just wait
i avoid talking about drudgereport articles, but this might be the richest recent example of how pointless and orwellian government is.
The Treasury Department has started drawing from the civil service pension fund to avoid hitting the $8.2 trillion national debt limit. The move to tap the pension fund follows last month’s decision to suspend investments in a retirement savings plan held by government employees.In a letter to Congress this week, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said he would rely on the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund to avoid bumping up against the statutory debt limit. He said the Treasury is suspending investments and will redeem a portion of the money credited to the fund.
Once Congress raises the debt limit, the Treasury will “restore all due interest and principal” to the pension fund as soon as possible, Snow said. He made a similar promise when the Treasury announced that reinvestment of some assets in the Thrift Savings Plan’s government securities fund, or G Fund, had been suspended. [...]
i know almost nothing about federal “accounting”, and want it to stay that way. does the selection above though strike anybody else as just adults lying through their teeth, and hard? isn’t it slippery fun that this “raid on personal accounts” comes from the organization which claims to stand as a bulwark against such bullshit in the “private sector”?
Colleen M. Kelley , president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said last month that federal employees should not have their pension accounts “used as a rainy day fund. . . . No private-sector employer would ever be allowed to do this.”
perhaps worse that that though is the asinine shell game of pretending that borrowing from elsewhere means you’re not in debt by x amount. according to the story, treasury secretary snow says that once congress raises the debt limit, the treasury will “restore all due interest and principal” to the pension fund as soon as possible.
sounds like debt to me. apparently, the “$8.2 trillion national debt limit” is far stupider than its mere existence indicates. but that’s not why i’m writing about it. i’m writing to point out that this sort of “full disclosure” announcement is going to start hitting hard as “social security” unravels in a rush, assuming USG exists long enough.
i expect to never see a penny of the thousands stolen from me for my own good. no entity announcing such childish behavior seriously can last as long as it thinks it can. i would not be surprised if USG collapsed within 15 years. because i have no idea of the timeline, that’s not a prediction. however, things are starting to backfire already on these hubristic pricks, and the revolution of 2001 should wake up those thinking there’s stability in government — even the indestructible, almighty, civil religious government mecca of the corn-fed and bagel-shitting mental drubs and peckerheads who compose this country at far too great a ratio.