Uniformed Workers' Pensions Strain Governments

Running head: UNIFORMED WORKERS’ PENSIONS STRAIN GOVERNMENTS
Uniformed Workers’ Pensions Strain Governments
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Abstract
Americans are thankful to the men and women who put their life at risk for their safety by becoming police officers, firefighters or members of the armed services. But with the fiscal crisis it times to redefine our gratitude this uniformed men and women. This paper analyzes and evaluates an extended argument, one that employs many different premises and sub-arguments to support this claim. It focuses on the goal of producing a coherent, in-depth, analysis and evaluation of the target argument. Identifies weaknesses in the target argument. Concludes this paper with an overall evaluation of the argument’s strength, and an expression of how it affected my views on the issue in question.
Uniformed workers’ pensions strain governments
Our view
The retirement package of military is probably the best in America. Unlike others, they are given benefits in addition to the pension. Furthermore, the benefits increase depending on the cost of living .In the previous years any military personnel who retired after 20 years in the military got 50% of his base pay just after retirement. After the twenty years you get 2.5% for every year you serve. Later on changes were made and they were liable to benefits only after 30 years of service. If you serve for may be 32 years you get 80% of the retirement pay base. On the can retire and get another well paying job, thus getting both the salary and the pension. This habit has become notorious and thus used by most of the uniformed men to get themselves rich. They know that they can just offer twenty years of service and get a heavy pension and a good health care package (USA Today, 2011).
Despite such good packages, their gratitude has been extended to such a point that even in times of cuts they are never affected. This example is given in Wisconsin; when the state faced budget crisis, the Governor has exempted uniformed workers from deep cuts, and did not deny the police and firefighters unions their bargaining rights. This restriction of rights only applied for the teachers union and public unions. (Perhaps not coincidentally, some of the public safety workers' unions had backed Walker's campaign for governor.). This meant that public workers and teachers would bargain only on base pay, thus their unions can not negotiate for better “health insurance, working conditions or pension benefits” (USA Today, 2011, para 5). Pay rises will be restricted to increases in the living standards, by means of the Consumer Price Index, if not electorate accepted other pay increases through a referendum. Unions had to participate in voting and there term only lasted a year (USA Today, 2011).
The spending of the force has been a topic of contention. They spend; $553.1 billion -base budget and $117.8 billion for in a foreign country emergency operations, for example expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan .The citizens should not have to pay so much for their safety and they should not have to forego a large amount; In New Jersey, the governor has begun focusing his attention to police and firefighters union, after ensuring that all the budget cut were on teachers (USA Today, 2011)
However in nearly all the states, subjecting taxpayers to unaffordable benefits is the direction that most administrations are taking. Scott's financial plan entails an anticipated savings of $46 million by raising premiums for workers who give fewer premiums compared to rank-and-file workers. This proposal will have an effect on almost 24,500 superior state officials and law makers, thus equating their premiums and those of the low ranking employees. Personal premiums and family coverage will rise to $50 and $ 180 per month respectively. Scott may not feel this increase because he his rich, but for the low ranking workers it will be a heavy load to carry (USA Today, 2011).
It has even gone to a point of reducing the most essential needs for the citizens to cut on the expenses. Things like, “food safety, public safety, education, life saving research, roads and bridges, clean energy alternatives and nutrition for hungry children and nursing mothers have been cut “.$ 649 billion for helping the nourishment of babies and nursing mothers, $ 35 million from the food safety and food inspectors, and $ 1.3 billion from the health centre that help the poor were cut. Contrary to this, the...