Unemployment News: 99ers’ Plan to pay for Tier 5 UI Extension / Reduce spending

The 99ers have a plan to pay for Tier 5 Unemployment Extensions and reduce government spending, that shifts the burden where it belongs - on the rich leaders spending all the money irresponsibly.

A country who cannot feed and house their population - can no longer afford to lavish huge salaries and perks upon their elected officials. Public Service should be exactly that! One cannot properly serve those who are hundreds of tax brackets below their own. They cannot conceive the reality of the average citizen, therefore leaders must be brought financially closer to those they are elected to serve.

Introducing: 99ers Plan to pay for Unemployment Extensions and Tier 5

• Let the Bush tax cuts expire for the top 3% immediately

• Means Test all retirement plans for every current / former President, Senator and House member immediately. If their income or net worth is more than triple that of the average American, they do not need the money - therefore they should no longer get the money

• Cut compensation for every member of Congress immediately by 55% (they don’t need the money anyway) No member of Congress shall be paid any compensation if their net worth exceeds $2.5 million dollars

• No foreign travel by members of Congress at the tax payer expense

• Cut Congressional staffers by 50% and the pay of those remaining staffers by 30%

• NO FREE HEALTHCARE for any member of Congress or their families

• Travel expenses for members of Congress to and from Washington back to their home states/districts should be paid for only 4 times per year. Members of Congress pay for any additional trips themselves. That will keep them at work more often

• Members of Congress are limited to 2 home state office locations only (on the tax payer dime) and monthly rental of those locations cannot exceed $2500.00 per month each. (Why should they have fancy offices? They are hardly ever there anyway)

• Any time spent running for another office (other than the one the hold) shall be deducted from their pay

• Any unspent money in the “war chest’ (political donations unused) shall go directly to pay off the National debt immediately upon leaving office not to be kept by the candidate(s)

• Congress shall hold no hearings unless they volunteer their time to serve upon them

• If any member of Congress has constituents that are living below the poverty rate - any earmark they demand or appropriate for their home state or district MUST be first proven to benefit those “needy” constituents directly

• Any defense contracts that exceed their original budget estimates by more than 20% will require the contractor or company CEO to do mandatory jail time

• Immediately end all massive tax-payer financed 'agricultural' subsidies to millionaires and billionaires with vanity farms

• Fire everyone at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and put 99ers to work in those jobs - as we know how to make a dollar stretch.

WHY? Because on November 3, 2010, the Associated Press reported that government owned mortage buyer, Freddie Mac, posted a $4.1 billion loss in the third quarter of the year and has asked for another $100 million of taxpayer money to help its short term financial condition. It asked for $1.8 billion in the second quarter.

The article estimates that the combined bailouts for both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will eventually top out at about $260 billion.

***Tier 5 would only have cost about $32 billion, helped to save 5 million people and had an equivalent stimulative effect on the economy of about 2.8 billion dollars per week for 20 weeks

• Cancel the U.S. government plan to spend $511 million to expand, not build, its embassy in Afghanistan. I do not know what it cost to build the existing embassy but if it costs more than a half a billion dollars to expand it, the original cost to build it must have been obscenely expensive. Spending this money on a building that is likely just going to get blown up is insane and NOT a good use of our limited American funds

• Mandate that all Tarp $ must be repaid before any bonuses can be paid to anyone in those companies who still owe. Citigroup, GMAC Financial and Sun Trust banks have not paid back all of their TARP money. Citigroup has paid back about 75% but the other two have not paid back a dime. There is $32 billion still owed by these 3 companies

So you see it is NOT about money. Tier 5 can be paid for completely by just implementing the last of the 16 suggestion above. All the other savings mentioned in this article could help put every jobless American back to work at a living wage. The sad fact is the rich politicians who run America just want the poor unemployed to die off and as soon as possible!