Government Jobs and Vacation

I was watching Bill Maher's show on Saturday (recorded from Friday night). I don't always agree with him, particularly on extreme anti-religious views. Some yeah, I can agree with, like how so many people just take on face value what a priest, or pastor or other church leader tells them is "God's word" or what God wants them to do, without doing any investigation on their own, without asking any questions, just being told "you must believe it" and they do. In this day and age, when there are so many resources available to people, you have question, you have to investigate, and yes, you may then have to just follow your heart, but you just can't blindly believe.

But besides that, I tend to agree with a lot of Maher's politics (again, not all, he's a bit too liberal on drugs, for example), but I have no qualms agreeing with his socialism. Maher had an excellent panelist, Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. He was so articulate and clear about the health care law and education (we're cutting funding for millions of kids, but the Republicans are saying "but wait, we're helping 1700 kids in DC, yay us").

Another point brought up is how the corporations pay little, if anything, in taxes, yet they complain about raising corporate tax rates. Of course GE might be upset if the tax rate got raised from 35% to 39%. GE might actually have to pay taxes instead of getting a 3.2 billion refund/rebate on its 14 million in profits. In addition to the huge sums that corporations don't have to pay in taxes, these corporations cut jobs, freeze wages, cut/freeze or just never provide benefits, like sick and vacation time.

Then the corporations get its employees all worked up against public employees who do get sick and vacation time. Thus, instead of being mad at their bosses, the CEOs, the management, for only getting 2 weeks vacation, if that, the private sector workers get mad at the public sector employees who do get sick time and 5 weeks vacation. Its like having 20 cookies to share amongst a CEO, a Teabagger, and a union worker. The CEO takes 19 cookies, then tells the Teabagger to watch out for that greedy union worker stealing the last cookie. And the Teabagger falls for it.

Why isn't the Tea Party riled up against corporations who aren't paying their fair share of taxes? Heck, so many billion dollar corporations don't pay any taxes and yet the Tea Party is worried about people making less than $50,000 a year not paying enough taxes, having health care and getting too much vacation? Are you kidding me? Seriously, if you want that 5 weeks of vacation so much, why don't you rise up against the CEOs of these corporations rather than trying to take it away from other workers?

Already today, workers in America work far more than any other industrialized nation in the world. We work the longest hours and get the fewest number of paid vacation days. No, providing more paid vacation days would not necessarily have to lead to higher prices on goods and services. GE could well afford to have slightly less profits, or at least a lower tax refund.

And don't tell me that one just has to negotiate for better benefits. Even in the "boom times" I didn't know anyone who got more than 3 weeks vacation. One worker cannot adequately negotiate with a business/corporation, that's why there are unions, that at least bring collectively bargaining, the strength of thousands, to have some possibility of equal bargaining power with a corporation. Many places have never had unions, and realistically, the vast majority of employees can't dictate their salary and benefits. Most of us, are extremely fungible. Maybe you can get a little more, IF you have some special/rare skill, IF you are highly desired by the company and IF you have multiple offers for your services. But really, how often does that happen? Even the lowest fast-food employee in France gets 5 weeks vacation, I never got paid vacation when I worked at Burger King, you really think I could have negotiated for that?

I might be more sympathetic to corporations if they maybe used their profits and lower taxes for better work benefits or even jobs here in America. While current reports show that many corporations are making new jobs, those jobs are in China, India, Indonesia, where they can pay workers $1 a day. Come on, we're not even talking about minimum US wages, let alone union wages that are reportedly so outrageous. Do we really want to force US workers to live on a $1 day? Do we really want that standard of living?

I'd have a helluva lot more respect for the Tea Party if they weren't complete and utter tools of the Republican (Corporation) party. All they talk about is cutting spending to reduce the deficit. How about raising taxes on those billion dollar corporations and millionaires? How about raising more money to lower the deficit. Why take it out on kids, the poor, the sick, rather than those that can truly afford it. Don't blame unions or government workers who only want to eat 1 cookie, blame it on the 19cookie hoarding corporations.