American Budget Cuts

It looks to me like republicans want to cut the public sector and add minimum or entry level wage jobs to the private sector in the hopes of trimming expenses and stimulating business and corporate interests. This sort of thinking burns me up. If expenses need to be cut, cutting the wages of breadwinners in order to stimulate the productivity of corporations and business is counterproductive to the very idea of the American Dream.

Look at this article! As many of you know, I am the union steward at my store. I am watching the company brazenly bring in entry level workers and attempt to cut the hours, benefits, and health care that we in the union have fought long and hard to acquire. I fear that unless there is an economic recovery by 2013 (the date of our next contract renegotiation) we will lose our position entirely.

A union is a way for a group of people to negotiate a better deal than an individual could expect to receive on their own. Its like how group rates are lower in health care than individual rates.Critics argue that unions extort money from corporations, and that the employees need to prove their value in order to earn higher wages, but the question is whom should set and/or determine a value..in dollar terms?At my store, we are already working harder and increasing our value per hour. There is no reason for us to make less than we do now. The next step will be to bring the lesser paid workers up to par with the higher paid workers. That is plan B, and I seek to get appointed to the committee that will help draw up the 2013 contract proposal.

Why cant the country just declare bankruptcy and start over?Also...who do we owe the national debt to? Who benefits from us paying it back?If its just China, I think we have a valuable trump card.

If they get feisty, don't pay them back. We need the money more than they do.