Chris Christie Redux
If Governor Chris Christie (R, NJ) can cut a budget deficit of $11 billion dollars with his first budget … why is it Connecticut anguishes over a “projected gap” of $3 billion. Why is it the only way they could close the current gap was with smoke and mirrors. I’ll take one those Christie people, please.
In Connecticut it never happens because no one is willing to stand up and do what’s right … because of the personal hits they will take. Cut education? Why you are against the children. Cut long term care? You are against seniors. Cut Medicaid programs? You are against the poor . On and on it goes. So our politicians cave. Instead I choose to look at it the way Christie does.
Ask for pay freezes for those in education. Not just teachers, but from administrators to aides, and do it for the children in school. Change long term care now by asking younger citizens to prepare for old age, while asking workers at long term care facilities for pay freezes too, to help the old people.
Lastly, renegotiate pension plans for government employees, because we can’t afford them and our children won’t be able to. Private companies learned this 30 years ago.
Compassion, you see, works both ways. But when you are staring down the barrel of a 3 billion dollar deficit … the answer is not to whack the people in the private sector who create the jobs and the private sector workers who remain to pull the economy. Anyone can be compassionate with someone else’s money. That does not take courage. Real courage is standing up for the next generation, your children, who will be asked to foot an ever exapnding bill.
11 Comments
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I guarantee that there is a boatload of money to be saved before you even get close to these hearttugging items. Politicians always raise these in order to stir the pot. Don't forget fire and police personnel !!
How many conventions junkets can be cancelled in favor of group online meetings? How many beaurocrat state vehicles can be taken off the road?
How about they set a goal, by example, to do away with the joke "How many state workers does it take…"
I agree: they pull out the "cut teachers, firemen and police" from the playbook almost as fast as they pull out the race card. You never hear "cut the administrators" or "cut the deputies to the assistant butt kissers". No, they cut really needed services, and the the threatened groups can always be counted on to scream loudly on demand. Of course, stories of the coming "apocalypse" and "draconian cuts" are dusted off by the complicit press and played up on the front pages, editorials and top stories. And, of course, the timeless "it's Bush's fault".
The public relents, and they bend over and say "please sir, may I have another?"
Pathetic.
Even more insidious is the cut in projected increases, also known as flat funding, which is also called "cuts" by the Dems in the talking points they distribute to their media flying monkeys.
Somehow I seem to remember that someone said at some time, that wage freezes and price controls do not work.
Certainly not in the long term, and the pols have no intention of cutting or freezing anything, hence the threats of cuts to vital services, but not the chaff. A cut is not a freeze, and not spending money you don't have is not a "price control". It is a "spending other people's money control".
An onerous tax is a price control though, as is a burgeoning deficit.
I read the verb "freeze" twice in Jim's post. But then, Jim is always compassionate about spending/taking away other people's money.
Ooooo! That was snarky! If you have a state job and are reasonably well paid, are you going to kvetch because you can't have an automatic raise? Temporarily putting the brakes on automatic raises the state cannot afford is called having a budget and sticking to it. Even the Dems claim to want to use "paygo" in legislation, although it has yet to happen.
Didja ever notice that, if it comes to that, unions will sacrifice workers to get raises?
Well, in Jim's defense, he doesn't hold public office…
It would be reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally nice to have those who do hold public office be able to make difficult decisions and not just spend maniacally….to suggest pay freezes even if it doesn't affect them personally.
I guess I don't understand unions very well…I was raised working in the private sector by parents who owned a small manufacturing business that provided jobs to kids right out of high school and taught them a trade from the ground up. Raises were NOT guaranteed…they were based on merit. And if someone sucked badly enough to not deserve a raise, they probably weren't cut out for the work.
The state has "issues"…no one sector should be shielded from the tough decisions that have to be made.
I don't have research and specific numbers, but certainly most of the teacher contracts signed this year, most of which were for 3 years starting in sept, had freezes for the first year and small increases (usually less than 2%) for the following two. The contracts also call for teachers to pay a higher percentage of their health insurance premiums. I'm not saying these are some magnanimous gestures for which they should be congratulated, I think its the right thing to do, but it is worth pointing out that it is already happening more than most people think.
Oh yeah, been there done that. Just recently in fact. The teacher's unions in MA endorse Democrats right down the line, year in and year out, and in between elections, cry and moan about how the effectively all Democrat legislature doesn't listen to them, or even honor negotiated contracts! They still think the Dems give a flying fig about them other than to get their votes.
Naturally, we are legally proscribed from having strikes, so we have no teeth whatsoever. The Dem legislature refuses to fund even meager raises, putting it off year after year, while more favored or more powerful unions get their requested funding.
I am happy to have a job, but I wish that the Dems would at least deign to kiss us before they, er, um, ignore us. (whew!)
Oh, and health care costs have increase around 30% since we got MassCare, the twin sister of Øbamacare, which is an effective wage cut in itself.