Thank you Mr. President, for bringing up the issue of fairness. I’m sure that’s important to many people. One curious thing, though, with regard to the application of “fairness” it seems that all the recommendations you have, are decided by the government. Who decides what is fair?
Here’s some suggestions:
The average Federal employee can be paid no more than the average American employee, currently $42K a yr. Wouldn’t that be fair? And the highest amount paid to any retired Federal employee should be no more than the highest Social Security monthly amount. Wouldn’t that be fair?
In the past few years, average Americans have lost ten percent of their income. All Federal employees shall receive ten percent pay cuts, and only receive increases when the average American earns more. Isn’t that fair? After all, how can the government hope to get more money from taxpayers who are earning less?
Working middle class Americans can’t leave a job for months or years, look for a new job, and still get paid. Why should government employees be able to run for any federal office while holding and being paid for another elected office?
No employee in any Federal or state job should receive more than one pension. That sounds fair.
The Senate hasn’t passed a budget in 1,000 days. They should lose their paychecks and all fringe benefits until they pass a budget. Isn’t that fair?
No one who worked in Congress can ever work as a lobbyist. Including staffers. Sounds fair to me.
Everyone who travels on Air Force One must pay their own way, be they friends of the President, First Lady, or staffers. That’s eminently fair. No American flies for free. And they must undergo full scanning and/or patdowns like all Americans. Fair is fair. If they do not pay a full amount to be determined by the CBO, their flight is counted as income and they must pay income tax on that amount, just as everyone else does for gifts. No one who flies on Air Force One can be involved in campaigning, fund raising, or Federal contracts.
The First Lady shouldn’t use any tax dollars for personal items such as clothes, 30 personal assistants. She should be limited to two assistants. Any more, they come out of the First Family’s paycheck. If she buys clothes or receives them as gifts, those items count, at full retail value, as income. She must pay income tax on that just as all other Americans do. The First Family must stop taking vacations and living lavishly on the taxes of people who lost their jobs and homes. That’s only fair.
No government worker at any level, state, Federal, or local should be part of a union with collective bargaining that makes political contributions to politicians who vote on their contracts. SEIU, NEA, AFSCME, and the other unions should not be allowed to contribute to any political campaign or party. These unions take money from taxpayers and use it to pay off politicians to give them pay/benefit raises. That gives them more say than the American taxpayers. Is that fair? It would be illegal for private employees to give money to their boss, in order to persuaded the boss to give them a pay raise. Fair is fair.
Congressional Representatives should not be allowed to invest in any interests for which they have a vote.
The President and politicians can no longer use “moral extortion” to dodge tax cuts. Such as “the poor will suffer,” the homeless will suffer, etc. In reality it’s the rich Federal workers who will suffer. The taxpayers decide what is politically correct, not the government.
It’s only fair: it’s change we can believe in. It’s only fair that voters decide what changes should be made. The Federal government has demonstrated a complete and reckless disregard for the financial needs of the average American family.
Michael Bargo Jr. January 25, 2012
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/good-idea-why-dont-we-have-a-national-conversation-about-whats-fair-mr-president/question-2417363/
Andrew Breitbart Tea Party Obituary
Conservative media publisher and activist Andrew Breitbart has died in Los Angeles. He was 43.
Breitbart’s website, bigjournalism.com, announced Thursday he died of natural causes in Los Angeles in the early morning hours. His death was confirmed by Breitbart.com editor-in-chief Joel Pollak, who said he was at the hospital.
He is survived by his wife Susannah Bean Breitbart, daughter of Orson Bean an American film, television, and Broadway actor she is 41, and his four children.
Breitbart served as an American Icon to the Conservative base with his hard hitting, expose reporting. His website bigjournalism.com was managed with the kind of investigative reporting that seemed to be all but extinct in the 21st century.
Breitbart grew up in liberal American suburb of Brentwood, Los Angeles CA and began his journalism career as an early contributor to the Drudge Report as a moderate Democrat. However, Breitbart moved his ideology to the right after seeing the destructive journalism of the left with the Clarence Thomas hearings. He described himself as “a Reagan conservative” with libertarian sympathies.
In April 2011 Grand Central Publishing released Breitbart’s book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World, in which he discussed his own political evolution and the part he took in the rise of new media, most notably at the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post.
My own personal eulogy to Andrew Breitbart is simple; he represented my hope that real journalism would be reborn from the ashes of an election that was won and lost on the basis of biased journalism. He exemplified outraged Americans by standing up to the left wing media. He fought a hard battle for the Conservative come back and in 2010 we won. He stood before us naked, down trodden and dusted himself off to come back from deep in the trenches of the liberal garbage to secure a place of reverence in the hearts of Tea Party Americans across this nation. He was the first public figure I cried for since JFK. He was Big Journalism through and through. Rest in Peace patriot, your work here is done; the rest is up to us.