Sen. Kohl to Geithner - "I want a Sweet deal"

Senator “Herb” Kohl is the senior senator from the state of Wisconsin. He’s a democrat. He was first elected to office way back in 1988. Twenty-two years in the senate comes with some important responsibilities. The good senator is on the Appropriations, Judiciary, and Banking Committees. He is the Chairman of both the Special Committee on Aging and the Agricultural Appropriations Committee.


Bottom line; Herb Kohl has clout in D.C. He is one of America’s elder statesmen. So when he asks for a favor it’s very hard to say “no”. I wonder what Tim Geithner is going to do with Herb’s recent letter asking for a change in the rules for retirement ages for cops and fireman from the great state of Wisconsin and every other state in the Union. Here’s what Senator Kohl is asking for:

I ask that you amend the regulations to make clear that the public safety employees safe harbor apply to WRS protective occupation participants. These participants put their lives on the line every day to protect our citizens and they deserve to retire with full benefits at the ages of 53 and 54.

I’ve got nothing against cops and I’ve always liked fireman. It’s not that I don’t think this group of people shouldn’t get a leg up. But at whose expense? What about those nurses, EMT folks, and ER Docs? What about everyone else?

The country is about to increase the Social Security retirement age and push back eligibility for Medicare to 67. And Kohl wants to cut the cops a sweetheart deal where they can retire with full benefits 12 years before anyone else.

We have two classes of workers in the USA; those that work for government and those in the private sector. There are two different sets of rules. The differences are in the number of holidays, benefits (far superior health care), job security and retirement benefits. Senator Kohl’s proposal makes the gap even larger.

Senator Kohl needs to understand that America is not the rich country that it once was. Our states, cities and municipalities simply can no longer afford the largess proposed by Kohl. The rules that he suggests are fair and reasonable actually aren’t fair or reasonable at all.

Senator Kohl is not blind. Nor is he uninformed. He must know that a suggestion like this is going to be received very badly by the folks who have to pay for it. That said, watch out for this one. Kohl’s clout makes even this proposal a possibility.

It’s an even money bet that this will happen. Special interest politics is the way of the land these days. But here’s my bet for the Senator: Those cops and fireman who will get this benefit will never see those checks. The government promises they are relying on will be broken at some point in the future. America does not have the resources to make these promises anymore. We will go broke because so many of these special interest promises have been made.

We can hope and even expect that our political leaders will do the “right thing” in these difficult times. There is a broad awareness that everyone is going to have to do a bit more and get a bit less in the New America. But that does not seem to be the case with this Senator. He is working against the best interests of the country. In the end, those that he is trying to curry favor from will be the losers. I suspect the Senator knows this. He doesn’t care.