Drug fees for military retirees may be raised

It's a careful slicing and dicing of constituencies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/p...200&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=


Facing a record budget deficit, Bush administration officials say they have drafted an election-year budget that will rein in the growth of domestic spending without alienating politically influential constituencies..
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Total federal revenues have declined for three consecutive years, apparently the first time that has happened since the early 1920's. But in those years, from 2000 to 2003, total federal spending has increased slightly more than 20 percent, to $2.16 trillion last year.
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Apparently veterans don't count as a politically important interest group.

 

It's only a subset of veterans and it also depends on income so they split up the opposition. They have the polling stuff down to a science, plus they figure they have the military vote in the bag just due to guys just pulling the party vote lever. No one will know what hit them until the next president comes along, just like with the tax cuts with fed increased spending.

 

Another example of politics driving policy. Cuts will be made to jobs programs, affordable housing, biomedical research and veterans. It also includes more tax cuts.

All areas where the political price for the GOP will be non-existent or deferred way past the election. Does it strike anyone as wierd that jobs programs would be cut when we are in a jobless recovery?

The article also states that Federal revenues have fallen for three consecutive years... the first time that has happened since the 1920's, but the tax cuts had nothing to do with the current budgetary problems and actually helped right?

I find it amazing that even the administration admits we will have a deficit of close to half a trillion dollars next year. I'm even more amazed that they can say they'll be responsible and cut it in half after five years through "growth and restraint." That's like saying "Hey honey, I'm having affairs with two women, but don't worry because I'm cutting one off and I'll soon only be sleeping with one other person besides you... Ain't that great!"

 

Even as their campaigning claims otherwise, the Bushies are just like a wind vane to the polls.

 

As I've noted over and over again, for these guys veteran's benefits are a type of welfare for other people's children.

On the otherhand a weapons system is a profit opportunity for Carlisle-Bechtel-Halliburton Group and that is worthwhile government spending.

 

BTW, you can tell we are all back at "work" as the posting has picked up now that we have the first work day of the new year.

 

It's all talk one way, and do something else. It makes for a nice sound bite - but an actual close examination of the data is not so black and white.

In the same way the fed education program can be touted but not actually do anything plus be unfunded - this raises overtime but encourages companies to avoid paying it. That last sentence is hilarious.



http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3882629/


U.S. offers tips on avoiding overtime pay
New labor rules expected to take effect early this year
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:33 p.m. ET Jan. 05, 2004WASHINGTON - The Labor Department is giving employers tips on how to avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible under new rules expected to be finalized early this year.

The department's advice comes even as it touts the $895 million in increased wages that it says those workers would be guaranteed from the reforms.

Among the options for employers: cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible.

‘We're not saying anybody should do any of this.’


— Ed Frank
Labor Dept. spokesperson


The department says it is merely listing well-known choices available to employers, even under current law.

"We're not saying anybody should do any of this," said Labor Department spokesman Ed Frank.

New overtime regulations were proposed in March after employers complained they were being saddled with costly lawsuits filed by workers who claimed they were unfairly being denied overtime. But the regulations themselves have stirred controversy over how many workers would be stripped of their right to overtime pay.

The issue is being seized by Democrats in their attempt to win back Congress and the White House.

A final rule, revising the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, is expected to be issued in March. The act defines the types of jobs that qualify workers for time-and-a-half if they work more than 40 hours a week.

Overtime pay for the 1.3 million low-income workers has been a selling tool for the Bush administration in trying to ease concerns in Congress about millions of higher-paid workers becoming ineligible.

But the Labor Department, in a summary of its plan published last March, suggests how employers can avoid paying overtime to those newly eligible low-income workers.

"Most employers affected by the proposed rule would be expected to choose the most cost-effective compensation adjustment method," the department said. For some companies, the financial impact could be "near zero," it said.

Employers' options include:

Adhering to a 40-hour work week.
Raising workers' salaries to a new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible for overtime pay.
If employers raise a worker's salary "it means they're getting a raise — that's not a way around overtime," Frank said. The current threshold is $8,060 per year.
Making a "payroll adjustment" that results "in virtually no, or only a minimal increase in labor costs," the department said. Workers' annual pay would be converted to an hourly rate and cut, with overtime added in to equal the former salary.
Essentially, employees would be working more hours for the same pay.

The department does not view the "payroll adjustment" option as a pay cut. Rather, it allows the employer to "maintain the pay at the current level" with the new overtime requirements, said the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division administrator, Tammy McCutchen, an architect of the plan.

Labor unions criticized the employer options.

Who's doing what
1960

— Workers producing goods: 35 percent
— Workers providing services: 65 percent Today

— Workers producing goods: 17 percent
— Workers providing services: 83 percent



Mark Wilson, a lawyer for the Communications Workers of America who specializes in overtime issues, said the Bush administration was protecting the interests of employers at the expense of workers.

"This plan speaks volumes about the real motives of this so-called family-friendly administration," Wilson said.

He says cutting workers' pay to avoid overtime is illegal, based on a 1945 Supreme Court ruling and a 1986 memo by the Labor Department under President Reagan.

But McCutchen disagreed. If changes were made week to week to avoid overtime, they would be illegal. A one-time change is not, she said.

"We had a lot of lawyers look at this rule. We would not have put that in there if we thought it was illegal," she said.

"Unless you have a contract, there is no legal rule ... prohibiting an employer from either raising your salary or cutting your salary," she said, adding, "We do not anticipate employers will cut people's pay."

The final plan does not require approval from Congress. That hasn't stopped Democrats and some Republicans from trying to block the rule, thus far unsuccessfully, out of fear that millions of workers would become ineligible for overtime.

Department officials say about 644,000 higher-paid workers would lose their overtime eligibility. But the proposal says 1.5 million to 2.7 million workers "will be more readily identified as exempt" from overtime requirements. Labor unions claim the figure is about 8 million.

The Labor Department is aware of lawmakers' concerns has read tens of thousands of comments about the proposal, McCutchen said.

"We understand what the public concerns are and we're going to be doing our best to address them," she said. "It's important to allow us to finish that process so we can back up our words with some good-faith action."

© 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed