Archive for December, 2016

Is it Time to End Public Pensions?

Sunday, December 11th, 2016

Pensions in the public sector are out of control:

Number Average Pay Total Pay
Federal Civilian Retirees * 2,600,000 $40,000 $104,000,000,000
Federal Military Retirees * 2,100,000 $45,000 $94,500,000,000
State and Local Government Retirees * 20,000,000 $30,000 $600,000,000,000
 Total 24,700,000 $798,500,000,000

* Retirees include survivors and beneficiaries.

As this table shows, we spend close to $1 trillion on pensions for government workers.  In fact, it’s probably over $1 trillion because many retirees also get Social Security.

Many of these retirees get 100% of their income when they retire.  This is because that’s the way it’s set up, and because many government workers manipulate the system.  Is it any wonder that pension funds like the Dallas Police & Firefighters Pension is in trouble?  And retirees in some California cities are facing a 60% cut in their retirement checks.

Most companies no longer have pension plans.  If you work in the private sector and retire, you get nothing (0% of your income).  It’s up to the employee to manage his own 401-K accounts to provide for his retirement, along with Social Security.  Why should the public sector be any different, especially since it’s paid for by our tax dollars?

The Employee Cost of Government Bureaucracy

Sunday, December 11th, 2016

We all know that our government spends on tax money on stupid projects.  Sometimes it’s because some legislator owes a favor to donors or lobbyists, and sometimes it’s because of some military official’s pet project.  However, there are inherent costs in our bloated government–just the overhead to keep it running.  Our federal government alone is the largest employer in the country world.  The number of government employees is out of control, and they go to work every day to find creative ways to spend our tax dollars:

Number Average Pay Total Pay
Federal Civilian Employees 2,800,000 $80,000 $224,000,000,000
Federal Civilian Retirees * 2,600,000 $40,000 $104,000,000,000
Federal Military Employees 1,600,000 $45,000 $72,000,000,000
Federal Military Retirees * 2,100,000 $45,000 $94,500,000,000
State and Local Government Employees 22,000,000 $60,000 $1,320,000,000,000
State and Local Government Retirees * 20,000,000 $30,000 $600,000,000,000
 Total 51,100,000 $2,414,500,000,000

* Retirees include survivors or beneficiaries.

As this table shows, we have over 26 million people on government payrolls, and another 25 million who have retired on government pensions.  Those 51 million people cost us $2.4 trillion each year.  That’s about the amount of money the federal government spends on all entitlements, including Social Security (42.8 million people), Disability (9.7 million people), Medicare, Medicaid, and Welfare combined.  This amount is nearly as much as the federal government collects in all income taxes.

 

The Problem with Pro-Choice

Sunday, December 4th, 2016

Why is it that so many pro-choice activists have become pro-life, yet we don’t hear about any pro-life advocates becoming pro-choice?  Consider the following:

– Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson was a medical doctor from New York City and co-founder in 1969 of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) later renamed National Abortion Rights Action League.  When ultrasound was developed in the 1970s, he observed a real-time abortion which caused him to reconsider his views on abortion.  He became a pro-life activist, saying that abortion is “the most atrocious holocaust in the history of the United States.”  In his book Aborting America, where he first exposed what he called “the dishonest beginnings of the abortion movement.”  In 1984, he directed and narrated a controversial anti-abortion film titled The Silent Scream, in cooperation with the National Right to Life Committee, which included the ultrasound video of a mid-term (12 weeks) abortion. His second documentary Eclipse of Reason dealt with late-term abortions.  He stated that the numbers he once cited for NARAL concerning the number of deaths linked to illegal abortions were “false figures.”

In his autobiography Hand of God in 1996, Dr. Nathanson referred to his previous work as an abortion provider and abortion rights activist, saying, “I am one of those who helped usher in this barbaric age.” He developed what he called the “vector theory of life”, which states that from the moment of conception, there exists “a self-directed force of life that, if not interrupted, will lead to the birth of a human baby.”

– Ronald Reagan was also convinced of this as a result of watching The Silent Scream, a movie he considered so powerful and convicting that he screened it at the White House.

– More recently, Planned Parenthood director and abortion advocate Abby Johnson turned and became a strong advocate for the pre-born, just by catching just a glimpse of what The Silent Scream film reveals.

– Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe in the 1973 Roe Vs. Wade case) was also a pro-choice activist until 1994 when she was enlightened by Phillip Benham, the National Director of Operation Rescue.  She quit her job at the abortion clinic she was working at, and become an advocate of Operation Rescue’s campaign to make abortion illegal.  McCorvey’s second book, Won by Love, was published in 1998. She explained her change on the stance of abortion with the following comments:

“I was sitting in O.R.’s offices when I noticed a fetal development poster.  The progression was so obvious, the eyes were so sweet. It hurt my heart, just looking at them.  I ran outside and finally, it dawned on me. ‘Norma’, I said to myself, ‘They’re right’.  I had worked with pregnant women for years.  I had been through three pregnancies and deliveries myself.  I should have known.  Yet something in that poster made me lose my breath.  I kept seeing the picture of that tiny, 10-week-old embryo, and I said to myself, that’s a baby!  It’s as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth — that’s a baby!

“I felt crushed under the truth of this realization.  I had to face up to the awful reality.  Abortion wasn’t about ‘products of conception’.  It wasn’t about ‘missed periods’.  It was about children being killed in their mother’s wombs.  All those years I was wrong.  Signing that affidavit, I was wrong.  Working in an abortion clinic, I was wrong.  No more of this first trimester, second trimester, third trimester stuff.  Abortion — at any point — was wrong. It was so clear. Painfully clear.”

So what is the problem with the pro-choice movement, and why don’t we hear about pro-life activists becoming pro-choice?  The answer is:  ignorance.  I don’t say this in a demeaning way.  Will Rogers said, “We’re all ignorant, only on different subjects.”  We all need to be educated.  When the truth about abortion is revealed and learned, the pro-choice argument is indefensible.  I challenge any pro-choice advocate to watch The Silent Scream and come away unscathed–or, even to view the images at https://christiandataresources.com/prochoice1.htm.