2010 Budget Rings in New Era for Federal Government

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Federation of Government Employees today applauded the Obama Administration's 2010 fiscal budget and stands ready to increase services provided to the American public. "We are delighted to finally have the resources to run our agencies," said AFGE National President John Gage. "This budget is a welcome departure from the 'starve the beast' policies of the last eight years that sought to deprive government agencies and programs of the resources they needed to carry out their missions on behalf of the American people."

While the last eight years saw budgets that catered only to the interests of the wealthy and politically-connected contractors, this budget places the highest priorities on veterans; the elderly and the disabled who rely on Social Security; education; the safety of communities where federal prisons are located; science-based projects to protect the environment; housing assistance; and everyone who buys health insurance and uses health care, to name only a few.

"Although federal employees would prefer to have seen an increase in pay, the equivalent to the military, we recognize the severity of our nation's economic situation, including the crisis for public workers at the state and local level, and understand that only modest steps can be taken this year to close the remaining pay gap between the federal and non-federal salaries," continued Gage. "We also are pleased to see an emphasis on controlling health care costs in the years to come."

"Federal employees are genuinely committed to providing their fellow Americans with the highest quality services and protections. From the Department of Homeland Security's Border Patrol agents' efforts to protect the border to the Department of Labor's OSHA inspectors to the VA nurses and doctors - federal employees are so pleased to see that President Obama recognizes that understaffing is dangerous and self-defeating. They are thrilled at the prospect of additional resources for hiring staff who will be dedicated to serving the public interest," Gage said.

The 2010 budget goes even further, recognizing the harm done by Bush administration's privatization agenda. "Their ideological bias forced agencies to contract out regardless of cost or quality, and at the expense of the integrity of federal programs as well as public accountability. It looks like that may be coming to an end," said Gage.

"AFGE looks forward to this renewed opportunity to serve the American public," concluded Gage. "And we look forward to continuing our work with the Obama administration toward our shared goal of better government."

ATR: Obama Breaks Campaign Promise

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, on the sixteenth day of his presidency, Barack Obama broke one of the central promises of his candidacy: No American earning under $250,000 per year would face any form of tax increase under his administration. By signing the S-CHIP legislation today, Obama has now broken his oft-repeated promise.

Obama's signature puts into effect a 156 percent increase in the federal excise tax on tobacco, a hike of 61 cents per pack.

Obama promised repeatedly on the campaign trail that he would never raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 per year:

"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." (Barack Obama, September 12, 2008, Dover, NH).

[Video footage of above quotation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8erePM8V5U ]

Shouldering the burden of this tax increase are the middle- and low-income Americans Obama said he would not raise taxes on:

-- 55 percent of smokers are "working poor."
-- One in four smokers live below the poverty line.
-- On average, smokers, whose median income is a little more than
$36,000, make about 30 percent less than non-smokers.


"Tom Daschle and Leona Helmsley believe that only the little people should pay taxes," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "Obama agrees; he just raised taxes on millions of lower-income Americans. His central campaign promise was a lie."

Seniors to Receive $0.00 Increase in Social Security Next Year

/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The 37 million Americans aged 65 and over who receive a Social Security check each month are forecast to receive no increase in their Social Security checks next year, according to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) 2009 Budget Report.

That would mark the first time since automatic Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) went into effect in 1975 that seniors would fail to get an increase. Since automatic raises were established, seniors have never failed to receive an annual increase of less than 1.3 percent.

The CBO's Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2009 to 2019, reads on page 29, "[The] CBO anticipates that the year-over-year change in consumer prices for the third quarter of 2009 will show a decline, which implies that next year's cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security and most other benefit programs will be zero."

"If Social Security benefits don't start catching up to the real rise in costs, we're going to see a wave of seniors falling beneath the poverty line," said Daniel O'Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League. "It's particularly outrageous that seniors may be forced to accept a $0 raise next year, as our lawmakers have just accepted a $4,700 raise for this year."

Supporters of a zero COLA increase will likely argue that such a move in a deflationary period is fair. However, they do not mention that the way the COLA is calculated fails to accurately track senior costs, since it is based on the spending habits of young, urban workers. As a result, senior costs may go up during periods of deflation, reducing their buying power even further.

A study released by The Senior Citizens League last year found that seniors have lost 51 percent of their buying power since 2000.