AFGE Responds to House GOP Budget Proposal

WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President John Gage today issued the following statement in response to the 2013 budget plan introduced by House Republicans:

“The House GOP budget, proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, proposes a staggering $368 billion in additional federal workforce cuts over the next 10 years. Federal employees would have their salaries frozen for another three years and would face massive cuts to the retirement benefits promised when they were hired. In addition, the federal workforce would be cut by 10 percent, jeopardizing the federal programs and services every American relies on.

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David Cay Johnston: The Richest Get Richer

The aftermaths of the Great Recession and the Great Depression produced sharply different changes in U.S. incomes that tell us a lot about tax and economic policy.

The 1934 economic rebound was widely shared, with strong income gains for the vast majority, the bottom 90 percent.

In 2010, we saw the opposite as the vast majority lost ground.

National income gained overall in 2010, but all of the gains were among the top 10 percent. Even within those 15.6 million households, the gains were extraordinarily concentrated among the super-rich, the top one percent of the top one percent.

Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain.

The different results in 1934 and 2010 show how a major shift in federal policy hurts the vast majority and benefits the super-rich.

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You don’t own me

There’s a basic, historical misunderstanding at the root of modern Republican [i.e., Reactionary] philosophy. A little fact that seems to get overlooked. It’s not their insistence that the road to fascism begins with good health care. It’s not even the pretense that President Obama somehow masterminded an economic collapse, bank bailout, and massive deficit weeks, months or years before he came into office. No, the incident that the GOP [i.e., Global Oppression Party] has let slip is a little more basic.

The South lost[!] [emphasis mine]

See, Republicans [i.e., Reactionaries] seem to have mistaken “wage slavery” for . . . that other kind of slavery. They must have, because anyone who understood that workers are employees, and not property, would recognize that workers have rights. . . .

As an employer, you have the absolute right to religious freedom [NOT religious privilege]. Attend any church, temple, synagogue or reading room you like. Give as you feel obligated. Worship as you please. Place on yourself any restriction in diet, activity or anything else that you feel is in keeping with your beliefs . . . but only on yourself. You don’t get to impose these restrictions on your employees. 

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Paul Krugman: Severe [Reactionary] Syndrome

How did American [reactionism] end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. . . .

The point is that today’s dismal [White-Wing Party] field — is there anyone who doesn’t consider it dismal? — is no accident. Economic [reactionaries] played a cynical game, and now they’re facing the blowback, a party that suffers from “severe” [reactionism] in the worst way. . . .

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