Pelosi Delivers Congress to Teacher's Union - Assures Long Term Financial Chaos

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Once again Obama Administration tramples all over state's rights!

Only in America could the Speaker of the House call Congress back in session from vacation to pass a bill designed to pay back the teacher's union for millions in campaign contributions to Obama and the House Democrats who are running for their lives in the fall elections, and have the audacity to call it a "jobs bill".

It sounds good, hiring back 160,000 teachers about to be let go because states have failed to balance their budgets. But if Pelosi, Obama and the Democrats were being honest they would give the money to the governors and let them decide who to keep and who to fire. Don't they trust the governors to act in the best interests of the public they serve?

You see, Pelosi thinks up to 140,000 policemen and firemen may also be saved from unemployment. Yet I fail to see the logic of forcing the governors to hire 160,000 teachers when our educational system is a disaster, then saying the governors could hire some additional police and firemen with the left over money.

First of all, governors don't hire teachers, policemen or firemen, that is done by local governments and most local governments are being held hostage by unions such as the teachers union that already has the most expensive health and pension payments in the nation, far higher than our policemen and firemen.

Union health and pension benefits already broke the auto industry and cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. Why is Pelosi forcing governors to hire the most expensive public employees possible, the teachers, thus increasing the state and local budgets for future health and pension costs? You see the teachers work for local school boards but the state is responsible for health and pension costs.

Better yet, since the states now know Obama and Pelosi will give them whatever they need to keep union jobs, then Congress will have to spend $26 billion every year, meaning the $26 billion is now going to be $130 billion just for the next five years. And it does nothing to reduce the health and pension benefits in which some states pay 100% of the health care cost for life. Do you have a health care program with no matching or co-pay requirements on your part? Do you have a health care program that pays every dollar of cost for the rest of your life?

This is really an issue of the federal government again usurping state's rights not because it is fair or cost effective or even needed but to protect the unions as a payback for the millions in campaign funds they already gave to the Democrats. If there was an honest bone in the congressional leadership they would vote on a five year bill because that is the least it will really cost, $130 billion not $26 billion.

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New Jersey Governor Christie Leads Nation Toward Economic Sanity

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Since stunning the political pundits and national media with his victory last November over the state and national Democratic machine, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie has been leading the state through a tea party revolution that has changed the fortunes of the state for many years to come.



After 18 years of Democrats running the state, during which time two governors were tossed from office for corruption and corrupt secrets, Christie inherited a pretty bleak mess. There were 115 tax increases by the Democrats over the past 8 years. The state had a deficit of $11 billion. Jersey had the highest property taxes in the nation and highest corporate taxes in the Northeast.

For the first time in decades Jersey lost it's leadership position for population gain and job development in the Northeast and the population of Jersey was actually dropping. State union pension and health care benefits, the highest in the nation, were crippling the state budget and out of control.



When Christie proposed his new budget with $11 billion in cuts the special interests for the unions spent millions of dollars in television ad campaigns misleading the public on the budget, clearly adopting the Obama strategy of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence votes on social policy issues.

Christie took his impossible fight directly to the citizens of all the towns in the state and the citizens gave him what the politicians did not have the guts to pursue, support for a major overhaul in the New Jersey budget.



In the end Christie overcame the odds and fierce opposition and got 99% of everything he requested in his budget and cuts. A $29.4 billion balanced budget was intact and even some prominent Democrat politicians put partisanship behind and supported the Governor's budget for the good of the state, people like Mayor Corey Booker of Newark, a rising star in the Democratic party.

For the first time in history all state employees and teachers will pay one and one half percent of their benefit costs, still far below the national average. Unemployment benefits will no longer be paid to workers who were fired for drunkenness, drug abuse or stealing from their employers.

As the Governor said, "New Jersey has changed and is now a contribution society, not an entitlement society."



With the huge budget and deficit victory and public support now behind him Christie has set his sites on a Constitutional cap on property tax increases of 2.5% maximum to stop local governments and school districts from their reckless spending habits and spiraling property tax increases.



Thanks to the relentless pursuit by the governor of his campaign promises to end the political nonsense and get New Jersey back on the road to greatness there is a very good chance the Garden State will be in full bloom again soon.



By the way, government belt tightening is not all the governor delivered, he also has lost 35 lbs. since taking office, another promise he made on national television.

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The Interests of Special Interests - What Greed? Not in New Jersey

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For those of you who pay attention you might have noticed that greed is not limited Wall Street and the politicians in Washington, it is penetrating throughout society. Let me give you yet another manifestation of greed in America.

Before telling you, let me first say I am a strong supporter of teachers but believe the education system is broken. I worked for eight years for the Governor of New Jersey. A couple of years I spent as the Assistant State Treasurer. While there I got to know the other side of the education industry and the power of special interests.

Since we left office in Jersey, leaving behind a substantial budget surplus, the subsequent Democratic governors have driven the tax rates in Jersey to the highest in the nation. The state teachers union is one of the strongest in the nation. No doubt they provided for the teachers as well as themselves. But what is the result?



Taxes are so high in Jersey that two decades of inward migration to Jersey were reversed in the past decade and people, mainly high income, are fleeing the state. In revolt, the people of Jersey stunned the political pundits and elected a Republican governor last November after almost 30 years of Democrats in control.

The incumbent governor, a Democrat and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, had pushed the liberal agenda which includes coddling the special interests too far. He was bounced from office. Faced with a deficit he inherited of $11 billion the new governor outline an ambitious recovery program.

Many people don't realize that by law states cannot have a deficit, unlike the federal government that lives off the future taxes of our kids. The budget has to be balanced. So the new governor rolled up his sleeves and went to work. New Governor Chris Christie faced a huge problem. According to writer Mark Impomeni in a story on the Human events blog website this is what happened.



Christie proposed a cut in state aid to education, intended to generate $500 million in savings the first year and $800 million the second year. It was equal to the annual budget surpluses in the school district and would result in no lost teaching jobs nor reduction in services. The teacher's union, in control of the legislature, demanded a new tax on families with incomes over $400,000 to pay the cost, a reinstatement of an old temporary tax that was responsible for driving tens of thousands of jobs out of the state. In fact the previous Democratic governor and legislature had refused to extend the tax.

Christie was elected on a platform of no tax increases and a cut in excessive state spending. He said no and countered with a challenge to the teachers union tax increase proposal.: He called on teachers to voluntarily agree to a one-year wage freeze and a permanent 1.5% of their salary to go toward the cost of their health insurance. The governor said that doing so would save school districts across the state more than the $820 million he was proposing to cut, resulting in no net reductions for education.

You see, thanks to the strength of the teachers union and the weakness of the Democrats in New Jersey teachers do not pay a single cent for health care. Retired teachers also pay nothing for health care. The health care plan for teachers ranked as one of the most expensive in the nation and was so extravagant it was classified as a "Cadillac" program and almost subject to a luxury tax under the Obama plan.



When the NJEA balked at this proposal, Christie took his case to the people. The governor said that New Jersey voters should reject the budget in any school district in which teachers refused to accept the wage freeze and health plan contributions.



“I just don't see how citizens should want to support a budget where their teachers have not wanted to be part of the shared sacrifice,” Christie said.

The teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), mounted a massive public campaign against the cuts, airing ads on local television accusing the governor of “attacking teachers, school bus drivers, and lunch aides.”



Last Tuesday, voters in the state decided overwhelmingly in the governor’s favor.

In an average year, nearly 70% of school budgets in New Jersey are approved. But last Tuesday, almost six-in ten-school budgets went down to defeat, a stunning reversal. Now, school budgets that were rejected will go to town councils for mandatory spending cuts or approval over the will of the voters. It seems unlikely in the current political climate that many town councils will choose to substitute their judgment for that of the voters. It is nothing short of a huge political victory for the governor.

Reacting to the vote, Christie called the results, “an extraordinarily clear signal” and “a seismic change that reflects … a changed attitude in New Jersey.” Still, Christie sought to distance himself from any personal political benefits from the vote, casting himself as the people’s messenger.



“[The people have] had enough,” Christie said. “They want real, fundamental change. We didn't lead in that regard. We merely gave voice to what the people of New Jersey were already feeling.”

The NJEA issued no comment on the results.

Christie moved quickly to capitalize on the vote, calling on the legislature to approve an amendment to the state constitution limiting property tax increases to 2.5% a year, to cut pensions and benefits for public sector workers, and to change the collective bargaining process to help reign in expanding budgets at the state and local level.



“We must arm the municipal governments with the tools they need,” he said. “We need to give people the opportunity to control their own property taxes."

Christie has been gaining national attention for his strongly conservative approach to closing New Jersey’s huge budget deficit. Tuesday’s victory will only serve to increase his national profile. New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio said the school budget votes in New Jersey were “a national model for fundamental change” and pledged to follow Christie’s example in Albany if elected.
Christie will now seek to push his $29 billion budget through the legislature ahead of the June 30 deadline. Tuesday’s results make it far more likely that his spending cuts will make it through largely intact.

This victory at the local polls demonstrates the degree to which the people's revolt against past spending habits has penetrated the American political system. It should serve as a warning to the free spending liberals throughout the nation that the Tea Party is just beginning and Independents have become more determined than ever to stop the nonsense and get control of government at all levels.



I lived in Jersey for 16 years and this is one of the most positive signs I have seen that the state has finally seen the light and is ready to again become the powerhouse of the Northeast, a position it last occupied when I was working for Governor Tom Kean. It is great to see Governor Christie is a man of his word and that the people understand it. Welcome back Jersey.

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