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Once Tom retires and start to collect his pension along with his benefits for life, he is NO LONGER the best person for the job. He has elected to retire and is no longer the man for the job. As a previous poster wrote, whoever is next in line for that job, and of course qualified to fill the job, should get the job. And if by chance there is no one eligible to fill Tom's SHOES, the position should be filled from other sourses. Under the NEW RULES, Tom can't have it both ways, collect a pension and a paycheck. Tom needs to choose one or the other, not both.
His 2 closest advisors. One is his right hand man Dep. Chief of Staff and the other the Lt. Governor who will take over if he gets the VP nod. Ones a double dipper and the other might see a set of handcuffs. "Do as I say and not as I do" This is the thing I despise about him. He condones double dipping and thievery in his inner circle and badmouths everyone else that disagrees with him. Chris Christie's crackdown on pension abuse doesn't seem to have affected those closest to him
(The Star-Ledger)Gov. Chris Christie: He likes to point fingers but he has to look at what's under his nose.
For some time now I've been posting Mark Lagerkvist's New Jersey Watchdog reports about double-dipping politicians and public officials around the state.
In a time when a lot of New Jerseyans don't have either a job or a pension, these guys have both.
And Chris Christie's pension reforms haven't reformed that practice within his own administration.
That's what Lagerkvist reports in this piece.
Here's an excerpt:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — a rising star in the national Republican Party — called an overhaul of the state pension system his "biggest governmental victory." He now faces embarrassment from flaws his reforms failed to fix.
The sweeping new laws increase contributions from public workers, decrease benefits and halt cost-of-living hikes. According to Christie, the changes should save the state $120 billion over the next 30 years.
But his reform did little to stop the age-old New Jersey practice of double-dipping, in which employees "retire," start collecting a pension, and then are rehired, often the next day. Christie's own deputy chief of staff collects $219,000 a year from the state — a $130,000 salary as a top aide to the governor plus $89,000 in state pension.
Worse for Christie, a criminal investigation is under way involving his running mate, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.
Read the whole thing.
The defense from the administration on this sort of thing is that the worker in question could have taken the pension and gotten a job in the private sector.
True enough.
But what bothers me is this: If the employee in question is still capable of doing a job that brings big bucks, why should he be permitted to retire in the first place.
There's only one solution: End pensions in the public sector.
Let these guys get 401-k plans like the rest of us.
Then they can make up their own minds when to retire.
His 2 closest advisors. One is his right hand man Dep. Chief of Staff and the other the Lt. Governor who will take over if he gets the VP nod. Ones a double dipper and the other might see a set of handcuffs. "Do as I say and not as I do" This is the thing I despise about him. He condones double dipping and thievery in his inner circle and badmouths everyone else that disagrees with him. Chris Christie's crackdown on pension abuse doesn't seem to have affected those closest to him
(The Star-Ledger)Gov. Chris Christie: He likes to point fingers but he has to look at what's under his nose.
For some time now I've been posting Mark Lagerkvist's New Jersey Watchdog reports about double-dipping politicians and public officials around the state.
In a time when a lot of New Jerseyans don't have either a job or a pension, these guys have both.
And Chris Christie's pension reforms haven't reformed that practice within his own administration.
That's what Lagerkvist reports in this piece.
Here's an excerpt:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — a rising star in the national Republican Party — called an overhaul of the state pension system his "biggest governmental victory." He now faces embarrassment from flaws his reforms failed to fix.
The sweeping new laws increase contributions from public workers, decrease benefits and halt cost-of-living hikes. According to Christie, the changes should save the state $120 billion over the next 30 years.
But his reform did little to stop the age-old New Jersey practice of double-dipping, in which employees "retire," start collecting a pension, and then are rehired, often the next day. Christie's own deputy chief of staff collects $219,000 a year from the state — a $130,000 salary as a top aide to the governor plus $89,000 in state pension.
Worse for Christie, a criminal investigation is under way involving his running mate, New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.
Read the whole thing.
The defense from the administration on this sort of thing is that the worker in question could have taken the pension and gotten a job in the private sector.
True enough.
But what bothers me is this: If the employee in question is still capable of doing a job that brings big bucks, why should he be permitted to retire in the first place.
There's only one solution: End pensions in the public sector.
Let these guys get 401-k plans like the rest of us.
Then they can make up their own minds when to retire.
If the employee in question is still capable of doing a job that brings big bucks, why should he be permitted to retire in the first place.
I don't get this sentence. Someone should not have to wait until he is "permitted" to retire, or only "allowed" to retire when he's too feeble to do so. This is employement, not slavery. If he meets the age and years of service required by the pension system, he can retire any damn time he wants to. He just shouldn't be allowed to work for the same system as the one from which he collects a pension.
I know of two people in NJ that are receiving pensions from the state, due to becoming disabled (physc and back issue) in their state jobs, but are allowed to get other jobs, in the state or otherwise, as long as they weren't the same jobs they had before becoming disabled. So basically they get to collect their pension (these are young people) and have another career. Amazing.
Great article By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger The Star-Ledger
This truly is a disgrace, that Christi goes around like this tough guy wanting to crack down on the pension meltdown in this state, and he has the worst offenders working under his nose. This article shows that Christi will never get this problem solved as long as he allows this to go on with his closest advisors. I use to be a huge Christi supporter, but after reading this garbage, my views have changed. Message to Mr. Christi, if you ever want to get this state back in the black, you need to clean up this pension mess and not turn your head to anyone. The bottom line is a person collecting a pension, should not be allowed to also get a salary. What's going on with people like his deputy chief is borderline criminal.
Again look at my plan from above and it solves everything and really only hurts the scumbags that are really raping the system and all of us. Mr. Christie is very very quick to blast teachers and other generous pensioners and does not one thing about the real abuse. Again who would be against my plan? The playing field is so uneven and regardless of what you think its tilted to the upper crust at all times. Teachers cant collect a pension and take another job? Not saying they should at all but why cant they if other can? Simply put you get one pension only thats it. No mas! Working in ANY capacity for the state then you cant collect one single penny of any pension. This really really drives me nuts.
Here is my rule and I am not sure who the numb nuts is that would oppose this other then the obvious double dippers.
If you have any state job you cant collect any state pension. In order to collect a state pension you may not be employed by the state(town,county, or any other nonsense) in any capacity at all.
Part two you may only collect one pension regardless of how many dumb jobs you have in the state. You take the best one and that is it.
Part three You must cap pensions at some reasonable like 75k to stop the silly abuses of people getting over 100k in pension benefits. Its just dumb not fair and not helping the people who are collecting 20k to 30k and happen to be the majority of pensioners.
Rule four you dont like it too bad. Get another job.
Now tell me who would be against this? Greedy Teachers? Greedy Public workers? No my friends it would be the politicians and big wigs who have raped the system for so many years and then make the everyday worker look like a scumbag for having a pension.
Not to mention my plan would save the taxpayers billions of dollars and would allot the money in a much more fair and equitable manner then the current system.
I for one like your plan, very fair and reasonable. And I feel that 99.9% of the people in this state would agree with it. Except of course the major abuses of this double dipping problem. These people would not be happy with a 75K pension. They want the pension over 100k, plus a no show job bringing in another 75k on top of it. When you hear what is going on with some of these people, you can understand why our property taxes continue to go up and our debt continues to rise.State Pensions are public records and when you see how many people are getting these monster pensions it can make your head spin. Alot of N.J. residents where hoping Christi would fix this problem, but instead it looks like he is adding to it???
Didn't you hear it's the common public worker who is the cause of everything in this state. If those abuses were stopped our taxes would be so much lower and people could survive just fine. The blind eye to this stuff by Christie is nauseating and very telling from the "straight talker"
It's not the common public worker (not sure if you were being facetious or not). The common public worker is not abusing the system, he or she is just getting their reputation dragged down because of the cheaters and the losers that the politicians plant in the agencies to sit alongside the people who actually do the work and allow them to work the loopholes that drain the system. The normal, everyday public worker has to not only cover the work for these fools--or sometimes suffer under them when they are planted in as managers--they also get tagged as corrupt themselves because of what others do.
Did anyone see the front pape of Sunday's Asbury Park Press.. MULTIPLE JOBS PAD PENSIONS, GOVERNMENT "DOUBLE DIPPERS" AVERAGED A 5.2% RAISES. Stepthen Gallagher makes 252,702, finance officer for FIVE government bodies, Patrict DeBlasio makes $240,996, and Ronald Mehlhorn, makes $238,518, they show hime smiling ear to ear, wouldn't you. He has THREE government jobs. Goes on to say that 705 double dippers made over $100,000. Meanwhile Christi stands by and watches this go on right under his very nose. This state will never get out of all this red ink in the pension system unless this kind of garbage is cleaned up. And so far our Governor has done nothing about it. Go into app.com and read the article, it's really hard to believe that this kind of thing is going on in this state. And to add more salt to the wound, on the very next page their is a big article on how N.J. has more people living in poverty then ever before a wooping 885,000. Something is really wrong with this picture, don't you agree Governor Christi???
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For all the Christie lovers
(The Star-Ledger)Gov. Chris Christie: He likes to point fingers but he has to look at what's under his nose.
