by Ken Previti
David Sirota, you and me…
David Sirota exposes yet another major rip-off of teachers – active and retired. The political leadership of both major political parties, the elected officials, and the corporate thieves who control major media outlets lie and propagandize about these rip-offs.
“As states and cities grapple with budget shortfalls, many are betting big on an unproven formula: Slash public employee pension benefits and public services while diverting the savings into lucrative subsidies for professional sports teams.”
So begins Sirota’s latest investigative article.
Illinois, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, Arizona, and Maryland are all used as examples in Sirota’s article, yet many other state legislatures are following this same pattern of theft.
Active teachers pay a percentage of their salaries into pensions systems that are predicted to fail – predicted by the same legislators who both mandate teacher pension payments by teachers and their local school districts in addition to 401k “savings” and redistribute these mandated savings into the pockets of corporate thieves who contribute to the re-election of the legislators. Before the same legislators legalized this process with the help of the courts, it was called corruption. Now it is merely a “public-private partnership” that sells America one student, one teacher, one pension, one contract, one school, one special sales tax dollar, one high stakes test, and one soul at a time.
The misused and diverted earned income of active teachers is wage theft. Retired teachers watch as their earned income, pensions, is erroneously blamed for the crippling of America’s economy. So, as Sirota publishes his findings, the corporate media publishes greedy-teacher pension scapegoating propaganda as truth.
“The state has a total of $175.7 billion in unpaid pension and state debts it cannot pay. If that had to be paid today, every Illinois taxpayer would have to fork over $43,000.”
- The Chicago Sun Times paraphrases a self proclaimed non-partisan think tank.
Let’s read that again with my emphasis that emphasizes the method of propaganda.
“The state has a total of $175.7 billion in unpaid pension and state debts it cannot pay. If that had to be paid today, every Illinois taxpayer would have to fork over $43,000.”
What other state debts? If what had to be paid in one day? Why would a state pay all its forecast payments immediately as one big, lump sum? Propaganda as fair and balanced news? Nonsense. Repeated nonsense by major media outlets becomes believed propaganda.
The stock market is at an all time high. In many states, over 70% of corporations pay no taxes. American CEO income is also at an all time high. American companies who relocate overseas are paid subsidies from America’s tax base to leave the country.
The wealthiest country in the world is selling itself away because of unnecessary austerity measures that are not called austerity. Taxes are supposed to be used for the public good – not as unearned payoffs to the immensely wealthy.
Let’s call it non-partisan corruption and redistribution of earned income to insanely wealthy corporate thieves who have no moral compass.
This is yet another way to wage war against public education. What capable young adult would choose to make teaching a lifelong career, a career that assures teachers will be victims of wage theft and guarantees a retirement into poverty?
This war must be won by teachers, or the quality of education will be lost.
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—–
“As states and cities grapple with budget shortfalls, many are betting big on an unproven formula: Slash public employee pension benefits and public services while diverting the savings into lucrative subsidies for professional sports teams.”
So begins Sirota’s latest investigative article.
Illinois, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, Arizona, and Maryland are all used as examples in Sirota’s article, yet many other state legislatures are following this same pattern of theft.
Active teachers pay a percentage of their salaries into pensions systems that are predicted to fail – predicted by the same legislators who both mandate teacher pension payments by teachers and their local school districts in addition to 401k “savings” and redistribute these mandated savings into the pockets of corporate thieves who contribute to the re-election of the legislators. Before the same legislators legalized this process with the help of the courts, it was called corruption. Now it is merely a “public-private partnership” that sells America one student, one teacher, one pension, one contract, one school, one special sales tax dollar, one high stakes test, and one soul at a time.
The misused and diverted earned income of active teachers is wage theft. Retired teachers watch as their earned income, pensions, is erroneously blamed for the crippling of America’s economy. So, as Sirota publishes his findings, the corporate media publishes greedy-teacher pension scapegoating propaganda as truth.
“The state has a total of $175.7 billion in unpaid pension and state debts it cannot pay. If that had to be paid today, every Illinois taxpayer would have to fork over $43,000.”
- The Chicago Sun Times paraphrases a self proclaimed non-partisan think tank.
Let’s read that again with my emphasis that emphasizes the method of propaganda.
“The state has a total of $175.7 billion in unpaid pension and state debts it cannot pay. If that had to be paid today, every Illinois taxpayer would have to fork over $43,000.”
What other state debts? If what had to be paid in one day? Why would a state pay all its forecast payments immediately as one big, lump sum? Propaganda as fair and balanced news? Nonsense. Repeated nonsense by major media outlets becomes believed propaganda.
The stock market is at an all time high. In many states, over 70% of corporations pay no taxes. American CEO income is also at an all time high. American companies who relocate overseas are paid subsidies from America’s tax base to leave the country.
The wealthiest country in the world is selling itself away because of unnecessary austerity measures that are not called austerity. Taxes are supposed to be used for the public good – not as unearned payoffs to the immensely wealthy.
Let’s call it non-partisan corruption and redistribution of earned income to insanely wealthy corporate thieves who have no moral compass.
This is yet another way to wage war against public education. What capable young adult would choose to make teaching a lifelong career, a career that assures teachers will be victims of wage theft and guarantees a retirement into poverty?This war must be won by teachers, or the quality of education will be lost.
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