is largely due to entitlements as well.

What's important is interest expense as a percent of GDP. It's not exactly shocking:

Yea, yes and know. The real question is what happens when we have a reversion to historic carry cost. Historical average 10YUST is ~5.5%, right now it is ~1.52%. You are effectively talking about increasing the current figure by ~3.5. Which on that chart would more than double the peak in the 90's.
 
I lived a couple of years near Fort Bragg, what I witnessed is an interesting secret on military spending.

First I'm all for spending on the defense budget. "Defense" is the key word.

What I witnessed:

Americans are funding possibly billions of dollars for ex- military's pensions (that's fine). But the same pension receivers are benefitted by private defense contractor jobs paid for by Americans.

The over spending on private defense contracting must be looked at and audited
Just who do you think is the best qualified, most experienced candidate to fill the critical positions in the defense industry? Some wet behind the ears college snuffy? A liberal anti-war activist? Some Karen? A snowflake?

You cannot find a better fit for a defense industry job, be it a mechanic, a manager, or an operator, than a veteran. They have been in the system, they know the equipment, they know who knows the answers, or can work out the problem because they have hands-on experience. You cannot replace that experience and performance for twice the salary, so you are barking up the wrong tree. The government gets a bargain whenever they put a veteran on the job.
 
Please don't bother responding that the GOP isn't serious about it either . I've already said that umpteen times.
I didn't see any threads about the Gops spending too much money. So why do the Democrats have to run around with their hair on fire scream "Lower the debt, tighten the belts of the poor, underfund health insurance, cancel infrastructure, cut school budgets" to bring down the debt the Gops added to because they spread money around like it was Christmas and why is the air filled with the scent of hypocrisy?
 
Just who do you think is the best qualified, most experienced candidate to fill the critical positions in the defense industry? Some wet behind the ears college snuffy? A liberal anti-war activist? Some Karen? A snowflake?

You cannot find a better fit for a defense industry job, be it a mechanic, a manager, or an operator, than a veteran. They have been in the system, they know the equipment, they know who knows the answers, or can work out the problem because they have hands-on experience. You cannot replace that experience and performance for twice the salary, so you are barking up the wrong tree. The government gets a bargain whenever they put a veteran on the job.

Last year, there were 53,000 U.S. contractors working for the Pentagon in the Middle East, 50% more than the 35,000 U.S. troops they were there to support. That shift to contractors—there was a 1-to-1 ratio in Iraq at the height of that war in 2008—highlights the growing commercialization of combat, and other military duties, according to a new study from the Costs of War project at Boston and Brown universities.

“In 2019, the Pentagon spent $370 billion on contracting–more than half the total defense budget of $676 billion and a whopping 164% higher than its spending on contractors in 2001,” Heidi Peltier writes.

Why should taxpayers care? Basically, because contracting out war doesn’t lead to lower costs. That’s despite contrary claims from the military-industrial-complex of how much money is being saved by “privatizing” much of the U.S. military.

“This is because contractors lack competitive pressures to reduce the prices they charge to the government,” Peltier says. Not only were 45% of Pentagon contracts classified as “non-competitive” last year, many so-called “competitive” contracts were of the “cost-plus” variety, which removes incentives to keep costs down.


Here’s Where Your Tax Dollars for ‘Defense’ Are Really Going
The Pentagon’s spending is a scandal of epic proportions.

The answer couldn’t be more straightforward: It goes directly to private corporations and much of it is then wasted on useless overhead, fat executive salaries, and startling (yet commonplace) cost overruns on weapons systems and other military hardware that, in the end, won’t even perform as promised. Too often the result is weapons that aren’t needed at prices we can’t afford. If anyone truly wanted to help the troops, loosening the corporate grip on the Pentagon budget would be an excellent place to start.

The numbers are staggering. In fiscal year 2016, the Pentagon issued $304 billion in contract awards to corporations—nearly half of the department’s $600 billion-plus budget for that year.


Meanwhile:

The 12 Million Working Poor

While a large number of that 100 million living at or below 200 percent of the poverty line are children and seniors, over 12 million of them are full-time workers between the ages of 25 and 64. Of these full-time workers earning less than 200 percent of poverty, the majority -- 56 percent -- are workers of color.

Working poverty has increased dramatically over the last three decades, growing from less than 7 million in 1980 to today’s 12.4 million. Of all full-time workers ages 25 to 64, the share who were working poor declined slightly between 1980 and 2000 before increasing by 19 percent in 2012. In the 1980s and 1990s, the working poor rate hovered around 12 percent, but by 2012, was close to 14 percent

 
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One of the lw fairy tales is that the"yes the Dems want more spending,but they are going to pay for it by taxing the rich"
wronggggggggggggggggggg

"
Yesterday I noted some analysis of the president’s budget from the center-left Tax Policy Center. Now we have some from the right-leaning Tax Foundation.

By these estimates, if enacted, the budget — which includes the Biden family and infrastructure plans — would hike spending by $4 trillion over ten years while raising $1.3 trillion in revenue. These numbers shift to $5 trillion and $3 trillion if you count tax credits as spending and toss in a promised $700 billion from better tax enforcement. (The tax credits include Biden’s big payments to parents regardless of whether they work, and the report treats such “spending through the tax code” as a revenue-reducer rather than spending per se.)

America has a population of roughly 330 million, so every trillion dollars represents about $3,000 per person.

The Tax Foundation also estimates the broader economic effects of the tax and spending changes: about 165,000 fewer jobs and 1 percent lower GDP in the long run, for example."

Please don't bother responding that the GOP isn't serious about it either . I've already said that umpteen times.
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣
 
2) Teachers are like cops, healthcare workers, and similar professions. They start out with a genuine desire to help, but after a few years its a job and it is no longer about the helping people portion. It simple becomes about getting more.
3) The problem with being on the teachers side, at least where I am from (PA) is that the contracts are so generous they eviscerate the local tax base. I am from the Main Line of PA where teachers were all making ~90-100k at the mid career mark, were retiring in their 50s, with gold plated lifetime healthcare, retirement bonuses, and pensions @ 55 with 80% + inflation. It was hideously expensive and the local school taxes are ridiculous. My home in that area the taxes were ~30k a year. My taxes on a much larger, much higher cost lakefront home in TN are ~9k a year.
Well, that is certainly not my perception of most teachers I know---a few maybe, that that is true of any profession. Teaching is not like other jobs = it is a calling and most do it to "make a difference". If they drift out of that calling, then I wonder WHY?? What caused them to lose that idealistic view??

???? I also live in Pa.---teachers here, where I live, make lower middle class incomes, but top out after 25 years at around 70,000. They get no healthcare at retirement in my town. It all depends on the contract with any of the 500 districts in the state. It takes 35 years to retire at "full" salary as a teacher, but they pay into their retirement throughout their careers. Check out civil service or state worker retirements because they have it nicer and without the stress teachers go through. The state police retire after 20-25 years with FULL benefits AND COLA. Teachers do NOT get COLAs which means they are getting the same retirement check 25 years from now !! The average teacher retirement income is at 27,000 a year if you take the average in the whole state. So, I was never sure what people were complaining about with teachers......

Teachers are not allowed to strike since Act 88 was passed years ago, so boards have the easy upper hand to control costs. Teaching is a rough, yet admirable job. It takes a total of 7 years of college to maintain a career job, and 3 years apprenticeship on top of that. That is a lot of time and money on their part. The vetting process is a bit brutal before a teacher has a full-time job. They would surely make more in the private sector.
 
Well, that is certainly not my perception of most teachers I know---a few maybe, that that is true of any profession. Teaching is not like other jobs = it is a calling and most do it to "make a difference". If they drift out of that calling, then I wonder WHY?? What caused them to lose that idealistic view??

???? I also live in Pa.---teachers here, where I live, make lower middle class incomes, but top out after 25 years at around 70,000. They get no healthcare at retirement in my town. It all depends on the contract with any of the 500 districts in the state. It takes 35 years to retire at "full" salary as a teacher, but they pay into their retirement throughout their careers. Check out civil service or state worker retirements because they have it nicer and without the stress teachers go through. The state police retire after 20-25 years with FULL benefits AND COLA. Teachers do NOT get COLAs which means they are getting the same retirement check 25 years from now !! The average teacher retirement income is at 27,000 a year if you take the average in the whole state. So, I was never sure what people were complaining about with teachers......

Teachers are not allowed to strike since Act 88 was passed years ago, so boards have the easy upper hand to control costs. Teaching is a rough, yet admirable job. It takes a total of 7 years of college to maintain a career job, and 3 years apprenticeship on top of that. That is a lot of time and money on their part. The vetting process is a bit brutal before a teacher has a full-time job. They would surely make more in the private sector.

Most people say its a calling to maintain the moral high ground, just like people in healthcare and law enforcement. At the end of the day though, they are just people. If it was "all about the kids" explained the issues during COVID when teachers refused to go back to class as kids floundered out of unfounded fears or COVID storms. I am not trying to bash on teachers so much as say they are humans. They want as much as they can get for as little as they can give, just like anyone else. Idealistic views from the reality of life, that people are jerks etc. Go talk to any physician who is about 10 years out of residency and ask them, brace yourself though.

Yes, it is based on local contracts, so you are correct in that, you must live in a rural poorer area of the state then. Eastern PA is pretty standard as I described. Most teachers punch out at the ~80% level which is in their mid-late 50's usually, after engaging in whatever spiking games they can. DROP payments are common around here are common. PSERs has COLAs for all retirement contracts, it just has to be voted on, that's all.

Look, I spent some time working with school boards at the state level in PA on the financing side. My issue is that teachers, at least where I was involved, were working ~800 hours a year for a total comp package north of ~120k while complaining about being underpaid for a C student from a C school. The education you are referring to is mostly designed to be joke programs, online, over summers, paid by the district, to justify mandatory raises.

Underpaid? Very rarely.
 
They want as much as they can get for as little as they can give, just like anyone else. Idealistic views from the reality of life, that people are jerks etc. Go talk to any physician who is about 10 years out of residency and ask them, brace yourself though.
Whoa ! Definitely disagree here. Some may fit that mold, but many do not. Teachers, for the most part do not go into that particular profession to "give as little as they can give". If that was the case, then that teacher is in the wrong profession. Maybe I hang around too many great teachers........?
 
There is a baseline minimum expectation in order for the public to have faith in elections, something we have seen collapse in the last few cycles. When Trump was elected you had tons of democrats screaming fraud.
False. Don't try to drag us down to your insurrectionist level.
 
Yes, it is based on local contracts, so you are correct in that, you must live in a rural poorer area of the state then. Eastern PA is pretty standard as I described. Most teachers punch out at the ~80% level which is in their mid-late 50's usually, after engaging in whatever spiking games they can. DROP payments are common around here are common. PSERs has COLAs for all retirement contracts, it just has to be voted on, that's all.
?????? PSERs does not have COLAs...................nor does Pennsylvania for the teachers. I don't know what a "drop payment" is ? I was speaking of most schools in western Pa., unless you get to Pittsburgh. I do not think their salaries are overly high for their training and the value/difficulty of what they do.................................Those "spiking games" are usually from coaching, etc, which is still giving back (hopefully).
 
One of the lw fairy tales is that the"yes the Dems want more spending...
The title of the thread is "Biden Is Not Serious About Getting the Debt Under Control"

The GOP isn't serious about American citizens who don't have health insurance.
The GOP isn't serious about American families who can't afford child care while they go to work.
The GOP isn't serious about investing in the nation's future.
The GOP isn't serious about people getting paid poverty-level wages while corporations make record profits.
The GOP isn't serious about climate change.

There's lots to get serious about. It's time to get started.
 
..Fascists

The laffs just keep on coming!

FYI, the American Conservatives have brought us WAY closer to fascism than the left has brought us to communism. The hyper-nationalism, built around a white, christian ideal, the elitist policy of debt and tax cuts, the militarism, etc. I'm not the only one who's noticed.

Maybe if you spent less time laughing and more time reading history, you and your fascist brethren would see yourselves in that history, like a cruel mirror, and you might not find it so funny.

There's a particular kind of shamelessness in people who laugh at their own evil. That pathological apathy to harm has come to define today's GOP and was a feature of fascist movements throughout history.
 
Look, I spent some time working with school boards at the state level in PA on the financing side. My issue is that teachers, at least where I was involved, were working ~800 hours a year for a total comp package north of ~120k while complaining about being underpaid for a C student from a C school. The education you are referring to is mostly designed to be joke programs, online, over summers, paid by the district, to justify mandatory raises.
I admire your service on school boards and working with them. Teaching is too often viewed like industry jobs that are paid by the hour. Teaching is all-encompassing without set hours, except by contract. The value of the job, and the difficulty of the job come into play. How else do you compare teacher's salary?? Our schools often do not pay for most courses, nor do they accept just any courses. Raises in many of these schools have nothing to do with the courses or degrees obtained. Your school sounds like they have very nice contracts by comparison, so in that light I can see why you might have "little sympathy" for teachers who complain. Many of Pa. teachers are under-paid when comparisons are made, I guess.....
 
One of the lw fairy tales is that the"yes the Dems want more spending,but they are going to pay for it by taxing the rich"
wronggggggggggggggggggg

"
Yesterday I noted some analysis of the president’s budget from the center-left Tax Policy Center. Now we have some from the right-leaning Tax Foundation.

By these estimates, if enacted, the budget — which includes the Biden family and infrastructure plans — would hike spending by $4 trillion over ten years while raising $1.3 trillion in revenue. These numbers shift to $5 trillion and $3 trillion if you count tax credits as spending and toss in a promised $700 billion from better tax enforcement. (The tax credits include Biden’s big payments to parents regardless of whether they work, and the report treats such “spending through the tax code” as a revenue-reducer rather than spending per se.)

America has a population of roughly 330 million, so every trillion dollars represents about $3,000 per person.

The Tax Foundation also estimates the broader economic effects of the tax and spending changes: about 165,000 fewer jobs and 1 percent lower GDP in the long run, for example."

Please don't bother responding that the GOP isn't serious about it either . I've already said that umpteen times.

I was up all night...AGAIN.
Tossing and turning. Worry gnawing away at my insides like a hungry rodent.

Downright nauseous with anxiety.

You guessed it: the National Debt was on my mind.

>pause for effect<

LMMFAO!! 😂

LOL, I'm just kidding. I dont give a crap about that.
You know: much like you didn't give a crap about it 6 months ago.
(y)
 
?????? PSERs does not have COLAs...................nor does Pennsylvania for the teachers. I don't know what a "drop payment" is ? I was speaking of most schools in western Pa., unless you get to Pittsburgh. I do not think their salaries are overly high for their training and the value/difficulty of what they do.................................Those "spiking games" are usually from coaching, etc, which is still giving back (hopefully).

Yea, it does. They are just not automatic. Basically the PSERs admin board has to vote to approve them. It happens, just not automatically and not at a benchmark index rate. I can't speak to western pa, it is a big difference in wealth and income.

The problem I have is that, in my experience and in my region, the teachers were being paid not commensurately with their skills and hours. This sounds harsh, but here it is.

1) A bachelor's in education is not a rigorous degree curriculum, it isn't chemical engineering and it doesn't have a high threshold for completion
2) The quality of the school you go to doesn't matter in terms of career opportunity or advancement. In PA you have the "teacher schools", which are largely West Chester, Kutztown, Shippensburg etc. They are all very mediocre schools that are very easy to get into.
3) The working hours are something of a joke honestly. Again this varies by location, but in eastern PA it often looked like 5 teaching periods a day, 186 working days a year. It was literally an ~800 hour/yr job. If you look at it that way, it is 800 hours for a total comp of ~100k. That's ~$125/hr in cost, which is largely in line with what a physician gets paid.

Now, when I worked with PSERs and school boards, the teachers union would argue about prep time, curriculum prep, grading, tutoring etc. In reality though, 99% of teachers would tell you that 3-4 years in all of that went away as your teaching plan was sorted out and changed very little year to year, you graded during classes, and tutoring was rare generally. On top of that they all talked about their "advanced educations" when in reality it was joke degrees, from joke online programs, paid by the school district, because it gave them an automatic big raise and didn't help them do their job at all. I also disagree with the fact that we don't pay people based on their value or difficulty of their jobs. One of the most valuable jobs in society is sanitation, but trash men don't get paid well, nor do agricultural workers. Difficulty isn't it either, look at the hardest and dangerous manual labor jobs, they don't get paid well either. Generally the way you determine compensation in scarcity and performance, ie: how hard is it to replace someone of a skillset. On paper, the skillset required to be a teacher is: mediocre high school student, attends mediocre university, achieving mediocre degree. Somehow in some states that is worth a fortune and other states it isn't. The difference? Union strength. In PA the unions are extremely strong and thus you get this disconnect in reality. The teachers unions will tell you that this is how you get good schools and good outcomes, but there has been exhaustive studies showing spending and education outcomes are not correlated at all.

I find it frustrating because I see teachers try to play the game of selfless public service, but in reality their unions (at least in my experience) are as bad as any union I have ever even read about. The problem is that they are a union that can't fail because in PA the school boards have the power to tax. So they can be as unreasonable as they want and it won't ever die off, just raise taxes again and again.

Where I live now, just outside of Nashville, has public schools that will rival anything in PA, but at half the cost or less. Why? Unions.


Many of Pa. teachers are under-paid when comparisons are made, I guess.....

It depends on the comparison. My issue is that the average teacher is a very average worker and very average academic performer, yet they are often dramatically over compensated in that light. Look, if you find me a great teacher who drives real results with kids in a real subject material, I will pay that person through the roof. I have however seen the vast majority of experience teachers being time-card employees who have tenure and job security.
 
Also a DROP payment is a "Deferred Retirement Payout Option". Around my neck of the woods this was basically another $75-125k early retirement payment to incentivize older higher paid teachers to retire early. Everyone took it at 55-57.

As to spiking, that's bullshit. I would see teachers who worked for 25 years doing zero extra curricular activity then suddenly the last three years before they retire they are running 10 clubs and coaching. Suddenly their pension income is 110% their "normal" salary.
 
KLATTU:
"Please don't bother responding that the GOP isn't serious about it either . I've already said that umpteen times.

Some people are just one trick ponies. Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump Trump

So you agree that Trump lied about reducing the debt and you supported him anyway. Meaning you have no gripe about Biden.
Yeehaaah!
whip.gif
 
Last year, there were 53,000 U.S. contractors working for the Pentagon in the Middle East, 50% more than the 35,000 U.S. troops they were there to support. That shift to contractors—there was a 1-to-1 ratio in Iraq at the height of that war in 2008—highlights the growing commercialization of combat, and other military duties, according to a new study from the Costs of War project at Boston and Brown universities.

“In 2019, the Pentagon spent $370 billion on contracting–more than half the total defense budget of $676 billion and a whopping 164% higher than its spending on contractors in 2001,” Heidi Peltier writes.

Why should taxpayers care? Basically, because contracting out war doesn’t lead to lower costs. That’s despite contrary claims from the military-industrial-complex of how much money is being saved by “privatizing” much of the U.S. military.

“This is because contractors lack competitive pressures to reduce the prices they charge to the government,” Peltier says. Not only were 45% of Pentagon contracts classified as “non-competitive” last year, many so-called “competitive” contracts were of the “cost-plus” variety, which removes incentives to keep costs down.


Here’s Where Your Tax Dollars for ‘Defense’ Are Really Going
The Pentagon’s spending is a scandal of epic proportions.

The answer couldn’t be more straightforward: It goes directly to private corporations and much of it is then wasted on useless overhead, fat executive salaries, and startling (yet commonplace) cost overruns on weapons systems and other military hardware that, in the end, won’t even perform as promised. Too often the result is weapons that aren’t needed at prices we can’t afford. If anyone truly wanted to help the troops, loosening the corporate grip on the Pentagon budget would be an excellent place to start.

The numbers are staggering. In fiscal year 2016, the Pentagon issued $304 billion in contract awards to corporations—nearly half of the department’s $600 billion-plus budget for that year.


Meanwhile:

The 12 Million Working Poor

While a large number of that 100 million living at or below 200 percent of the poverty line are children and seniors, over 12 million of them are full-time workers between the ages of 25 and 64. Of these full-time workers earning less than 200 percent of poverty, the majority -- 56 percent -- are workers of color.

Working poverty has increased dramatically over the last three decades, growing from less than 7 million in 1980 to today’s 12.4 million. Of all full-time workers ages 25 to 64, the share who were working poor declined slightly between 1980 and 2000 before increasing by 19 percent in 2012. In the 1980s and 1990s, the working poor rate hovered around 12 percent, but by 2012, was close to 14 percent

Are you really that unable to respond to my post?

The military NEEDS lots of manpower, and the US government pays for it. All your whining about how much it costs or how many contractors means nothing. There may be "non-competitive" contracts, but not one that I ever worked on was of that type. You flying the race and poverty flag is the only answer you have.
 
Are you really that unable to respond to my post?

The military NEEDS lots of manpower, and the US government pays for it. All your whining about how much it costs or how many contractors means nothing. There may be "non-competitive" contracts, but not one that I ever worked on was of that type. You flying the race and poverty flag is the only answer you have.

America's military should be cut by half. Even then we would be spending as much as all the rest of the world combined. Let our allies step up their militaries and defend themselves

If we were to get In a real war the fact that we don't make anything any more will hurt us a lot more than a reduced military footprint.
 
Yea, it does. They are just not automatic. Basically the PSERs admin board has to vote to approve them. It happens, just not automatically and not at a benchmark index rate.
in PA. --- A COLA, is only granted when members of the General Assembly pass legislation authorizing one. The last time the General Assembly enacted COLA legislation was in 2002. There have been a number of proposals since then, but none has made its way to the governor's desk. Nothing much to do with PSER's Board, really.....
 
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