"Right Turn" Ro Khanna
Ro Khanna is
nominally a Democrat running against current Congressman Honda,
a progressive Democrat. In CA 17, it would be hard to get elected as a Republican, so Khanna has to run as a Democrat even though he has
ties to big money.
Here's a recent kerfuffle:
Ro Khanna attacked Congressman Honda for taking his earned pension while collecting his congressional salary.
Why should Congressman Honda get a pension? What nerve!
Well, before becoming a Congressman, Honda was a high school science teacher, a principal, a school board member, a Santa Clara County Supervisor and a CA state Assemblyman and his pensions are perfectly legal. In fact, about one in five congresscritters also collects a pension of top of their current salary.
His late wife was also a teacher, and he receives her pension; again, perfectly legal.
After attacking Honda for collecting a pension he rightfully earned, Ro Khanna proceeded to threaten withholding Federal funding from states and cities that may struggle during a down economy. In a move that the Honda campaign compared to a “policy you might expect from the tea party,” Khanna appears to blame public workers for problems that originate more with Wall Street than Main Street.
But Sunnyvale Mayor Jim Griffith, who has endorsed Honda, said that while nobody debates the need to ensure public pensions are fully funded, "this is a proposal coming from someone with no experience at the state and local level" and apparently "pandering to an ultra-conservative crowd."
Federal funds support Sunnyvale and cities like it in everything from workforce development to affordable housing, he said. "He's basically holding all of that ransom in order to meet some ideal that, frankly, we're already trying to meet."
San Jose Mercury News
California may not be a top state in per-student funding, but we do have highly trained and qualified teachers. We are proud of them. And they had some choice words for Mr. Khanna below the orange squiggle.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Santa Clara County Teachers Decry Khanna’s “Pension Reform” Plan
Congressional District 17; Santa Clara County, California
September 18, 2014
Teachers in Santa Clara County are incensed by Ro Khanna’s plans for “pension reform”. Using the threat of withholding federal dollars to terrorize state and local governments into immediately and fully funding pensions is going to have one effect: more destructive and divisive legislation that will undermine the retirements of hard-working Americans everywhere. Congress is already full of ideologues whose refusal to work collaboratively threatens the prosperity of this nation. The work to rebuild the economy isn’t easy, and a policy platform to do it can’t center on threats to cash-strapped states desperate to do right by their people. Nor will we be swayed by references to bankrupt municipalities whose fiscal insolvency was created by unchecked greed in the private sector and now, as proposed, will be balanced on the back of public servants.
Ro Khanna’s plan is nothing more than a shameful misdirection that will have disastrous results. Many states will most assuredly be forced to declare bankruptcy under a federal mandate to fully fund pensions. It will then appear to be eminently reasonable after that fiasco to export all public employees to the private sector for their pension investments. We can’t help but think of people who lost everything in the markets and wonder if that will be the fate of public employees who services are already frequently undercompensated.
State and municipal workers go into public service to be of value to their communities, and they exchange market-rate salaries for the right to earn reasonable, secure retirements. Mr. Khanna doesn’t bat an eye at the avaricious and deplorable looting of the middle class undertaken by Wall Street billionaires, but apparently policy proposals with an obvious consequence to undo secure pensions for public employees is fair game. We have all seen the destructive path of that kind of thinking in San Jose. What was formerly one of the top ten safest cities in America has endured a terrible increase in crime due, in part, to the belief that the best way to balance the books is to “reform” pensions by sticking it to those who earned them.
We do need help. But we need that help in the form of sound policy, a balanced approach that considers the root cause of these problems, and a long-term solution that does not, once again, pit the federal government against state and local ones. And, for once, that help must not thoughtlessly endanger the promises the states have made to public employees, a strong part of the backbone of America’s dwindling middle class.
Submitted by proud representatives of outstanding public employees,
Jennifer Thomas Jocelyn Merz
San Jose Teachers Association Alum Rock Education Association
Brian Wheatley Fadi Saba
Evergreen Teachers Association Luther Burbank Education Association
Lynne Martinez Heather Mumy
Oak Grove Educators Association Sunnyvale Education Association
California Teachers Rock!