Turning point for the nation’s future

By Will Parry

The union men and women of Wisconsin are in the front lines of a battle whose outcome may well determine the future course of the nation.

The corporate-backed right wing is riding high, using an economic crisis the working people had no part in creating to launch a crushing offensive against organized labor.

Labor and its allies are fighting back with massive rallies in the nation’s capitols.  A heroic band of legislative champions is challenging the union busters in Congress and the state houses.

An immediate flash point is the expiration of Congress’ continuing resolution, or CR, on Friday, March 4.  As these words are written, Congress is tied in knots over whether, and under what circumstances, to extend the CR, which has governed federal expenditures the over five months since the start of the new fiscal year on October 1.

Stark partisan differences make it obvious that no budget for fiscal year 2011 will be in place by March 4.  Without a further extension of the CR, the government will shut down, wreaking havoc with funding for programs people depend on for survival.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is the most critical of the many programs whose funding is endangered.  The CR has already required a partial hiring freeze, likely to result in the loss of 2,500 jobs.  Now the 2011 budget plan proposed by the House Republicans would impose a further $1.7 billion reduction in SSA funding for the remainder of 2011.

With a cut so drastic, the entire agency would have to shut down all operations for 20 working days.  Phones would not be answered.  Field offices would be closed.  Claims processing would halt.  Over half a million new retirees, disabled workers and survivors would be forced into a backlog before receiving the benefits they have earned.

No $1.7 billion reduction is going to pass in the Senate.  But unless the CR is continued, lesser but still severe program cuts are inevitable.

The budget hawks of the right-wing attack machine are exploiting the economic crisis to eviscerate or eliminate valuable government programs, but they balk at cutting the monstrous war expenditures, or taxing the millionaires and billionaires who have prospered richly at a time when millions are unemployed and suffering.

Last year, the top 13 U.S. hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each.  One of them took home $5 billion.  Much of their income is taxed as capital gains at 15 percent.  If the earnings of the 13 were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of 300,000 teachers, Robert Reich reports.

Teachers like those demonstrating in the streets of Madison and Olympia for their sacred collective bargaining rights.

Yes, the millions of public workers are on the front lines today, defending their modest pay and benefits, and the pensions they have earned over a full working life – and defending democracy at the same time.

The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans is with them all the way.  Our retirement security, and that of our children and grandchildren, is on the line as well.