Thread: Christie on Teachers' Unions, Vouchers, Union Dues, Change

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Chris Christie on Teachers' Unions, Vouchers, Union Dues, Change: "We are going to lead the way!"; Ron Paul-Chris Christie for President, VP

Video: Governor Christie: Not About Teachers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksLlAi3 ... r_embedded

June 03, 2010 — Governor Chris Christie gives remarks regarding Teachers and the New Jersey Education Association during a Town Hall Meeting in Robbinsville, N.J. on Thursday, June 3, 2010. (Governor's Office / Tim Larsen)

Partial Transcript

My argument is not with the teachers in New Jersey. My argument is with the union who collects $730 a year from every teacher in mandatory dues. And if you don't want to join the union you have to pay 85% of that. It's like the Hotel California. You can check in any time but you can never leave.

[Union Dues] for the teacher's union - [bring in] - $130 million a year. What do they spend that money on? An army of lobbyists in the state house .... and $6 million on negative advertising against me since March 16th.

That's dues money coming from teachers, mandatory, they have no choice, and from all of you [taxpayers]. Because their salaries come from your property taxes.

Now if you don't think this is a screwy system, I don't know what is.

The fight is about who is going to run public education in New Jersey, the parents and the people they elect, or the mindless faceless union leaders who decide that they are going to be the ones to run it because they have the money and the authority to bully around the school boards and local councils.

If we don't win this fight there are no other fights left. This is the fight we have to fight and this is the fight we have to win for our kids.
Christie Slams Teachers' Union

Here is a second video that is a must play.

Christie Slams Teacher Unions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljIVr0dV ... r_embedded

Partial Transcript

In New Jersey we say this: With a teachers’ union that collects $130 million in dues a year from its 200,000 members across our state, in a state that has been dominated politically, by a state NJEA that in every way can dominate the legislature and a series of governors, if we can make this happen in New Jersey in the course of the next four years, there is no excuse for anyone, anywhere, not to get this done.

We are going to lead the way. [Loud Applause]

Our basic principle is this: Parents and children deserve a choice. This is a very, very simple straightforward principle, that you would think in the abstract that no one could disagree with. But let's not stop there. Let's add the layer onto it, that parents and children who are being failed by a public school system whose costs are exorbitant and whose results are insulting, deserve a choice. [Loud Applause]

We do not have to look far around the country from where we are right now to know that voucher programs and experiments in school choice are working. You know here in DC those in that program are now reading 19 months ahead of their colleagues who are outside of those programs.

This isn't a coincidence. We know that there are over five million children trapped in over 10,000 failing public schools. And I use the word trapped and I use it directly.

Public Unions, Not Individual Teachers, Are The Problem

The problem as Christie points out is not the majority of the teachers, but rather the teachers' union that is always begging for more money "for the kids" when the money is not for the kids but for the union itself.

Public unions need to be eliminated.

The first step is to make it illegal for public unions to lobby government. Then I would like to see all corporations lose the right to bribe [lobby] government officials.

Unions and corporate lobbyists are nothing more than groups of organized thugs, bribing and threatening politicians, at the expense of taxpayers. It is time to put an end to it.

Thank God Chris Christie is leading the way. I would support a Ron Paul, Chris Christie ticket for President, Vice-President in one second flat (in either order).

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... nions.html

I would support a Ron Paul, Chris Christie ticket for President, Vice-President in one second flat (in either order).
I SECOND THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Public unions need to be eliminated

Its one thing to have Unions in the private sector but Public Unions can and do hold the citizenry hostage, and in the case of the NJEA they can hold our children hostage for their financial AND political agenda...

It seems criminal really...