The Republican Study Committee yesterday proposed steep increases to the amount federal employees would contribute to their pension plans. The committee’s budget plan for next year — called “Cut, Cap and Balance: A Budget for Fiscal Year 2013” — calls for federal employees to split the cost of their pensions with taxpayers. Federal Employees Retirement System employees now contribute 0.8 percent of each paycheck toward their pensions; the government covers the remaining 11.7 percent. This would mean FERS employees would pay 6.25 percent of each paycheck toward their pension. (Plus another 6.2 percent towards Social Security, of course, and their…
Browsing: Republican Party
It’s deja vu all over again. A Democratic president comes to Washington, runs up against rabid hostility from the GOP, and faces serious trouble in his first midterm elections. Sound familiar yet? It gets better. Some Republicans are openly advocating shutting down the government as part of a gambit to gut the health care reform bill passed earlier this year. Joe Miller, Alaska’s Republican candidate for Senate and tea party favorite, said in an interview that he wants to quash health care reform and other “socialist aspects of government,” such as Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements. Fairbanks’ Daily News-Miner…
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich yesterday encouraged the GOP to defund federal agencies or missions in order to hamstring Obama administration policies. Gingrich, speaking to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, said: Stage 1 of the end of Obamaism will be a new Republican Congress in January that simply refuses to fund any of the radical efforts. […] Under our Constitution, the Congress doesn’t have to pass the money. If EPA gets no budget, it can’t enforce cap and trade. If HHS gets no budget… As former Bush speechwriter and exiled conservative commentator David Frum said, “In other words: Follow…
A Republican Party fundraising letter that looks an awful lot like the official 2010 Census form is drawing complaints from all sides. The mailing from Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is disguised as a survey and is labeled the “2010 Congressional District Census.” The survey even includes a “Census Tracking Code” and is brandished with the words “census document.” A GOP spokesman said the mailing was not intended to mislead voters, noting that it states in several places that it’s from the Republican Party. But lawmakers from both parties are criticizing the letter, saying it could be confused with…