“If these bills pass, We’ll be next.”
–Stacy Birdwell, secretary-treasurer of the Professional Firefighters of Louisiana during Monday’s Senate Retirement Committee hearing, explaining why he was testifying against Gov. Jindal’s retirement reform package even though firefighters aren’t affected in the current round of legislation.
“If they want to kick me off my committees, that’s okay with me. I’ll cut grass and edge around the Capitol in the morning but at 2 p.m. I’ll be in the House Chamber speaking out against and voting against these retirement bills that are detrimental to state employees.”
–State Rep. James Armes (D-Leesville), who is also a landscape contractor, speaking at a press conference on Monday at which Gov. Jindal’s retirement reform package was roundly criticized by several speakers.
Louisiana Voice 
What could immediately affect the firefighters is the loss of 30% of the staff in the Office of State Examiner, the state office that runs the Municipal Fire & Police Civil Service.
They get it.
BJ has three more legislatures to screw things up, and somewhere, on some wall, there is a chart with little labels of the people he plans to screw.
If I’m still in Louisiana, it will be interesting to see who that is.
When a company doesn’t fully fund a pension fund, and removes money from the fund which employees paid in, we call that embezzlement, and we send the thieves to prison. But when a governor and legislature do the same things to a pension fund they oversee, we call that politics.
In politics, the governor and legislators are the ones who would have to send themselves to prison for embezzlement, so no chance. They would also be the ones who would have to send themselves to prison for taking bribes to not restore the stolen money (as if they needed to be bribed to do that!).
But the worst insult of all is to see these mafiosos blame the employees for having the gall to want the stolen compensation restored. The worst insult is to see these angry dons intimidate employees into silence, employees who’ve paid into these fund all their professional lives.
“Perfidy – deliberate breach of faith or trust; faithlessness; treachery”
“Breacher – an infraction or violation, as of a law, trust, faith, or promise.”
“Embezzeler – to appropriate fraudulently to one’s own use, as money or property entrusted to one’s care.”