NARFE CHAPTER 1162 BULLETIN BOARD

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March 20 Congressman Kevin Yoder on Ryan's Budget 2013

Congressman Kevin Yoder for our 3rd Congressional District made the following statement after House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan released his Fiscal Year 2013 budget on March 20, 2012. NARFE opposes this budget.

“House Republicans have once again put forward a budget proposal to address our nation’s critical financial health. We cannot plan for the future without clearly defining how our federal dollars should be spent to pay for services and programs. We have an extremely important discussion ahead about the financial path our country will take.

 I applaud Congressman Ryan for offering a budget plan that we can now discuss and debate and I urge the Senate to offer a budget proposal as well – something they have not done in over three years. Too many politicians in Washington have refused to make difficult decisions because they are more concerned about their next election rather than the next generation.

Our focus should now turn to protecting and respecting hardworking taxpayers who have already sacrificed too much for their government to keep wasting their hard-earned dollars. In Congress, we need to work together on a federal budget in order to secure our country’s economic security and restore confidence in our future and our American way of life.”

Representative Yoder has a voting record that supports the Republican party positions.

“Kansas Day” Visit On Friday, 27 January, 2012,

Louise Lloyd Chapter 1162 President and Louis Bornman, Chapter Vice President attended the Ice Cream social hosted by the Kansas Team during the Kansas Days events in Topeka, KS. Gary Townsend, Legislative Chair for the Kansas State Federation also attended.

President Lloyd and I were able to talk with Representative Kevin Yoder and some of his staff. We also spoke with members of Senator Moran’s and Senator Roberts’ staffs.

During our conversations we emphasized the need to protect retiree benefits and most agreed that existing earned benefits would not be subject to change.

However most thought that some change was necessary for future retirees.

I explained to them that the average American worker only has a high school education and makes $50,000 a year while at least 40 percent of the government work force has an advanced degree, therefore their pay should be expected to be higher than the average American worker.

I also explained that the benefits currently afforded to government employees are great recruiting tools the government needs to attract highly qualified people to work in government.
I also explained to them that as legislators they could pass any laws they wanted but without highly qualified government employees to execute those programs they could not expect to achieve the results they intended through their legislation.

I talked with Representative Lynn Jenkins of the 2nd District and thanked her for her support of the military and government employees in her district as I worked at Fort Leavenworth for 30 years. I believe she has come to realize some of the impact that some of the proposed adverse actions proposed for current employees pay and benefits might have on the people in her district. [ OUCH! ]

[Kansas Taxes.] I also talked with a special assistant to Governor Brownback about proposed changes to Kansas tax law that would bring federal and military retirees into the Kansas income tax system.

On Wednesday I received a call from the Kansas Department of Revenue and was assured that the tax proposal had changed and there was no current plan to eliminate the current exemption from Kansas State income tax enjoyed by federal and military retirees.

The Kansas tax situation is an ever changing set of proposals by the governor and his staff. We all need to keep a watchful eye on this legislative session and write your Kansas state representative and senator to voice your concerns over proposed changes you have heard about.

NARFE Legislative Hotline – February 3, 2012

[OUCH!]  House Passes HR 3835 Extend Federal Pay Freeze

On February 1, NARFE president Beaudoin said, “we saw the federal community again singled out for a further year of frozen pay, when the House passed legislation, H.R. 3835, to extend the current two- year pay freeze for another year.” Representatives Jenkins and Yoder voted Yes to extend two-year pay freeze for another year on  a roll-call vote. (continued)

USE LEGISLATIVE ACTION CENTER TO PROTECT AMERICA ’S HEARTBEAT

NARFE members made January 2012 one of the best months ever in the use of our Legislative Action Center. They sent 6,397 messages.  Still, the stakes are higher and the environment more difficult than ever before. NARFE President Joseph A. Beaudoin urges you, if you have not already done so, to use this link to send NARFE’s new (1/19/12) message to your congressional delegation. (End Hotline)

NARFE'S expertise on legislation matters is appreciated on Capitol Hill.

David Snell, director of NARFE’s Retirement Benefits Service Department, testified on January 2 before a House Subcommittee on Federal Employees Retirement Security.

The Subcommittee was the Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and Labor Policy. For the full text of Snell’s statement, click here. Director Snell testified on behalf of 30 members of the Federal-Postal Coalation (e.g.– AFGE, NAGE, APWU, NAPS, NATCA, PMA, SEA).

And NARFE president Joseph Beaudoin will testify February 1 before the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia. The subject will be “Federal Retirement Processing: Ensuring Proper and Timely Payments.”

NARFE's president Beaudoin commented that "Having shown our ‘inside’ game, professional advocacy, we must ramp up our ‘outside’ game, member advocacy. I urge each NARFE member to send our Protect America’s Heartbeat message updated January 19th. Unless you are among the 4,999 NARFE members who have already done so, please use the link below to share our views with your representative and two senators.”SEND MESSAGE.

Antiphishing standard in the works from Google, Facebook, others by CNET 1/30/12

Good news for NARFE members. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, PayPal and others are working together on a standard that can be used across the Internet for blocking phishing e-mails. The 15 companies will be announcing on Monday DMARC.org, which stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance. It's a system for verifying that e-mails are coming from legitimate companies and not imposters trying to trick people into clicking a phishing link. Basically, the system offers a common way for companies to authenticate their legitimate communications with customers.

A FULL-BLOWN NARFE CAMPAIGN.

NARFE hired M+R Strategic Services to provide the expertise and staff to help with an aggressive advocacy and communication campaign. Its purpose is to fight cuts in funding federal retirement benefits, pay and health benefits funding and to increase public awareness of the value of public service. NARFE considers these times the most challenging period for federal employees and retirees of a generation.
NARFE Federations and Chapters will have key roles in the campaign by going online to send messages to Congress and the President. CLICK Here! . . .