Page 810 - Pensions News Today

Lets dont worry about fraud, incompetency, inefficiency, lets just eliminate duplications over the next year. you can pay for two and a half times what the sequester is. >> is what he is offering there, is that a practical solution? >> well, what hes saying is absolutely not doable. do i agree that we should eliminate waste and duplication? thats just fine. but in the meantime, we have to have a -- something of a budget. my problem is something the republicans like, it asks nothing of the wealth...

Changes to the federal pensions and some changes as well to the military retirement benefits. why are you behind that? >> well, let me stress again, when i said that i would not have written the agreement as it is, if i had my choice, i would not have included either of those two provisions. in fact, 48 hours ago i was opposed, strongly to this agreement. but significant changes were made with respect to civilian federal employees. no current civilian and federal employees will feel any hit from...

For their pensions. he had a very substantial involvement in how this policy works. what we basically want to do is make sure that federal employees had their benefits more in line with the hard-working taxpayers that pay for them. this is something we dealt with in basic. states are dealing with this all across the country. we think its time to at the federal level. i didnt get every policy i wanted on this. we got a substantial down payment on this. senator and congressman van holland was a pa...

Down payment, they are making small changes like pensions for federal workers, the sort of built in costs of the federal budget that are going to have to be controlled in the long-term. so hes already facing fire from groupslike heritage action from people who have embraced him in the past. >> heritage action was already embracing the deal. they were going to score the vote and attack republican who is voted for it before the controversial deal was announced. the basically compromise is kind of ...

Spending. spending on discretionary budget. the blue line on the top here shows you the agreement we had under the budget control act. the sequester is the red line that ended up cutting spending. what this green area does is it reflects what we are doing, which is by preventing the military from getting cut any further, were putting a little bit of money back in the sequester here and were paying for it by cutting spending in other areas of government. for instance, were asking public employees...

Issued his press release to everybody in the media saying he was opposed. >> i havent talked to him. i do suspect some people will vote against it. in the minority, you dont have to pass things. thats a luxury or not. that people have in the senate. marcos a very good friend of mine. im a big fan of his. i wish he would support it, but if he doesnt, thats fine. im happy to get the cuts from an area of spending we havent been able to touch in years. >> whats his biggest problem? >> they didnt lik...

Spending level until the year 2017 with this agreement. so we are well ahead of schedule and we are getting more deficit reduction in spending cuts in areas that we have never been able to get before. thats why i think this is a good agreement it makes divided government work and prevents government shutdowns which we think is a good idea as well. >> i love any deal by part san in this city is a really good sign. i like the fact that its two years so there is some level of certainty for the busi...

Fees and an increase in the worker contribution to federal pensions. so that is the outlines of the deal. its not global. its not going to really attack the debt and deficit, but it is going to keep the government running and address some of the concerns by democrats and republicans about these forced spending cuts. republicans were upset about it because it ate too much into defense. democrats because it ate too much into domestic programs. >> even if they agree to this, its got to pass by a ma...

Republican in the thick of things here on this budget deal, paul ryan. >> thats right. paul ryan and also sources on the democratic side who are involved in this too. they say this could happen in the next few hours, brooke. this is not the wide-ranging grand bargain that includes big-ticket deficit items like entitlements, but it is a modest budget deal that would set government spending levels, which is important. we havent seen that in a while. and replace automatic spending cuts set to hit e...

Democrats in both chambers but particularly the house are really holding out because they want either this to be part of the budget deal or to use it as leverage to make sure that they have a promise to extend the unemployment benefits. another thing that may seem a little parochial but is a big deal to senior democrats who represent maryland suburbs of d.c., a lot of federal workers, is that part of the deal is -- would force federal workers to pay more for their pensions. thats something that ...