Several weeks ago Rolling Stone magazine ran a story by Matt Taibbi which blew the cover off the current massive public pension theft.
In a follow-up piece just out, Taibbi discusses the Democratic Party’s role in the pension theft and the goal of turning defined benefit pensions into Wall Street 401k-style money machines.
Henn complained that I didn’t mention in my article that Raimondo is a Democrat. Through this omission, he says, I was trying to “obscure the severity of America’s municipal pension crisis by portraying reform efforts as driven by right-wing ideology.”
Well, it is right-wing ideology, for sure. Ayn Rand herself would have loved the idea of unilaterally imposing cuts to the “unsustainable” benefits of parasitic workers. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been advanced by Democratic Party politicians. That’s something I have no problem admitting.
Anyone who covers the finance sector knows Democrats over the years have been in bed with Wall Street every bit as much as Republicans. In some ways, the finance industry is actually closer, especially on a cultural level, to the Democrats (many prominent financiers, former Goldman chief Bob Rubin being a great example, are social liberals).
This dates back to the Nineties, when two of the signature deregulatory moves that led to the financial crisis – the final repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act deregulating derivatives – were pushed by the Clinton administration and its ballyhooed Rubin/Summers economic advisory team, famously lauded on the cover of Time as the “Committee to Save the World.” (Even back then, politicians were casting Wall-Street friendly reforms as technocratic decisions designed to save regular people from financial ruin.)
More recently, I’ve written many times about the failure of Democratic Party politicians like Barack Obama to do anything about the outrageous carried interest tax break, under which hedge fund billionaires like the ones manning the board of the Manhattan Institute and making millions managing the pensions of states like Rhode Island pay a maximum personal tax rate of 15 percent.
In fact, not only have Democrats not done anything about that outrage, there have been many prominent ones – like for instance Cory Booker and Bill Clinton, two politicians who both benefitted from finance-sector largesse in their respective careers – who stood up and defiantly took bullets for the industry when Obama offered highly muted criticisms of Mitt Romney’s finance-sector past last summer.
Fred Klonsky 
Well…DUH! Welcome to the United States of ILL-Annoy!
In this case even Taibbi is not laying it out as it really is. The WTO demanded the end of the Glass-Steagle both put in place by Bill Clinton’s signatures as his is also on the Banking Deregulation Acts. Gee, guess who screwed us, Uncle Bill of course and his wife Hillary as Hillary is not a stay at home prez’s wife and she and Michelle are certainly no where near the ethics and concern for the people as Eleanor Roosevelt. Their husbands and they are simply and always have been tools of the corporate privatizers and lovers of fascism. Just look into what they have done as my friends grandfather taught him “I hear real good, but I see a whole lot better.” This is the bottom line that we had better start to follow. Talk is cheap as was Clinton’s and Obama’s as we now know who they really are so why continue to fool ourselves. They could not have done this without the cooperation of the democratic presidents and congress’s. Both parties are run by the same people out to take everything from the mass and give it to the very top elite who have not earned a thing by themselves. If they did not have the rest of us what would they have I ask? Why nothing is the answer.
Let’s stop fooling ourselves and get a grip and stop this and make the politicians do for us what is right for all of us not just the 1/10 of 1/10 of 1% which is what it really is as 1% includes $350,000/year and that is not a player.
My friends say yes, but the Demos are the lesser of evils. Without them in Illinois we would be fighting for women’s repro rights, gay rights, union rights, etc.,and the pension theft would be even worse.
I would love to vote Green but the Demos have made getting on the ballot too hard for them.
So???
In the 39th state House race, we have a pro-labor, pro-pension candidate, Will Guzzardi, who is running in the primary to defeat a pension bombing Republicrat, Toni Berrios. When he wins, we won’t be losing a pro-choice, pro-equal rights progressive Democrat. We will be gaining one.
Fred I watched a video of residents of Belfast Northern Ireland who were miffed that a certain flag was to be flown one less day each week by city officials. These citizens were out on the street in large numbers and very vocal. Turned into a major riot. We here in the U.S. should do like the Irish. Get out there and make a fuss. I have made so many phone calls and written so many letters to Rep Demmer and his staff assured me he supports Il. state retirees. I was even told by Demmer’s staff that he was going to meet with retirees at a scheduled meeting to discuss the pensions. He is a liar. Tell you what he thinks you want to hear and then votes for the Madigan bill. I greatly appreciate you Fred. I belong to the AFSCME Retirees but I get most of the pension information from you. The AFSCME website is in my opinion slow to post, although that may be to short staffing. Thanks.