Goldy points out that any push to dismantle Worker’s Comp as part of the budget will be disingenuous.
In other words, Republicans are attempting to impose hardship on workers in order to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. Kinda like Rodney Tom’s campaign to eliminate the GET program, or the Republicans’ broader efforts to end state pension programs that are among the best funded in the nation.
It will be tempting for Democrats to give in to the Republicans’ anti-worker demands in order to craft a compromise budget, but one hopes they have the smarts and the courage to call bullshit on this bullshit when bullshit it is.
Of course that’s true. But fixing the budget was never the GOP goal. Weakening our workers comp system is good enough for them. Putting the state further on the side of employers over employees has always been the goal. It’s the reason for the existence of the modern GOP.
I believe defined benefit plans will eventually no longer be offered by public employers. They’re disappearing at a fast rate from the private sector, and they will eventually disappear from the public sector, too. I even believe the military’s pension system will be changed to something more like a defined contribution plan.
I’m not passing judgement and saying it’s good or bad, but defined benefit plans are going to continue to disappear and be replaced by defined contribution plans. Workers will be forced to take an active role in planning their own retirements. Sorry, but that’s the way I see it coming down.
@1 If you don’t know the difference between defined benefit pensions and worker’s comp, you’re even more ignorant than
I previously believed.
Since worker’s comp is funded by a dedicated payroll tax (paid in part by workers), why is it necessary to balance the state budget on the backs of injured workers? Worker’s comp shouldn’t even be part of the budget discussion. If the system needs more money then raise the worker’s comp tax.
The century-old worker’s comp system was the result of a historic compromise between business and labor that gave employers immunity from lawsuits for workplace injuries and gave workers no-fault insurance that paid their medical expenses and replaced their lost wages. (Employers can still be sued for gross negligence.)
If Republican legislators and their business supporters now want to renege on that deal, then Democratic legislators and their labor supporters should renege on it, too. If they don’t want to pay injured workers, fine, give ’em back their right to sue. My lawyer buddies would love to have this work.
From 2,
Yes, I know the difference between workers’ compensation and defined benefiit plans. I just felt like stating my views of how defined benefit plans are disappearing. That’s all.
@5 Which was off topic.
According to the “conservatives”, the working man is just a lazy, malcontent, good-for-nothing bum who doesn’t deserve to eat, and would rather sit around on the public dole spending other peoples money anyway. Anyone that works for an hourly wage is a borderline communist and should be classified as a potential terrorist. The working man breeds like rabbits (no offense Roger) and demands communist-inspired socialistic programs like publicly funded schools, paved roads, fresh water piped directly into their homes, protection under the law, and having fires put out that they started due to their own stupidity.
If the working man gets hurt on the job, oh well, sucks to be them. They should have been more careful and not so stupid as to stand under that lifted load or dig in that particular spot. It’s their own fault. They should count themselves fortunate to be allowed to live, they are just useless eaters without the charity of the Capitalists granting them that privilege of work.
Firemen are just another branch of the working-class bum who sit around all day on the public dime doing nothing until they get a call to put out a fire started by someone else’s stupidity. Schoolteachers and other government employees are the same way, they’re just out to work the system until they can retire on welfare. We wouldn’t even need schools at all if parents were doing their job as parents in the first place instead of leaving the house all day to mooch off someone else’s hard work.
The only legitimate business the “conservatives” recognize is banking and other forms of direct capital extraction and expansion such as insurance. Those industries serve the purposes of the Capitalist class, the only class of people that deserve to be called Americans. Everyone else is a piece of shit who greedily leech off that wealth just so they can spend it on cheap beer, junk food and sports channels on cable TV.
I know this, because Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh told me so.
Not to mention SpuddyPud.
Hey! Let’s not pay them either for sitting around. How about we make them contractors, who only get paid if there’s a call. Better still, we’ll cut that ‘call-only’ pay down below minimum, and they can supplement it with ‘tips’ and whatever else they can find in the smoking ruins of the houses they attend to.
Yup, ‘rentiers’. Only those people who figure a way to skim off of someone else’s labor, to pocket for themselves wealth generated by another, without actually, you know, working or producing.
It helps, in that sort of ‘business’ to be profoundly greed-driven and amoral, too. They also tend to be afraid.
Imagine if we all thought that way, and looked on our fellow citizens that way – as just another mark to be taken – imagine what our fire fighters and teachers and ER doctors and home health aids and construction workers and airline pilots would be like – imagine all the services and products that would be made with the solitary goal of maximizing personal profit.
Our society would suck.
We have to find a way to identify and properly channel the talents of these people, those that are drawn to power and who are animated by nothing more than maximizing personal wealth and power.
You know, the ones we’ve let be in charge of everything.
@ 8
Damn right, they need to start buying their own equipment too. Why should the State provide them with expensive luxury tools and Cadillac machines just so they can be chauffeured around in them trying to look cool like a bunch of pimps. If they want such fancy gear they can buy it themselves. On credit of course, and at a decent interest rate to guarantee the True Americans a good return on their investment.
It occurred to me just now, as I was doing my morning dishes, that those fancy fire trucks should have meters put on them too, so True Americans can make sure any water the firefighters use gets paid for, instead of just handing it to them for free.
Why should the True Americans have to pay for water to put out someone else’s fire? The Firemen can backcharge the owner of the fire for that water and get a surcharge to make up for the wear and tear on their equipment, that should be allowed.
From 6,
Yes, but so what?
@12
You clearly don’t understand how the comment threads at this site work.
Open threads, usually with a date, but also including Friday Night funnies, Tuesday Drinking Liberally and Sunday Bible Study, are open for any and all commentary on any topic anyone wishes – a free for all, if you will.
Posts with a specific topic, like this one, have comment threads curated more closely, and comments are to stay on topic.
Hope that helped.
From 13,
And you clearly don’t understand that I could care less what you think.
Hope that helps!
Story,,that was snarky.
@13 Or anything else.
@14 He’s explaining the posting rules to you, numbskull. This isn’t your blog. You’re a guest here. Comprende? Nah, you’re deaf.
As I’m HA’s unofficial greeter, it is my duty to inform the new troll of HA’s ad hoc posting rules. Here they are again:
1. This is a liberal blog.
2. Anyone can post here, except JCH.
3. There is no censorship.
4. As liberals, our mission is to verbally kick the living shit out of the rightwing America-hating traitors who troll here.
5. No mercy for wingnuts!
6. Our non-negotiable terms are unconditional surrender, and there will be trials.
7. klake is a nazi.
Any questions?
From 18,
Yes:
1. Who is Klake?
2. Why are you so arrogant?
TYA @ 14, 15, 18
Fuck off. I tried to be helpful, and willfully avoided offering an opinion of your consistently asinine commentary when I tried to help you not look like an idiot.
When dealing with imbeciles like you, it must seem that the somewhat pedantic posture Roger assumes is arrogance. It’s not, it’s merely an effective pedagogic tool when other, more subtle or nuanced approaches are wasted, like pearls before swine.
From 20,
Wow! You’re as arrogant as Roger.
BTW, who is Klake?
@19 (1) A former troll with a lily liver and a wide yellow strip down his back who fled from this blog several years ago after getting his ears boxed and his ass kicked six ways to Sunday.
(2) For the same reason I’m a “communist” and “dumb Wabbit” and all the other things trolls with big mouths and small minds call me. When they get frustrated, they pound on garbage can lids and call me names. It’s simply part of the noise they make.
@20 The way you get a jackass to pull a plow is beat him with a stick. If the jackass thinks you’re “arrogant,” so be it. A jackass hasn’t been born yet that realizes jackassery is the fault of jackasses. That’s why they’re jackasses.