I find it amazing how contradictory the “conservative” position is on contract law. Let’s go back to 2009 – after Americans of all ideologies were in a tither about greedy bankers receiving bailouts with taxpayer money and then still immediately paying out billions to Wall Street traders and executives. America just bailed their asses out if only to save the economic system and prevent an economic implosion caused by Wall Street. And that resentment led to a debate about forcing banks to limit executive bonuses, pay structures etc.
Proponents and shills of Wall Street gasped with shock and horror at the horrible socialistic qualities of such an idea. After all – if we are not a country of laws … what are we? They contended that contract law is sacrosanct. Sacre bleu! … they collectively yelled in horror. How can we expect a contract to mean anything if there is no trust that the contract will be honored at some point in the future?
And that’s why your student loans will be garnished out of your paycheck if you don’t pay them.
And that’s why international bankers are so insistent that Europe fulfill it’s pledge to pay back it’s debt.
So – if contract law is such an important part of the “core” of what it means to be America … and generally – even throughout the world … how is it that so many “conservatives” are always calling for breaking the contracts of middle class workers when it comes to their retirement and healthcare packages?
Pensions are expensive … that’s true. And I don’t think it’s fair that a union member or anyone else for that matter should have to have a gun to their head metaphorically every year as politicians vote on whether or not promises should be kept relative to the retirement of their retired workers. If the state or local government or private company felt so strongly that pensions were not a just measure … then they should not have signed the contract giving those rights to those employees. I’m a proponent of government paying these pensions UP FRONT to guarantee workers that their retirement is in safe hands and away from the invisible hand of political brinkmanship.
And it’s true that pensions can break the backs of budgets right now … that’s absolutely true. But we paid these people less when they worked for the government and they did their civic duty and now those workers are getting paid on the back end of the deal. Movie stars do that ALL THE TIME … some will defer their pay up front in return for a share at the end. And that’s how these contracts were set up; so we either respect contract law or we do not.
Raw Story has the story HERE:
“I think it’s wrong to scapegoat the unions over this,” Leser noted. “There’s all kinds of other things that we could be looking at to raise money without attacking middle class workers, people who risk their lives for us — you know, police officers, firefighters.”
“It’s the slippery slope. We’re going to take this benefit away from them and in a couple of years we’re going to take this benefit away from them,” he added.
“Most Americans in the private sector don’t even have these benefits,” Cavuto argued.
“They should have them,” Leser pointed out.
“Yeah, we should all have Chateaubriand every night, but we don’t,” Cavuto shot back. “We don’t have that option. Let’s wake up in the real world.”
