Political & Elections

tom- I really don't know why some people don't "vote their economic self-interest" but possible reasons range from they're more concerned about other issues to they simply feel bad about voting themselves a bigger share of the "pie", as our president calls it.

Read this letter Chrisite sent to the cops. He sent a similar letter to teachers. Imagine if Obama sent this type of letter to people making over $250k promising not to raise their taxes would he be considered a liar?
Gitmo still being open isn't causing me to lose sleep nights.

"Some pensions are better than others. Yours doesn't seem cushy, but in my town, the city manager already had a pension when he retired from a public service job with almost a 100% pension. He gets to double dip, on top of an extravagent salary. It's ridiculous and criminal. There is no way our town has the financial resources to do so. It's gotten unsustainable."

My brother in law gets to do the same thing. Takes his full retirement, and keeps his job at full pay, while the state is still contributing to his pension. He is a strong conservative, yet doesn't seem to see the hypocrisy in this, as he's happy as can be with this deal. Who wouldn't be? He is very highly unionized and salaried. What a great deal given by the state government to some, whilst they are going broke.

Which is surely why I don't understand the whole government union deals. At least a company will eventually go bankrupt if they pay too much for salaries, pensions, and benefits, so it is in the workers and unions best interests to not suck the company completely dry. What incentive do government unions have to give back raises and benefits temporarily, and not to take as much as they can, under threat of a strike? Just make the cities and states endlessly raise taxes and fees, is their answer.

Anyone know why the kicking & screaming out of WI on collective bargaining? Didn't OH do the same this year and nary a peep?

The tax break people are "accusing" Walker of making is a tax break FOR employers in an attempt to keep employers in Wisconsin, for one, and to attract new businesses. 

If the only "middle class" we have in the US is made up of government workers?  Taxes are too high.

cat- I am not in a union but I am very surprised about how often union members vote in a way that is not in their own economic self interest. In NJ Christie would not have won if teachers in suburban districts and police and fire did not vote for him. Couple that with other public sector workers not voting for Corzine because they were upset with him over contract givebacks and you get aChristie win.

Read this letter Chrisite sent to the cops. He sent a similar letter to teachers. Imagine if Obama sent this type of letter to people making over $250k promising not to raise their taxes would he be considered a liar?

Christie campaign letter promised 'no harm' to police, firefighter pensions
Friday, 25 February 2011 19:52 Jerry DeMarco
"The claim that any harm would come to your pension when I'm elected Governor is absolutely untrue. It is a 100% lie," Chris Christie wrote to New Jersey law enforcement officers during his campaign against Jon Corzine. The 2009 letter, and a near-carbon copy sent to firefighters, has resurfaced amid Christie's bid to overhaul public servants' pension system.

"Nothing will change for the pensions of current officers, future officers or retirees in a Christie Administration," says the "Open Letter to Members of Our Law Enforcement Community," simply signed "Chris."

"I have repeated time and time again that the pension agreement we made with our member our law enforcement community must be respected," the 2009 letter adds. "It is a sacred trust."

Christie sent a similar "sacred trust" letter to firefighters through the state, adding: "The notion that I would eliminate, change, or alter your pension is not only a lie, but cannot be further from the truth.

"No one will stand up for you more than I will."

"Do not believe the lies that have been spread about my proposals," Christie told both groups. "Your pension will be protected when I am elected Governor."

I think that excluding police and fire was a clear indication that Walkers plan really was about hurting a group that generally supports his opponents.

If R's really want to support business get rid of all taxes employers have to pay for employing people. Remove the cost of health care from employers. I would also support getting rid of corporate business taxes.

Fund the level of government you want via a flat rate income tax with some initial level of income exempt from tax and a flat rate sales tax set at a low rate but applied to all goods and services- nothing exempt.

That is something every State should do. I think more important is to have a tax structure that rewards employment which will lead to a vibrant middle class. A vibrant middle class results in more business activity at the local level than having wealth concentrated in a limited number of people.

cat- I was not discussing Walker specifically but the overall issue with public employee pensions.

The financial consequences of defaulting on pensions are more severe than the financial consequences of funding them properly. Pension default can not be made in a vacuum. It can not be done without defaulting on all secured bond debt. If that happens what do you think happens to every insurer in this country?
Also prior to any default what happens to assets- are they liquidated by creditors?

catahoula- so what should happen to an employee that was told they were required to contribute a portion of their salary to a pension and in return part of their compensation would be earned in the form of a pension upon retirement. The agreement was once vested-10 years they had a non-forfeitable right to these benefits.

By the way the State does have the funds to make required payments it just has to allocate funds differently or raise taxes or a combination. It can do it without raising taxes if it chooses.

Quote:Remember the joke going around?  There are 12 cookies on the table, and sitting around the table are a banker, a worker, and a tea partier.  The banker rakes 11 cookies over to himself, then tells tea partier, "you better watch out for that worker - he wants part of your cookie"./Quote

Yup. Spot-on.

Quote:it has been 17 years since the State has made its full contribution- most of those years it paid nothing. I have trouble seeing how taxpayers claim the pensions are killing them when no tax money has gone to pensions for 14 of 17 years./Quote

Funny how that works, isn't it?

Once the GOP mananges to to strip working class union members of any and all  collective power and hand it over instead to banks, and major corporate interests, the rape of the middle-class will be complete. I just hope working class conservatives won't then have the nerve to sit back and wonder why they're still feeling screwed.

What, states not funding pension obligations have made them disappear?
Wish that would happen to my mortgage.

Tom: "hayden it has been 17 years since the State has made its full contribution- most of those years it paid nothing. I have trouble seeing how taxpayers claim the pensions are killing them when no tax money has gone to pensions for 14 of 17 years. "

Bingo. 

None of this has to do with state workers, or with their pensions, or anything else.  To repeat the president of the Wisconsin state senate, it will just made it harder for Obama to win in Wisconsin. 

That, plus the House Republicans' cuts, which include gutting the tsunami national warning center.  Remember Jindall's pooh poohing of how silly it was to monitor earthquakes and volcanos ? 

Apparently knowing about tsunamis is not important, but getting rid of Planned parenhood and reinstating DADT is really high on the agenda. 

NJ's plan is a defined benefit plan and employees have always made contributions

hayden it has been 17 years since the State has made its full contribution- most of those years it paid nothing. I have trouble seeing how taxpayers claim the pensions are killing them when no tax money has gone to pensions for 14 of 17 years.

I always laugh when people call them union pension plans. There are thousands of non-union members in the plans, the plans existed prior to their being any unions in existence and none of the terms of the pension are subject to collective bargaining.

It doesn't make any differrence if the tax cut goes into effect tomorrow, or in 2012.  If the state were in such a horribe budget condition, the governor had no business enacting a new tax cut.

That's what our nation did - maintain a tax break for people who make huge salaries, complain about the defiicent, and now the House wants to take money away from families earning $50-60,000 per year.

The fact is that for YEARS states have raided or not funded pension funds.  Governors used them as a private piggy bank to pay for operations while they give tax cuts to buy favor from the electorate.  The pensions are negotiated, contractually bound pension funds that exist on paper, but not in reality.  Then, once the financial crisis hit, the states say they can't afford to pay the pensions and it's all the fault of the people who are supposed to get the pensions, rather than the fault of politiicials who have raided or not funded those pensions for the past umpteen years.  Tom, you live in NJ - when was the last time the NJ budget fully funded the pensions?  Oh, please.  The unions?  Not even close to the problem.

Remember the joke going around?  There are 12 cookies on the table, and sitting around the table are a banker, a worker, and a tea partier.  The banker rakes 11 cookies over to himself, then tells tea partier, "you better watch out for that worker - he wants part of your cookie".

In NJ no one gets a raise unless it is negotiated via the contract. They do get step increases each years based on the Hays Compensation formula. That is the basic formula that sets most government wages. Hays is a consulting group that employers use to set the basic wage structure of a job classification. Under this system the starting pay is below what the Hays Compensation system states the job should pay based on education and responsibilities. Periodically, usually every year an employee that gets a satisfactory review from their boss receives a step increase. Usually there are between 7-9 steps and the last step is considered the "real" salary that should be earned based on education, responsibilities etc. Hays considered that experience gets you performing in a way that you have earned the wage the job should pay. You do not get a step if you do not get a satisfactory review. Once you are at the top step you no longer get pay increases unless there is a cost of living in the contract.

Yes, insane, Samurai.....anti common sense.  But, heck, when one side of the bargaining table is a politician who relies on union donations to fund his/her campaign and the other side is a union rep who relies on union dues for his/her salary?  Who is invested in keeping a lid on costs?  Nobody.

No, Tom, I am not referring to the raises teachers get simply for teaching (badly or well) for a certain # of years.  I am referring to cost of living adjustments. 

public sector manager here- non union so I want to lay my cards on the table.

poet are you referring to employee step increases when you post this?-Plus, are you aware of the fact that when a public employee gets a cost of living raise, they don't even CALL it a raise? So manipulative.

Most of us in the real world would love a COLA each year.

That's not really true, Hayden.  If you really look at the timeline and the correspondence, it's pretty clear that the democrats could have done some serious negotiating along the way and chose not to.  Those tax cuts also won't take effect until 2012.  The democrats and their goons totally overplayed their hands.

What I don't get is how this latest law has any immediate budgetary effect. The Governor is talking out of both sides of his mouth here.

To pass the bill, the legislators removed all fiscal impacts; that's how they were able to pass it without a quorum.

But if it doesn't have immediate fiscal impacts, then how could its passage have averted immediate layoffs?

The thuggery of the unions has taken even me by surprise, and my husband is a Teamster!  I can't imagine that civilized people would want to make common cause with them.  Ugly, ugly, ugly. 

"Shenanigans", SLS? Looks more like mad-cow disease to me.

I see two problems for the unions and their dependents, the Democrats.

--- Private sector workers may be sympathetic to some of the arguments being made about fairness but the long term economic outlook for the states renders most of them moot.

--- If it was just Wisconsin, it would be easier to pour enough money and professional protesters into the fight to win it but it's not. The mobs are going to have to be bused all over the country before this is over.

it's hilarious (and terrible), IMO.

First, the Dems run away. Then, they accuse the Republicans of being the bad guys when the Republicans try to vote on things. This is terrible precedent. Indiana's state representatives also ran away. Is this the new strategy? If you don't have enough votes, just run away?

Why are these legislators getting paid to be intentionally not doing their jobs?

Luckily Michael Moore showed up to convince everyone that the US is not broke, we are just running a $1.5 trillion deficit each year for fun.

How are these people protesting for so long? Don't they have jobs?

Why are doctors signing sick notes for people who aren't sick? Is that illegal? If not, I'm sure it is at least a violation of doctors code of ethics or something.

Wisconsin has increased per student funding by over $4000 (real terms) since 98, yet 66% of 8th graders, the same percent as in 1998, cannot read at a passable level. So for $4000 extra dollars per student, they get no improvement.