Thread: Can Chris Christie Fix New Jersey? Christie Confronts Union

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Can Chris Christie Fix New Jersey? Christie Confronts Union

Real Clear Politics is asking Can Chris Christie Fix New Jersey? http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... ersey.html

At a New Jersey town meeting, Gov. Chris Christie, the newest YouTube star for the limited government set, was reproached by an unhappy teacher. The governor, facing a budget shortfall of $11 billion, has proposed, among other economies, a one-year salary freeze for New Jersey teachers. Her voice raised in anger (that's a normal speaking voice in my home state), Rita Wilson protested that she should be paid $83,000, the only reasonable compensation in light of her "education and experience." Christie's reply got an ovation: "Well, you know what? Then you don't have to do it."

Meet the newest conservative hero: The Trenton Truth-Teller!

First, the problem: How can smaller-government Republicans win elections when more and more Americans are receiving government benefits while fewer and fewer are paying taxes? In 2010, 47 percent of Americans paid no income taxes at all. Among those who do pay taxes, most pay comparatively little.

But as Christie is demonstrating, voters are open to a new fairness argument. Whereas Barack Obama and his party invoke "fairness" as a license to take property from productive people and transfer it to the unproductive, Christie is inviting voters to consider the unfairness of our current arrangement in which government employees enjoy better salaries and benefits than private-sector employees.

Christie spelled it out:

A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing -- yes, nothing -- for full family medical, dental, and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime. Is it 'fair' for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess? (Is it) fair to have New Jersey taxpayers foot the bill for 100 percent of the health insurance costs of teachers and their families from the day they are hired until the day they die? Is it fair that teachers have a better, richer health plan than even state workers and pay absolutely nothing for it?

Christie's proposed economies -- in addition to the one-year salary freeze, he wants teachers and administrators to contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries to the cost of their medical coverage -- have provoked thousands of teachers to take to the streets, Athens style. They've started a Facebook page that excoriates the governor to the delight of its 68,000 fans. And the NJEA has spent $1.8 million on an anti-Christie ad campaign since January.

Still, when the question was submitted to voters in April, 60 percent backed Christie's reforms. His popularity ratings are in dispute (Rasmussen pegs him at 53 percent approval, whereas a Fairleigh Dickenson University poll has him at 43 percent), but he is gaining traction in a state with a 700,000 Democratic registration advantage.

This is one to watch.

There is more in the article. Inquiring minds will give it a look.
Cheers to Chris Christie for laying it on the line.

Governor Chris Christie Slams Teacher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw0aBkt8 ... r_embedded

Partial Transcript

Chris Christie: "We have put forward a constitutional amendment that I am urging the legislature be put on the ballot for you for you to vote on, for you to decide, this November. Do you want a constitutional cap of no more then 2.5% a year. If you want it, I am prepared to give it to you."

During a question and answer session teacher Rita Wilson proposed $3 per pupil which she says ads up to $83,000 per year.

Rita Wilson: "You are not compensating me for my education and you are not compensating me for my experience."

Chris Christie: "Well you know what, then you do not have to do it". [huge applause]

Rita Wilson: "Teachers do it because they love it"

Chris Christie: "Teachers go into it knowing what the pay scale is." [applause]

Quick Check of the Facts

Inquiring minds just might be wondering what Rita Wilson makes and are reading the Rutherford Schools Board Minutes. http://www.rutherfordschools.org/boardo ... 09.min.pdf

24. BE IT RESOLVED BY THE RUTHERFORD BOARD OF EDUCATION to approve the following faculty salaries and locations effective 9/1/09 through 6/30/10:

Page 10. Rita O'Neill-Wilson: $86,389

Rita Wilson makes $86,389 "for the love of it" yet bitches about being undercompensated. Ironically, she asks for $3 per pupil which would pay her less.

Bear in mind that teachers get summers off plus enormous benefits. Medical benefits alone may be worth as much as $20,000 and pension benefits another $20,000 or so on top of that.

Far from being underpaid, she is way overpaid vs. what she would get in the private sector. The key, as governor Christie puts it "If you don't like it, do something else."

Rita Wilson and her ilk have the gall to oppose property tax caps of 2.5% just so she and her union parasite friends can unjustifiably make ever increasing sums of money while bankrupting everyone else in the state.

I commend you Rita Wilson for proving what a collective bunch of parasites your teachers' union is. Were it not for your union's thuggery, you just might see a 25-50% haircut in what you are making.

Public unions need to be abolished. It is the only way to get rid of the union termites.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... ersey.html

Not to mention that the NJEA holds New Jersey's kids hostage, band together to intimidate politicians, and also take part in the progressive/marxist indoctrination through the teachers...

The system has to change. It's ridiculous what teachers put toward pensions over the course of their careers and what they get when they retire. They are chasing homeowners out of the state!


http://blog.nj.com/jerseyblogs/2010/02/ ... ogger.html

Pension reform payback: Bloggers on N.J.'s attempt to overhaul state retirement program
By Kelly Heyboer/ The Star-Ledger
February 24, 2010, 8:41AM


Patti Sapone/The Star Ledger

Gov. Chris Christie Give me $62,000 over the course of your career. When you’re ready to retire, I’ll give you $1.4 million, plus another $215,000 for your health care premiums.


Sounds like a good deal, right? Maybe too good.

Gov. Chris Christie used the above example— of a New Jersey teacher who was eligible for $1.4 million in pension benefits at retirement— to describe why New Jersey needs to reform its chronically underfunded pension system for public employees.

This week the state Senate passed a package of reform measures, including new rules that would cap the unused sick time retirees can cash in on at retirement, limit the participation of part-time employees in the pension system and require employees to contribute 1.5 percent of their salaries toward their health benefits.

The legislation now goes to the Assembly.

Bloggers have been arguing about New Jersey’s messy, broken pension system for years. Most agree the latest attempts at reform are long overdue. But the debate continues over whether the proposed changes are fair to teachers, police officers, firefighters and government workers who paid into the system in good faith with the expectation that it would fund their retirement. Do the reforms go too far, or not far enough to avert a looming pension disaster?