The very rich oligarchies buy countries, states and local governments and then pass their anti-tax policies, which over time leaves the government with not enough tax revenue to pay bills or maintain infrastructure and they then often opt for pension holidays to make ends meet, skipping payments to the pension funds.
Over time this has created large unfunded pension liabilities in effected countries, like Greece and cities like Detroit, and maybe Chicago is next to borrow money from pensioners to make up for revenue shortfalls after giving corporations and the wealthy tax breaks.
Now austerity hawks are using these unfunded liabilities to argue slashing pensions even though it was their own anti-tax policies that caused the problem. While it is sound public policy to use debt to fund long-term capital projects, it is deeply problematic when governments are forced to borrow money to deal with revenue shortfalls. It is even more problematic when they are doing so as a result of a concerted effort to suppress taxes.
New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie attacked his state’s pension and retirement system to the tune of $170 billion. This deficit occurred in two ways, the state slashed its contributions to pension funds and his cronies engaged in double dipping, gorging themselves at the public trough by “retiring” from one public job to take another while collecting retirement from the first and a salary from the second.
When cities and counties borrow money, they borrow from the banks and the very rich, who then get richer off the backs of the wage slaves who would pay taxes if they could earn a living wage, such as $15 to $18 an hour.
Austerity is a lack of revenue caused by the refusal of Wall Street, big corporations and millionaires to pay their fair share in taxes. The proletarians need to elect people to pass a millionaires’ tax and a financial transaction tax, close corporate tax loopholes and end subsidies for profitable corporations. We must elect people who will stand with the 99 percent, and here in the U.S. consider senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
In 2026 unions worldwide must educate and expand their memberships or face certain death. We need to educate our workers to understand that the republican party does not care about, does not deserve their support or votes and only cares about the billionaires. The GOP is their enemy and not their friends. The GOP and billionaires are the workers’ enemy. They want the workers’ sweat and blood for as cheap as they can get it. These greedy people and their insatiable appetite for more leaving us with much less will not stop until we’re forced to work for scraps and fighting each other for the pittance. They will not invite you to golf with them or go hunting or to dinner with them. In fact, they are always in pursuit of ways to destroy our unions and the way of life we’ve obtain by being union. One way they are doing this is to use the court system, especially the lop-sided Supreme Court, to take away our union rights and to get more states to vote for The Right to Work, which leaves work...
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