Obama’s 2013 Hawaiian Vacation — What’s Wrong with Dollywood?

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

President Obama is packing his bags for a 17-day, taxpayer-funded Christmas vacation to Hawaii, The Washington Times reported. The vacation begins on Friday, December 20.

The first family will reportedly be shacking up at a palatial ocean-front home that rents for $24,500 a week. When you toss in the shaved ice, greens fees, and gas for Air Force One, the American taxpayers could be on the hook for one mighty expensive Hawaiian holiday.

The Hawaii Reporter ran the numbers on last year’s trip and found that it cost taxpayers more than $4 million. That’s some pricy poi.

And while the first family enjoys pampering in paradise, it’ll be anything but a vacation for folks who live close by, according to Hawaii News Now. Residents will be subjected to roadblocks and security checks. A popular canal will be closed and patrolled by Navy Seals and military blockades have reportedly been erected on the beach.

“One time they stopped me – they opened up my gas cap to look into the lawn mower,” resident Norman Asing told the newspaper.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obamacare Disinformation Runs Deep – Sold On ‘A Trinity of Lies”

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

‘Obamacare was sold on a trinity of lies.”

That ornate phrase, more suitable for the Book of Revelations or perhaps the next installment of Game of Thrones, comes from my National Review colleague Rich Lowry. But I like it. Most people know the first deception in the triumvirate of deceit: “If you like your health insurance you can keep it, period.” The second leg in the tripod of deception was “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

But the third plank in the triad of disinformation hasn’t gotten much attention: Obamacare will save you, me, and the country a lot of money. This lie took several forms.

First, Obama promised on numerous occasions that the average family of four will save $2,500 a year in premiums. Where did that number come from? Three Harvard economists wrote a memo in 2007 in which they claimed that then-Senator Obama’s health-care plan would reduce national health-care spending by $200 billion. Then, according to the New York Times, the authors “divided [$200 billion] by the country’s population, multiplied for a family of four, and rounded down slightly to a number that was easy to grasp: $2,500.”

In September, the Obama administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services used far more rigorous methods to predict that Obamacare would increase national health-care spending by $621 billion. Using Obama’s own math, that would mean — according to Chris Conover, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute and Duke University — each family of four in America will spend an additional $7,450 thanks to Obamacare.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Effects of Living in a Post-Christian Society

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

It is often said that we live in a post-Christian society. That is true, but its meaning is generally misunderstood. A post-Christian society is not merely a society in which agnosticism or atheism is the prevailing fundamental belief. It is a society rooted in the history, culture, and practices of Christianity but in which the religious beliefs of Christianity have been either rejected or, worse, forgotten. In other words a post-Christian society is a particular sort of Christian society. It is quite different, for instance, from a post-Muslim or a post-Buddhist society (if we can imagine such things). At an emotional level, its Christian character explains why many agnostics and atheists nonetheless find Christian hymns suitable and comforting at occasions such as funerals and weddings. Intellectually, its dormant Christian beliefs — notably those about the nature of Man — underpin our ideas on politics and foreign policy, as for instance on human rights. Even the Enlightenment — which strong secularists like to cite as the foundation of Western liberal polities — is an extension of Christianity as much as a rejection of it. In short, though much of what Christianity taught is forgotten, even unknown, by modern Europeans and Americans, they nonetheless act on its teachings every day.

But there are consequences to forgetting truths. One consequence is that while we instinctively want to preserve the morals and manners of the Christian tradition, we cannot quite explain or defend them intellectually. So we find ourselves seeking more contemporary (i.e., in practice, secular) reasons for preserving them or, when they decay completely, inventing regulations to mimic them. When courtesy is abandoned, we invent speech codes, which are blunter in their impact and repress legitimate disagreement along with insults. When female sexual modesty and male sexual restraint are discredited as puritanical, we draw up contractual arrangements to ensure that any sexual contact is voluntary on both sides. This means that sexual relationships (and their consequences) may occur more often but that they do so in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and legal wariness that poisons relations between men and women over the long run. Above all, when we no longer protect and strengthen the family on the grounds that it is a patriarchal institution harmful to the life chances of women, we encourage the family breakdown that leaves women worse off financially, pushes men into an irresponsible life, and damages their children socially and psychologically.

Family breakdown is in fact the largest single social disaster plaguing the post-Christian society. The family is a natural way of regulating and disciplining us and our ambitions in the activities of everyday life. It makes us frugal; it encourages saving, wealth creation, and the deferment of gratification; it compels us to provide for the future; above all it ensures that children are brought up and taught to become self-reliant, and that the weak, the sick, and the elderly have others to succor them. When the family breaks down, we get crime, drug-taking, impoverishment, psychological problems, and much else at the personal level; and we get a cycle of deprivation, the growth of an underclass, spiraling social-welfare costs, over-government, and severe budgetary problems at a national level. The result of family breakdown is that we have to replace the family with regulation after regulation. Our remedies — easier divorce, better financial arrangements for women after divorce, increased welfare for single mothers, bureaucratic agencies to compel men to make child-support payments, laws and regulations that disadvantage natural family relationships in court decisions on child care and adoption, and much else — never work as well as the stable families they replace. Indeed, very often they make the situation worse.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bankers Win, Workers Lose

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Free traders are ecstatic. Negotiators at the 9th World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Bali cheered, hugged, and wept at what they see as the successful culmination of their recent round of talks. “A giant step for businesses large and small,” enthused the CEO of UPS. The well-regarded Fung Business Intelligence Centre announced that the agreement among the 159 WTO members “will not only restore confidence in the multilateral trading system, but also boost world GDP by nearly $1 trillion and generate 21 million jobs.”

“Joy unbounded, with wealth surrounded,” to borrow from Gilbert and Sullivan. The joy is easy to understand. Any agreement reached after years of bickering takes on out-size proportions, witness the joy last week when Democrats and Republicans reached a budget agreement. Never mind that the Ryan-Murray deal can have little fiscal impact. From little compromises mighty agreements of consequence grow seems to be the general belief. The fact of deal is more important than the facts in a deal. Hence the joy unbounded in Bali and, separately, here in Washington.

Unfortunately, joy unbounded will not necessarily leave us “with wealth surrounded.” The WTO agreement is a modest one, aimed primarily at facilitating the cross-border movement of goods by reducing customs delays at national borders. Richer countries will provide less developed ones with resources with which to train border agents and, presumably, reduce their temptation and ability to look to bribes to supplement their meagre incomes. All to the good. But I am reminded of a British economist, who shall remain nameless lest his superiors at the international agency to which he has been seconded demonstrate that in their circles candor is not widely appreciated. He warned me that estimates of the economic effect of trade deals are handed down from above to staff economists who only then develop data-laden reports to support their bosses’ press releases.

The fact is that the trade facilitation deal just reached in Bali is of little real consequence, other than as proof that minor deals can be reached. The Wall Street Journal’s description throws a bit of cold water on the celebrants, “A scaled-back package…, a modest break-through in the trade discussion that began in 2001 in Doha, Qatar….[It] still needs formal ratification by all 159 WTO members and could take months, or even years, to come into effect.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Nuclear Option: the Misplaced Conservative Outrage

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Photo Credit: Susan Walsh/AP

Photo Credit: Susan Walsh/AP

The filibuster has not protected the people against the tyranny of metastasizing federal power. The great tragedy of the Obama dictatorship was not the filibuster’s demise, but that House leaders blocked fulfillment of the very promise that made them leaders. Many of today’s worst problems are due not just to aggressive leftist Democrats who will stop at nothing but also to timid RINOs who stand for nothing. If RINOs are not defeated and if a genuine opposition party is not established, nothing can save the Constitution – or the representative democracy and freedoms that are the heritage of this country.

“That’s what I fear … once Republicans get the majority it’s very tough to … diminish your own authority.”
— Republican Senator Flake, reacting to Nuclear Option

Harry Reid’s recent imposition of the Senate “nuclear option” left many conservatives in high dudgeon over “tyranny of the majority.”  But the concept of majority tyranny is largely a fantasy — contradicted, for example, by Angelo Codevilla’s cogent showing, widely accepted by conservatives, that America is dominated by a corrupt bipartisan ruling class.

There is no need to elaborate upon two obvious points: the hypocrisy of those arguing in reverse in 2005; and the fallacy that tyranny by a majority of senators is necessarily tyranny of a majority of the people, sparsely and densely populated states having equal weight in the Senate.
 
Today’s daunting tyranny is twofold: (a) authoritarian reign by largely leftist oligarchic bureaucratic, judicial and media elite minorities over what President Nixon was once ridiculed for calling the “silent majority”; and (b) illegitimate domination by powerful over powerless minorities.

Much nuclear option harrumphing has been due to this: the D.C. Circuit had nullified a few of the massive abuses of power by arrogant Obama bureaucrats.  In order to accelerate such abuses, Obama and his Senate lackeys want to pack that Court with leftist ideologues, expected by liberals and conservatives alike to outvote the current judges.

Well, wake up and smell the coffee.  Under old Senate rules, justices have been put on the Supreme Court to rubber-stamp and provide faux legitimacy to metastasizing unconstitutional, legislatively created federal bureaucratic minority tyranny since the New Deal.  In league with minorities unable to prevail democratically (i.e., using persuasion, elections, and legislation), as few as five lawyers willfully and with contempt for the Constitution, exercising what Justice White called “raw judicial power,” have imposed unpopular personal elitist morality upon an often overwhelming majority of the people.

Before fretting over appointment of out-of-control judges on lower courts, consider those on the highest court appointed long before the nuclear option.  Thanks to them, only “favored” minorities and the ruling class have rights, crushing those of “disfavored” minorities and the majority.
Consider a few among limitless examples.

Violent Crime.  The most depraved individuals have unwarranted protections inconceivable to a largely unsuspecting public, while law-abiding victims are treated with contempt.  Many justices have such fanatic devotion to savage criminals that they callously inflict immense torture upon the victims, compounding their initial trauma.  Victims were once thrown out of court completely and may again suffer that indignity, based solely on what Justice Thurgood Marshall candidly declared to be new justices.  The worst barbarians have been rewarded with a hallucinated “constitutional” right to commit additional depravity (including murders) with no punishment whatsoever.  Moreover, rare capital punishment occurs only after judicial tyrants have exacted the utmost agony from publicly forgotten victimized families.  This year, two multiple-murderers were finally executed for homicides 36 years earlier — a period far longer than many victims live, and during which loved ones must needlessly endure the excruciating torment of repeatedly reliving their worst nightmares.

Discrimination.  In 1954, beseeched (40) by professed opponents (26) of discrimination, the Supreme Court unanimously accepted the first Justice Harlan’s solo 58-year-old dissent declaring that the 14th Amendment mandated a color-blind society.  (Although the 1954 decision did not use the term “color-blind,” it was widely accepted that that was its essence.  Moreover, ten years later, reflecting the prevailing view at the time, the Civil Rights Act explicitly banned ethnic, religious, and sex classifications.) 

After it turned out that those complaining about discrimination really were disturbed only that they were not doing the discriminating, the Court again pivoted, holding it constitutional to discriminate after all — against Caucasians, Asians, and men.  Indeed, some justices overtly distinguish between good (“benign”) discrimination (against “disfavored” whites, Asians and men) and bad (“malign”) (against “preferred” groups). Justice Thomas denounced the distinction as “noxious … poisonous and pernicious,” turning on “whose ox is gored.”  This established the very quotas guaranteed to be prohibited by sponsors of specific 1964 Civil Rights Act language to this end.  The resulting Orwellian state of affairs is that true discrimination opponents are pilloried, with decades of high court approval, as racists and sexists by advocates of a spoils system based on race and sex classifications supposedly prohibited by both the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act — a system so corrupt that rabid leftist Elizabeth Warren successfully falsified her ethnic heritage to advance her path to the U.S. Senate.

War Against the Religious.  “We are a religious people[,]” the Court once acknowledged.  Nevertheless, for more than 60 years, tiny “offended” minorities and lone individuals, aided by justices, often no more than five lawyers out of a population of 200-300 million, have subverted the First Amendment guarantee of “free exercise” of religion.  Thus, Justice Kennedy, on behalf of four justices, accused five justices of “an unjustified hostility toward religion[.]”  Portraying justices’ unpredictable, detailed religion regulations as “some ghoul in a late-night horror movie,” Justice Scalia wrote a dissent that would be hilarious if it did not reveal how a minuscule minority exercises tyranny over both other minorities and the majority as well.  Frequent hair-splitting occurs, as usually divided justices idiosyncratically give thumbs up and thumbs down to various religious displays.

Property Rights.  Chief Justice Rehnquist objected to property rights being “relegated to the status of a poor relation.”  Starting with Wickard v. Filburn (penalizing a farmer for growing wheat on his own farm for his own use) and culminating in the infamous 5-4 Obamacare rationalization, limits on federal power, on matters approved by five elite lawyers, have been virtually eliminated by abusing the Constitution’s commerce and tax powers, as well as the due process and equal protection clauses.  Under one notorious fiat, the property of no person lacking influence is safe from corrupt government officials seeking to transfer that property to the powerful.  As Justice O’Connor dissented (13) in Kelo v. New London: “The beneficiaries are likely to [have] disproportionate influence and power … [T]he government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.” [Emphasis added.]

But when it comes to perversity, nothing can top…

Obamacare.  After being publicly threatened by President Obama and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy, Chief Justice Roberts had the effrontery to blame the voters in justifying his thoroughly disingenuous cave-in upholding this law, now inflicting hardships on growing millions of Americans.  Nevertheless, there can be no better illustration of tyranny of a corrupt willful minority than this “act of government mayhem.”  Neither Senator Obama nor a muzzled Speaker Pelosi campaigned for this in 2008; Mitt Romney largely ignored it in 2012.  Once unleashed, Pelosi famously declared that the 2,400-page legislation had to be enacted to find out what was in it (bureaucratic license to excrete 11,000 pages of authoritarian regulations, many unfathomable). Is there anyone so deluded by ideology or partisanship as to believe that anywhere near a majority of the people ever sought or approved this monstrosity?  Indeed, when Obamacare was a major issue, in 2010, Republicans decisively captured the House.

The only reason for continuation of this unpopular disaster is tyranny.  And this is not tyranny of the majority, but of the ruling class — executive, legislative, judicial and media.  According to Dick Armey, when leftist ideologue George Miller was told most people did not want a prior Obamacare version, the latter replied that they were going to get it “whether they want it or not.”  Rep. Miller claims to not remember, but this is exactly what happened!
***
Let’s not delude ourselves.  The filibuster has prevented a few bad Senate actions (and many good ones).  However, it has not protected the people against ever-increasing federal power — power abused with reckless abandon well before abuse on steroids by Obama.

Thus, it would be highly ill-advised to so exalt the filibuster that purportedly outraged Republicans attempt to restore it.  An ominous reaction to the nuclear option came from Republican Senator Flake: “That’s what I fear. I fear that once Republicans get the majority, it’s very tough to tell the base that you’re going to diminish your own authority.”  (Flake is an Obamacare enabler.)  Can anything better show what’s wrong with RINOs?  This man not only cowers at exercising his existing power, but he fears that he might not be able to reduce it!

Many of today’s worst problems are due not just to aggressive leftist Democrats who will stop at nothing, but also to timid RINOs who stand for nothing.  Although Senator Flake fears that a Republican majority will not restore the filibuster, what the rest of us should fear is the fear of the likes of Senator Flake.

It is galling that John Boehner became speaker in 2011, because Tea Party Republicans campaigned on a promise to avert the current Obamacare disaster.  In January 2011, Obama had not yet been re-elected, and the House Republican mandate was at its pinnacle.  All Republicans had to do was not vote for money to implement Obamacare.  It is absolutely absurd to say that this required approval of the president or the Senate.  The Constitution is crystal-clear: if the House refuses to vote for appropriations, there is nothing anybody else can do about it except scream to high heaven, much as Republicans have done over the nuclear option.  (Democrats do not care who screams and how loud; RINOs quake at the very prospect.)
Future historians will have ample reason to conclude that the great tragedy of the Obama dictatorship was not the demise of the filibuster, but that, at a critical historical moment and on one of the most destructive laws ever enacted, House leaders blocked fulfillment of the very promise that made them leaders.

As for filibustering to block judges who would legitimize further unconstitutional abuse of power, never forget Chief Justice Roberts.  Those who revere the Constitution and were shocked by Obamacare’s intimidated savior should remember this: reliance on judges is gambling.  Heed Judge Learned Hand’s warning that we “rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes.”

Above all, remember that President Obama is able to abuse power only because the RINO-led House timidly refuses to constitutionally block money for such abuse.  If RINOs are not replaced, and if a genuine opposition party is not established, nothing can save the Constitution — or the representative democracy and freedoms that are the heritage of this country.
____________________________
Lester Jackson, Ph.D., a former college political science teacher, views mainstream media suppression of the truth as essential to harmful judicial activism. His recent articles are collected here.

The Affordable Care Act First Does Harm, Period

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

While much about Barack Obama remains mysterious, he was easily the most left-wing member of the U.S. Senate. As president of the United States, his left-wing orthodoxy is best manifest in his signature health plan. ObamaCare follows a principle beloved of Karl Marx and other socialist founding fathers: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

Note the first word: from. In this order of priorities it is more important what the individual gives up and what the state takes. The individual’s particular needs are secondary, and ObamaCare follows this pattern precisely.

The president’s announced intention is to bring “quality, affordable,” health insurance to the uninsured. That is not likely to happen for some time, if at all given the debacle of the rollout. But ObamaCare has already succeeded in taking away health insurance from some 10 million people in the individual market with loss of their health plan by January 1.

Those people purchased health insurance they believed best met their needs. It was what they wanted and in many cases they were happy with their plan and wanted to keep it.

President Barack Obama told the nation multiple times that “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan. Period.” But despite recent disclaimers, that turns out to be untrue. Millions of others are happy with the employer-provided coverage they now stand to lose.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Left’s Reality Problem

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Photo Credit: Politico

Photo Credit: Politico

The deceptions around Obamacare are central—both to the law and to the left’s advocacy generally. So much of liberal policy is based on Affordable Care Act-style thinking, which involves hiding and never acknowledging the costs of a given policy; giving legislation a warm and fuzzy name on the assumption that its results will live up to that appellation; and moralistic attacks on people who resist as fools and ogres.

Every side in a political argument tends to gild the lily, but the acknowledgment of any downside is particularly devastating to liberal presumptions. Liberals are inherently activists on domestic policy, and to make the strongest possible case for action, you need certainty not nuance, cost-free benefits, not painful trade-offs, blissful promises not unintended consequences.

Consider the minimum wage. Rarely do liberals truly grapple with the possibility—supported by some, but not all research—that it suppresses employment. If they did, they would be more cautious about advocating a higher minimum wage in a soft job market and less scornful of opponents.

When Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said the other day that extended unemployment benefits could keep people from searching for a job, he was denounced, literally, as a Scrooge. It doesn’t matter that there is plenty of evidence—some of it once mustered by Alan Krueger, the former head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers—on Paul’s side. He is presumed guilty of a moral failing.

Read more from this story HERE.

Boehner’s Crocodile Tears for Amnesty

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Boehner-crying-215x300It is an odd fight. Such a weird little battle over meaningless and known outcomes. Conservatives, aware from press reports and congressional leaks, knew what would be in the Paul Ryan drafted budget plan. The conservative groups released statements in opposition to the plan based on what they had been told. But there was never any doubt about the Ryan plan passing.

After the plan was publicly unveiled by the Republicans at six o’clock on a Tuesday night, conservative fears were realized. Those things they knew would be in the plan were, in fact, in the plan. The plan funded Obamacare. The plan raised taxes. The plan broke the sequestration spending limits that only a month before Republican leaders had said would never be broken.

Speaker Boehner then did something curious. He held two press conferences wherein he lashed out at conservative groups. He denounced them for making up their minds before the plan was publicly unveiled. Never mind that everyone knew what would be in the plan. Never mind that he only gave the public thirty-six hours to explore the text of the plan — a violation of a campaign promise to give at least seventy-two hours of examination. Speaker Boehner’s statement sounded like former Speaker Pelosi claiming we had to pass the Ryan plan to find out what was in the Ryan plan.

Superficially, it is a very odd fight. But Speaker Boehner’s crocodile tears in his attacks and cries against the conservative movement are really about the next fight. Speaker Boehner intends to pursue immigration reform, with an amnesty component. Before he gets there, he needs to shape battle lines.

There are a number of fence sitters on the right. Speaker Boehner needs them on his team. By castigating the conservative movement now and making them the unpopular crowd, the Speaker and Republican leaders intend to draw the fence sitters to them. Once they have done so, they can move on to a primary season where they can fight against the unpopular crowd intent on driving some incumbents from office.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Splash Or A Wave? A First Look At The 2014 U.S. Senate Races

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Photo Credit: The Federalist

Photo Credit: The Federalist

The GOP has been struggling to recapture the Senate majority for nearly a decade. Now, the sixth year itch, a plethora of vulnerable red-state Democrats, and Obamacare’s unpopularity appear to be forming a perfect storm – if the Republicans want it.

Six years ago, the Democrats were riding high: after winning the Senate back two years prior amidst scandals and the Iraq War, they improved their gains greatly, coming within a seat of a supermajority (which then-Republican Senator Arlen Specter happily granted just a few months later). This was accomplished with a mix of reasonably close overthrows of sitting Republicans (Sununu, Stevens, Coleman, and Smith), a wider rebuke of another (Dole), and picking up three seats vacated by retiring GOPers (Warner, Domenici, and Allard). Despite holding several seats in Republican territory, the popularity of incumbents Pryor, Landrieu, Baucus, Johnson and Rockefeller assured the Democrats that the Great Blue Wave would see no consolation prizes for the Republicans.

My, how things have changed.

Red State Democrats: an endangered species?

When the GOP flubbed the 2012 races in North Dakota, Missouri, Montana and Indiana, it seemed as if strong Democratic personalities still had a shot despite the growing unpopularity of the President in the red states. So long as the GOP picked either delusional or lackluster candidates, being a Democrat in a state that would break hard for Romney wasn’t necessarily a death sentence. One could hope for an Akin to rant about magical uteri, or a Berg to win their party’s nomination and, well, apparently forget to campaign.

Read more from this story HERE.

Diet COLA: Murray-Ryan Budget Targets Military Retirees

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Photo by Gage Skidmore

Photo by Gage Skidmore

On Wednesday, I received an email from the Air Force Sergeant’s Association (AFSA) CEO and in response posted this statement on my Facebook page: “Air Force Sergeant’s Association posted Paul Ryan proposed a cut of 1% in military retiree COLA pay each year until the retiree reaches 62. So, for me, that would be a 16% cut. I have never taken welfare or any other handout. All of my retirement is taken in taxes already. I’m interested to hear how much was slashed from the handout programs that didn’t require the recipients to give at least 20 years of their lives.” I received several requests to do an article and given the serious nature of this budget proposal and its devastating impact on all the military retirees that have served honorably and live on fixed incomes, I felt the need to heed that call.

From my earliest years as a child, I watched my father put on his Navy uniform and serve long hours to defend our nation, sometimes deploying to remote areas for several months at a time. Growing up on a military base instilled in me a desire to serve so I signed up for the Air Force while I was still a senior in high school. I joined when I was 18 years old and I gave 20 years and 2 months of my life to my country. In return, like my dad before me, I was promised a retirement benefit commensurate to my time in service and the rank I obtained which was Senior Master Sergeant (E-8.)

I joined the Air Force in April, 1986, and even at that time, Congress had their scalpels out and they were cutting benefits. One benefit that I missed out on by two days was having the 9 months of my delayed enlistment count toward my time in service. In 1990, the military changed the structure of the retirements and offered a buyback for those that served at least 15 years. Members were allowed to take a lump sum taxed at a 28% rate in exchange for a lower monthly retirement. I don’t know if that is still going on. A few years after that change, it was proposed to lower the retirement percentage from 50% of base pay after 20 years of service to 40% of base pay. But, in the past, these changes came with a grandfathered clause.

The Bipartisan Budget Act passed by the House on December 12, 2013, is the one put together behind closed doors by Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan that will cut the retiree benefits effective 2015 with no grandfathered clause. Under their proposal, each year a retiree will lose 1% of the adjusted Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), an amount calculated to keep up with the Consumer Price Index, until the age of 62. At that time, COLA would be readjusted to the current level. What does this mean for the average retiree? A significant loss. With the exception of the Army, no other service allows enlisted members to serve until they are 62 years old. The average person will enlist between the ages of 18-25 years old. Typically, most career military personnel make it to the 20 year mark of their careers. Some, if they make their rank in time, may serve up to 30 years. This being the case, most people retire between the ages of 38-55. This proposal will have a serious negative impact on all of them.

The following bullet points were taken directly from the House website:

– We make sensible reforms for civilian and military retirement programs.
– On the civilian side, we ask future retirees to contribute a little bit more — still well below what’s common for state and local government employees—so taxpayers don’t have to pick up the entire tab.
– And for younger military retirees, we trim their cost-of-living adjustment just a bit. It’s a modest reform for working-age military retirees.
https://budget.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=364040

In an Air Force Times article, Retiree COLAs targeted in bipartisan budget deal, written by Rick Maze, he quotes the following: “To us, this seems like an odd time to decide we need to limit COLAs. Why do it now when you have a commission just formed to study retired pay and make recommendations on changes?” said Michael Hayden, government relations director of the Military Officers Association of America, referring to the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Committee that has just started its work on pay reform. Part of the commission’s order from Congress is to come up with changes in retired pay that do not harm anyone now in the military, with cuts aimed at people who enter service in the future, Hayden said. The budget agreement violates the spirit of grandfathering current service members and retirees, he said.

This budget is a direct attack on the military and its veterans and still manages to increase spending. And don’t forget, in addition to this, just three short weeks ago the Secretary of Defense proposed closing all stateside commissaries. So think about it retirees and future retirees, you’re supposed to give up retirement you’ve earned and a benefit that saves you 15-20% a month on groceries. For many of you living on fixed incomes, that can be the difference between eating and not eating.

Ryan defended the cuts. “We think it is only fair that hardworking taxpayers, who pay for the benefits that our federal employees receive, be treated fairly as well,” he said. That sounds good on the surface, but I regress to my first paragraph. My retirement is taxed and my retirement is not enough to live on independently. My husband is the primary provider of the family. At the end of the year, my entire retirement is taken back in taxes so I suppose and can just add 1% to that amount in 2015. Thank you so much Congress.

If you’re reading this article, you still have the chance to have your voice heard. This legislation will be voted on in the Senate next week and momentum is growing against it. This is your chance to make a difference, contact your Senators and let them know how you feel about the Bipartisan Budget Plan. Call the Senate switchboard and ask to be directed to your Senator’s office at 202-224-3121. While you’re on the phone with them, ask how much foreign aid was slashed. Remember, without our veterans who have sacrificed much, we would not have the freedoms we do today.
________________________________
Julie Gillette is a retired Air Force Senior Master Sergeant and disabled veteran currently living in Fairbanks, Alaska. She is active in Alaska state politics.