Follow this link and scroll down to "Heather Bresch was Mike Garrisons boss"
http://hippiekiller.wordpress.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Tired of the typical West Virginia "good ole boy" attitude? Well, Joe "Mojo" Manchin MUST go for that to ever change. This page is meant to accomplish just that. Self-serving, self-righteous, narcissistic, out of touch, and down right BETTER than the rest of us...these are some of MOJO'S REAL talking points. Gotta go Joe...
Kanawha County Blog RETURNS!
Old posts
Contributors
Ladies & Gentlemen...career politician, JOE MANCHIN!!
C'mon man...nothin else?
3 comments:
LMAO, Interesting.
Lawmakers in dark on special session
By State Sen. John Yoder
This is posted on "THE REPUBLICAN GAZETTE" website
The Governor has given notice to legislators that he is calling a special session of the Legislature to begin on Tuesday, June 24, beginning at 5:00 p.m. This special session is scheduled to begin at the end of regular interim legislative meetings to be held this Sunday through Tuesday. The informal notice I received from the Governor's office said that the special session is expected to last through Wednesday and possibly through Thursday, June 26.
We have not been given any notice of the agenda. Typically, in special sessions, we do not get any advance notice of what is on the agenda for consideration until we show up for the beginning of the special session. That means we will most likely see the proposed legislation at 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 24, when the session begins, if even then, and not a moment before. This is the way the Governor of West Virginia controls the Legislature during special sessions, making sure the agenda and proposed legislation are not given to legislators in time for them to disseminate the information to the public and get adequate public feedback prior to being forced to vote on it.
One item that is certain to be on the agenda however, is funding the teacher's merger. The final tally shows that 78.3% of teachers in the private defined contribution plan elected to convert to the publicly funded defined benefit plan. Funding the cost of this merger to bail out teachers' private retirement losses will have to be addressed in the special session.
At one time, we were told that the cost of the retirement bailout this year would be $20 million, and that it should be less than that with so many teachers electing to go into the defined benefit plan. But, I am now informed by some reliable sources that there may be an additional $11 million cost that was not disclosed to legislators when they voted upon the merger plan in a special session in March. That cost involves the early withdraw penalty for taking money out of the private pension plan that teachers are now in, and putting the money into the government run defined benefit plan. This early withdrawal penalty is the same as if you make an early withdrawal from your own private pension system or IRA.
We were assured by the Governor's representatives in March that this was not a problem, but I am now told by some insiders I trust that it is a major problem because it was not addressed when the legislation was hurriedly rushed through the special session without a full public airing.
If that is true, it demonstrates one of the problems with special sessions, where the agenda is totally controlled by the Governor and the legislative leadership. The merger plan was passed in a one-day special session at the end of the regular session in March. There were several legislators who thought that one day was not enough to consider the ramifications of this retirement legislation, and I unsuccessfully voted with them to keep the legislature in session another day, but the Governor and the leadership wanted it pushed through in one day.
The argument of leadership against taking more time to consider legislation in special sessions is that it costs $40,000 per day for every day the legislature is in session, and that it is a waste of taxpayer's money to keep the Legislature in session. That is a case of being penny wise and pound foolish in many instances, however, because sometimes with a day or two more in special session, we could save tens of millions of dollars by allowing time for the public to scrutinize legislation before voting on it.
If the true cost of the teacher's retirement is another undisclosed $11 million, for example, it might have made sense to stay in session another day, get the full information before casting an uninformed vote, and fix the problem. The fix was relatively easy and could have been done in another day, saving taxpayers $11 million. Now it is too late. So, for the sake of "saving" $40,000, an $11 million mistake was made at taxpayers' expense, assuming the information I have received from informed sources is true.
Of course, this additional $11 million in costs may be hidden until after the election in November, as legislators will not want to reveal their $11 million mistake in an election year. Other defects and ambiguities are in the retirement merger bill, but maybe we can fix some of the more minor problems in the special session.
It is often in these special sessions where we are asked to vote on supplemental budget appropriations that contain pork and wasteful spending. Legislators are pushed to vote on appropriations for tens of millions of dollars without having adequate disclosure of where the money is going, only to find out later which powerful legislator is going to privately profit on the appropriation through a development project. Of course, those who are getting the pork are willing to overlook the pork others are getting as long as they get theirs too. One thing we can usually be assured of as Eastern Panhandle legislators, however, is that 98% or more of the pork will be for regions other than the Eastern Panhandle.
I commented on this before but it never showed up. so anyway, I was saying, sounds about right. It's time this GOOD OLE BOY State learn how to run the way the Citizens wants it to run and not the way the crooked Government has been running it for way to long now. It's time we take over.
Post a Comment