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It's funny you mention "blunt" in your post title...as Christie is extremely anti-marijuana. I appreciate that the man doesn't take crap and isn't afraid to take on the unions, but in a state as cash-strapped as NJ, he doesn't see the sense of marijuana law reform, medicinal or otherwise, as a means of closing the budget gap. He's yet another "Republican" who hates liberty.
Get real Narcotic. Liberalizing pot laws is not going to bring in much revenue. And even if it does, it will merely get spent. NJ increased taxes year in and year out and is still in a terrible budget mess.
He has proposed eliminating a billion dollars of state aid to schools, cities, and towns, and has attacked the state pension fund. But then he has the balls to refuse to renew the Millionaire's Tax.
So he is not some great reformer, but rather a typical fat-cat conservative making the middle class carry the burden.
For those interested in the whole story, you can watch Christie's rebuttal to this accusation here:
The guy isnt anti-union. he is anti-insanity that the unions have done.
do you know anyone who pays ZERO for healthcare/eyecare/vision care?
anybody?
Yes. My mother. Free healthcare until Medicare age is part of her pension, which she got in the private sector FYI.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ferd
Well.... I am Anti-Union. I want the guy that is going to waive a magic wand and make them all go POOF.
So you essentially want the few of us left in this country who aren't sheep taking what the master gives us to be stripped of our collective bargaining power?
That's a smart way to build a strong middle class.
I love it when people who do NOT even live in the damn state feel the need to add their two cents. I have lived in NJ all my life and we NEED someone like him.
Everybody needs someone like him. What this nation needs is a man with the knowhow and balls to step in and oppose those Washington politicians who have to take millions of dollars from the elite and big business in order to get re-elected. When somebody is passing that kind of money around you can bet they expect favors when crunch time comes. All the founders are rolling in their graves at the mess this country has managed to get itself into. The first big step should be us...the voting public demanding term limits. At the start people who were part of the government were "SERVING." Now it's so out of kilter that the senior people on committees up there pretty much run things before the body of folks vote and even then it's cut and dried as to how they will.
His anti-union stances don't sit very well with me, but other than that he seems to be somewhat decent.
I'm a member of a public sector union. We've gotten greedy. Practially no one in the private sector gets pensions any more. The teachers in NJ don't even have to contribute to theirs!!! That's insane even by public sector standards.
In theory I'll be able to retire after 30 years' service at age 56 with 75% of my highest year's salary, plus health care benefits. (The retirement age for my pension is any age if you have 30 years service. It's 55 if you have less than 30 years service. However, most people who retire with 30 years' service are older than 55.
My salary is higher than I could get for my skill set in the private sector.
Now, quite frankly, so much has been promised, I seriously wonder if I'll actually collect on that pension in 16 years when I'm 56.
Add to that such benefits as:
--12 sick days per year (which keep accruing and never expire, and we get paid a % of those sick days at retirement).
--14 paid holidays
--3 personal days (unlike vacation, if not used in a calendar year, you lose 'em)
--3.4 weeks vacation a year (it starts at 2 weeks for new hires).
--health care for a single person at $21 a paycheck (for 24 pay periods out of 26). $10 office copays. $5 prescription co-pays $10 if not generic.
Anyone with their eyes open (and unfortunately, that's a minority of public sector workers) can see this is not sustainable. The only question is whether the pension benefits will be reined in before we go to bankruptcy court or afterwards.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 06-25-2010 at 02:46 PM..
Yes. My mother. Free healthcare until Medicare age is part of her pension, which she got in the private sector FYI.
So you essentially want the few of us left in this country who aren't sheep taking what the master gives us to be stripped of our collective bargaining power?
That's a smart way to build a strong middle class.
Dude thinking you aren’t "sheep" don’t make you not a sheep.
What I want is Unions to go away. They do not protect anyone. They grab and grab until they ruin an industry then they claim "big business" is greedy.
Oh and they do thinks like bully people and stuff shotguns in peoples guts... They intimidate and threaten and break legs and arms and demand people join them.
My dad had the pleasure of being a police officer during a particularly nasty strike in our home town. The imported union thugs really did shove a shotgun loaded with buckshot in his stomach. That was a bad move.
After that dad had to check our cars for bombs because of union thug threats.
I don’t like unions because they are run by lying cheating killers that don’t mind dragging America into the dust bin of history if it lines their pockets.
There is nothing about a union that can make up for the vile reality of what those at the top of those unions do.
I'm a member of a public sector union. We've gotten greedy. Practially no one in the private sector gets pensions any more. The teachers in NJ don't even have to contribute to theirs!!! That's insane even by public sector standards.
In theory I'll be able to retire after 30 years' service at age 56 with 75% of my highest year's salary, plus health care benefits. (The retirement age for my pension is any age if you have 30 years service. It's 55 if you have less than 30 years service. Most people who retire with 30 years' service are older than 55)
My salary is higher than I could get for my skill set in the private sector.
Now, quite frankly, so much has been promised, I seriously wonder if I'll actually collect on that pension in 16 years when I'm 56.
Add to that such benefits as:
--12 sick days per year (which keep accruing and never expire, and we get paid a % of those sick days at retirement).
--14 paid holidays
--3 personal days (unlike vacation, if not used in a calendar year, you lose 'em)
--3.4 weeks vacation a year (it starts at 2 weeks for new hires).
--health care for a single person at $21 a paycheck (for 24 pay periods out of 26). $10 office copays. $5 prescription co-pays $10 if not generic.
Anyone with their eyes open (and unfortunately, that's a minority of public sector workers) can see this is not sustainable. The only question is whether the pension benefits will be reined in before we go to bankruptcy court or afterwards.
If what you said wan's so true, it would be funny
There is no way to be able to continue on this path, and it's a simple as that. But don't believe for a moment that it's only a minority of the public sector workers that see what's to come.
Practially no one in the private sector gets pensions any more.
That's because, whether through their own complacency or legislation targeted at forcing it, the private sector is not a union gig and as a result they're effectively a bunch of sheep with no stick to keep the employer honest. That's why we've seen worker's wages remain relatively stagnant over the last several decades even though the GDP and CEO pay has risen considerably.
The pie isn't shrinking, just the middle classes' share.
Quote:
In theory I'll be able to retire after 30 years' service at age 56 with 75% of my highest year's salary, plus health care benefits. (The retirement age for my pension is any age if you have 30 years service. It's 55 if you have less than 30 years service. Most people who retire with 30 years' service are older than 55)
My salary is higher than I could get for my skill set in the private sector.
Now, quite frankly, so much has been promised, I seriously wonder if I'll actually collect on that pension in 16 years when I'm 56.
Add to that such benefits as:
--12 sick days per year (which keep accruing and never expire, and we get paid a % of those sick days at retirement).
--14 paid holidays
--3 personal days (unlike vacation, if not used in a calendar year, you lose 'em)
--3.4 weeks vacation a year (it starts at 2 weeks for new hires).
--health care for a single person at $21 a paycheck (for 24 pay periods out of 26). $10 office copays. $5 prescription co-pays $10 if not generic.
Anyone with their eyes open (and unfortunately, that's a minority of public sector workers) can see this is not sustainable. The only question if whether the pension benefits will be reined in before we go to bankruptcy court or afterwards.
I don't see anything unsustainable about those benefits. Sure, they're very good and that 75% pension could probably be brought down to a more reasonable (say 65%) number, but that's not obscenely better than alot of decent private sector jobs currently.
Everybody needs someone like him. What this nation needs is a man with the knowhow and balls to step in and oppose those Washington politicians who have to take millions of dollars from the elite and big business in order to get re-elected. When somebody is passing that kind of money around you can bet they expect favors when crunch time comes. All the founders are rolling in their graves at the mess this country has managed to get itself into. The first big step should be us...the voting public demanding term limits. At the start people who were part of the government were "SERVING." Now it's so out of kilter that the senior people on committees up there pretty much run things before the body of folks vote and even then it's cut and dried as to how they will.
I agree with your post with the exception of term limits. This was done in California and our state is still a financial mess.
What we really need is a majority of people who are willing to take their lumps. Most likely, that means a combination of tax increases and benefit cuts (and yes, that includes Social Security and Medicare).
People today, even many Republicans, think someone else besides them should have to pay the taxes or take the benefit cuts. If we keep thinking like that we'll be Greece, but worse---because no one else is going to step in to bail us out. This is using the government's OWN STATISTICS!!!
Dude thinking you aren’t "sheep" don’t make you not a sheep.
What I want is Unions to go away. They do not protect anyone. They grab and grab until they ruin an industry then they claim "big business" is greedy.
Oh and they do thinks like bully people and stuff shotguns in peoples guts... They intimidate and threaten and break legs and arms and demand people join them.
My dad had the pleasure of being a police officer during a particularly nasty strike in our home town. The imported union thugs really did shove a shotgun loaded with buckshot in his stomach. That was a bad move.
After that dad had to check our cars for bombs because of union thug threats.
I don’t like unions because they are run by lying cheating killers that don’t mind dragging America into the dust bin of history if it lines their pockets.
There is nothing about a union that can make up for the vile reality of what those at the top of those unions do.
You realize the age of what you described died out decades ago?
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