As the flood approaches....

Those in the "lifeboat" care very little about those who are not...All is well for them, so why should they concern themselves with the troubles of others?

Like in Massachusetts where the number of state employees earning over $100,000 a year has jumped 40% since Governor Deval " Cadillac " Patrick has taken office, with approximately 7000 state employees reaching this level of annual compensation.

New York’s teacher-retirement fund refuses to disclose info on how much they pay, even though taxpayers foot the bill

NY Taxpayers should be outraged by the conduct of these public employees. They want to keep secret information that shows how much tax money is being spent - even though the public foots the bill...The only response I can muster is "whiskey tango foxtrot ?"

If this is the direction public servants will take with taxpayers, then there should be a movement to end the pensions and cap the funds. The taxpayers should be able to review the fund's books and see who is rigging the game. Anything less would be criminal.


Mum’s the word
December 27, 2011
www.nypost.com

New York’s teacher-retirement fund wants to keep taxpayers in the dark about the pensions it hands out. Must be some darn fat pensions, huh?

Wouldn’t want to enrage the public to the point where pensions are trimmed, now would it?

In a predictable — but disturbing — development, the state Teachers’ Retirement System last week said it will no longer publicly disclose the names of teachers and how much they get in retiree benefits.

Even though the public foots the bill.

The move comes after other public-sector pension systems zipped their lips, following a disturbing appellate-court ruling last October.


That decision nixed a request by the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for the names of retired city police officers and their benefits.

The center had filed suit when the police fund suddenly refused to provide the info — after having done so for 28 years.

Unfortunately, both a state judge and an appellate panel ruled for the fund. Now virtually every pension system in the state is clamming up, citing the court rulings.

The Teachers’ Retirement System joined the club just days after the Empire Center filed papers to appeal the case before the state’s highest court.

It’s a troubling trend.

Which is why The Post and other news organizations have filed an amicus curiae brief calling for full disclosure.

After all, taxpayers pay for pensions; they have a right to know how their money is spent. Be it on salaries (which are routinely disclosed) or pensions.

Over the past few years, The Post has uncovered numerous public-pension scams, many of them involving individual retirees.

Like FDNY Lt. John “Johnny Lungs” McLaughlin, who retired on an $86,000 tax-free disability pension — even while competing in marathons and triathlons.

Available information has exposed systemic problems, too, like the Railroad Retirement Board’s granting of disability pensions to nearly everyone at the LIRR who sought one. None of these (or other abuses) could’ve been uncovered without the public disclosure of retirees’ names.

And again, this is information that has been openly available — without protest — for almost three decades.

It was only when the Empire Center set up an easily searchable Web site with names and pension amounts that the funds started squawking.

But the Web site did taxpayers a service.

The court rulings made things even worse than they were before.

Clearly, the Court of Appeals needs to hear this case quickly and reverse the earlier decisions. And make sure taxpayers stay clued in on the funds’ big secret

NJ Lawmakers adjust to reality - a word that the Public Unions have no idea about.....

re·al·i·ty / rēˈalətē / Noun 1. The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them: "he refuses to face reality".

REALITY is something the Public Unions in this country refuse to recognize. Three cheers for Gov. Chris Christie and the NJ Lawmakers for recognizing reality.... They passed a sweeping rollback of benefits for 750,000 government workers and retirees.

" ...the state’s pension funds are among the most underfunded in the nation — estimated last year at $54 billion short of the amount needed to meet future obligations. Mr. Christie and others have warned that mounting pension and health care costs could eventually bankrupt the state and local governments."

That is REALITY...The Unions want to hold on to " Well I was promised this by some guy back when I started 30 years ago..." So were many others who worked just as hard and as diligently for the private companies...The difference is the private workers didn't have a rigged system to back them up like the public unions do.

Sorry Public Union workers, the game is O-V-E-R. You will still collect much more than 99% of the other citizens in benefits but that alone is not enough....they aren't happy to have a piece of the pie, they aren't going to be happy until they have the whole damn thing.

Looks like NJ has put a whole bunch of them on a diet.....about time.


New Jersey Lawmakers Approve Benefits Rollback for Work Force
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: June 23, 2011 - NY TIMES

TRENTON — New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday approved a broad rollback of benefits for 750,000 government workers and retirees, the deepest cut in state and local costs in memory, in a major victory for Gov. Chris Christie and a once-unthinkable setback for the state’s powerful public employee unions.

The Assembly passed the bill 46 to 32, as Republicans and a few Democrats defied raucous protests by thousands of people whose chants, vowing electoral revenge, shook the State House. Leaders in the State Senate said their chamber, which had already passed a slightly different version of the bill, would approve the Assembly version on Monday, and Mr. Christie, a Republican, was expected to quickly sign the measure into law.

The legislation will sharply increase what state and local workers must contribute for their health insurance and pensions, suspend cost-of-living increases to retirees’ pension checks, raise retirement ages and curb the unions’ contract bargaining rights. It will save local and state governments $132 billion over the next 30 years, by the administration’s estimate, and give the troubled benefit systems a sounder financial footing, mostly by shifting costs onto workers.

While states around the country have moved to pare labor costs and limit the power of unions, the move is all the more striking here, in a Democratic-leaning state where Democrats control both houses of the Legislature and union membership is among the highest in the country. Most Democratic legislators opposed the benefits reductions, but their leaders voted in favor of the changes, exposing deep, longstanding rifts in the party that lawmakers say could weaken it in coming elections.

The fight over benefits reflected both Mr. Christie’s ability to exploit the divisions among Democrats, through his alliances with more conservative Democratic party bosses and legislators, and his success at using the public-sector unions as a foil in his drive to shrink government spending. It has also allowed a nationally known but highly polarizing governor to claim the mantle of bipartisan conciliation, telling audiences that New Jersey is setting an example that other states and the federal government should follow.

“These accomplishments have been the result of compromise with the other party, and have been done with Democratic votes and Republican votes,” he said at a town-hall-style meeting on Wednesday in Fair Lawn.

On Thursday, thousands of people wearing union T-shirts and buttons filled the Assembly visitors’ gallery, the State House corridors and, in a high-decibel protest, the sidewalks, lawns and streets around the building. A procession down State Street included a hearse draped with a banner saying “The Soul of the Democratic Party,” and organizers with bullhorns led the crowd in chants of “We’ll remember in November!” and “Kill the bill!”

Unions have been broadcasting advertisements attacking Democrats who support the bill — particularly Stephen M. Sweeney, the Senate president — and this week union leaders have spoken of the difference between “real Democrats and Christie Democrats,” pointedly including in the latter group Mr. Sweeney, who also is an official of the ironworkers’ union.

“This bill is not about savings; it is about breaking the backs of the hard-working men and women of this state,” Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., a Democrat from Middlesex County, said Thursday evening after the session began. “I challenge everyone in this chamber today: how many have even read the full 124 pages of union-busting activities?”

The legislation applies to all state employees and to a much larger number of county, town and school district workers, because most local governments participate in the state-run pension and health care systems. When it is fully phased in, after four years, the average government worker will pay several thousand dollars more into the benefit funds.

But union leaders say the bigger issue is what they call a stealth assault on collective bargaining. With just a week remaining in the contracts for the major state employee unions, the unions are now trying to negotiate new agreements with the state.

Most public employees in the state, other than teachers, police officers and firefighters, have had no guarantee of collective bargaining on any issue except for health benefits.

The legislation will supersede that right, allowing the state to impose health care terms unilaterally. For many workers, this means that if contract talks reach an impasse, the government will be able, at least in theory, to dictate all terms, like wages, time off and work rules.

“This bill cuts away the one issue, health care, that the unions could use to trade off against other things,” said Jeffrey H. Keefe, associate professor at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.

Hetty Rosenstein, state director of the Communications Workers of America, said, “This bill is nothing less than Chris Christie’s frontal assault on organized labor.”

Union leaders said they were exploring the possibility that some provisions of the bill, like the suspension of cost-of-living increases for retirees, could be challenged in court.

Assemblyman Angel Fuentes, a Democrat from Camden, said, “These reforms are unquestionably bitter pills for us to swallow, but they are reasonable and they are necessary.” He added: “We now have towns across this state that are struggling to afford health benefits for their employees. This has resulted in cities laying off workers.”

In his campaign to rein in the unions and shrink government, Mr. Christie has often been helped by New Jersey’s unique political culture, where local political machines still dominate some areas, and many state legislators also hold local government jobs. That gives striking influence in Trenton to mayors, county executives and local party bosses who struggle with rising labor costs and have repeatedly sided with the governor’s push to cut benefits and wages.

Until recently, the public employee unions were among the most feared forces in state politics. They were a major source of votes, campaign cash and foot soldiers for Democrats, but officials in both parties were eager to please them. For years, governors and legislators from both parties sweetened their pension benefits but did not put any money into the system to pay for them.

As a result, the state’s pension funds are among the most underfunded in the nation — estimated last year at $54 billion short of the amount needed to meet future obligations. Mr. Christie and others have warned that mounting pension and health care costs could eventually bankrupt the state and local governments.

The pendulum has swung back over the last four years, first under Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, and then under Mr. Christie, as the state took steps like increasing what workers paid for benefits, raising retirement ages and limiting contract arbitration awards. But the bill now awaiting the Senate’s approval and Mr. Christie’s signature is easily the most far-reaching one yet

NJ Public Sector Union members pay 1.5 % of their health care - Gov. Christie wants to implement a 70-30% split - Guess who is unhappy???

I want you to imagine you are going into see your Boss today because the company you work for is looking at the increasing cost of benefits. They have to figure out a way to deal with the rising costs and need to make sure they can afford the cost of employing you and your coworkers.

Is this the way the conversation would go?

Employee: Hey Boss, I don't want to have to pay any more for my benefits.

Boss: Well the Finance group has reviewed the situation and it looks like the employees will have to pay for 30% of the premium. The company will still pay the larger 70% share. I know that is not the best news but we'll still be footing the majority of the cost.

Employee: Hey, you have to negotiate that with me....I get to have a say in how much I have to pay.

Boss: No, you don't really. We are running a business here and we have to have the ability to make some decisions based on what we feel is best. A 70-30 ratio is still very generous as some companies are pushing for a 60-40 or even a 50-50 split. After all, you work for me, remember?

Employee: Well I don't like it and I am going to protest....I'll get the other employees to protest too.

Boss: Not on work time. You need to work as directed or we can find someone who will. After all, the company needs to have all employees working to their fullest ability or we could lose business to our competition and then there will be no jobs for any of us.

Employee: This is unfair. You have to let me have a say in the way things are run here.

Boss: No. You work for me. I will listen to your ideas and suggestions but as the Boss, I have the final say.

This is the basic scenario you would see in most companies. You would not be happy to see increased costs but the 70-30 ratio is still generous...They would need you to work as directed.


This is the way it would go unless of course you work in a Public Sector Union.....like in NJ where the public sector employees only pay 1.5% of their benefit costs and the taxpayers pick up the rest. Or in Wisconsin where the public sector employees skipped work for weeks and still got to have their jobs when the protests were done.

How would that go over at your job ??? How long could you skip work or act defiant before you would be shown the door?

Gov. Chris Christie is going to change the share the NJ Public Sector employees pay to a 70-30% split and the unions want to negotiate about that. Like many other Chief Executives (especially for the company you likely work for), he has stated that this is not negotiable.

But because we are talking about a public sector union, they are NOT HAPPY with having to bite the bullet like the rest of us.....they are special....they need to be coddled. Especially since they want someone else to pay for what they are getting.

Riiiiiiiiigggghhht.

Look, I would like to say that all of us could have more say in the conditions we are offered and be able to negotiate for better benefits BUT in this day and age, the economy is driving many businesses out-of-business. Massachusetts has been losing business as the cost of doing business here is too high and they cannot make a profit, thereby enabling them to stay in business.

The Public Sector Unions don't care if the states lose money or if the cost of benefits goes up because they want the cost to come out of YOUR POCKET, not theirs.

They like to say they are asking to negotiate but they have been taking the free ride on the back of the taxpayers for too long. While the majority of us have been looking at increases in the cost of our benefits for decades, they have been enjoying only paying 1.5% of their own benefits....so the extra $$$ for your benefits is something you have had to deal with and they want you to pay for them too....Does this make sense to anyone BUT the Unions who are looking for a FREE RIDE?

I support Gov. Chris Christie in his fight against the Unions and hope that we can reign in the outrageous costs borne by the taxpayers so that the days of the Public Sector Employees enjoying a free ride on the backs of the taxpayers will become history.

Christie refuses to negotiate health care cost increase with N.J. public unions

Ed Murray/The Star-Ledger
Tuesday, March 15, 2011

TRENTON — Representatives for Gov. Chris Christie have told the state’s largest union that the administration’s plan to sharply increase health care costs for public employees was not negotiable, union leaders said today.

The governor’s office first took the issue of health care costs off the table last Friday when negotiations over a new contract got underway. But union officials said they were determined to have a voice in changes to their benefits.

"It represents a pretty fundamental attack on a long-established right to bargain over health care which goes back as long as there has been unions in New Jersey," said Bob Masters, political director for the Communication Workers of America, which represents that state’s public employees. "We are going to insist that our legal right to bargain over health care be honored by this governor as it has been by every governor."

Instead, a spokesman for Christie said the governor planned to stick to his plan to have state employees to pay 30 percent of their health care premiums by requiring it through having the legislature enact a law. Union members currently pay 1.5 percent of their salary for health care coverage.

"We and the Senate president are pursuing that area in the same way through legislation," the spokesman, Michael Drewniak, said.

Christie contends that he does not have to negotiate over increasing health care costs because in the past the unions, at least in some instances, appealed directly to the Legislature.

The last time employees saw an increase in their contributions was in 2007, when Gov. Jon Corzine reached an agreement with the union requiring members to pay 1.5 percent of their salary for benefits.

Masters said the governor’s office could not provide an example of the union skipping collective bargaining.

A spokesman for the Assembly Majority, Tom Hester said it was the responsibility of Christie’s office to engage ion collective bargaining with the union.

"This governor spends a lot of time bragging about his ability to shake up government," Hester said, "so it’s time for him to back his talk and prove his worth at the bargaining table, where health insurance matters have traditionally been decided."

Sanity restored in Wisconsin...and some rough business travel for yours truly....

Spent the day on business travel....The business part went well it was the "travel" part that was a slog.....delays and the Airlines showing that they have a long, long way to go to demonstrate that they understand customer service....Case in point, flying into Washington, DC at Reagan International Airport and having to wait on the tarmac for a 1/2 hour because " the gate we needed was being used" according to our Captain.....after a 1/2 hour wait, we finally get to pull up to the terminal only to find 4 open gates side-by-side....

Me thinks the Airlines need to get their act together.....it was not a happy group of passengers on our plane.....

Meanwhile, In Wisconsin, Sanity is restored as the Union Thugs and Overpaid State hacks finally see that they cannot derail the legislative process no matter how childish they want to act.....This shows that the Voters and more importantly the Taxpayers are the ones who set the tone of our Political Course in our country, not the Unions and certainly not the Public Sector. After all, they work for US, not the other way around.



Senate Majority Leader Fitzgerald Statement on Senate Action
Posted: Mar 09, 2011 7:38 PM EST

MADISON, WI (Press Release) … After nearly a month of debate on the budget repair bill, nearly three weeks of childish stunts and delay tactics from the Democrats, the longest public hearing in state history and the longest Assembly debate in state history, the Senate met tonight to pass the non-fiscal items in the Budget Repair Bill. Sen. Fitzgerald released the following statement:

"Before the election, the Democrats promised "adult leadership" in Madison. Then a month and a half into session, the Senate Democrats fled the state instead of doing their job.

"In doing so, they have tarnished the very institution of the Wisconsin state Senate. This is unacceptable.

"This afternoon, following a week and a half of line-by-line negotiation, Sen. Miller sent me a letter that offered three options: 1) keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 2) take our counter-offer, which would keep collective bargaining as is with no changes, 3) or stop talking altogether.

"With that letter, I realized that we're dealing with someone who is stalling indefinitely, and doesn't have a plan or an intention to return. His idea of compromise is "give me everything I want," and the only negotiating he's doing is through the media.

"Enough is enough." "The people of Wisconsin elected us to do a job. They elected us to stand up to the broken status quo, stop the constant expansion of government, balance the budget, create jobs and improve the economy. The longer the Democrats keep up this childish stunt, the longer the majority can't act on our agenda.

"Tonight, the Senate will be passing the items in the budget repair bill that we can, with the 19 members who actually DO show up and do their jobs. Those items include the long-overdue reform of collective bargaining needed to help local governments absorb these budget cuts, and the 12 percent health care premium and 5 percent pension contribution.

"We have confirmed with the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the Legislative Council and the Legislative Reference Bureau that every item in tonight's bill follows the letter of the law.

"The people of Wisconsin elected us to come to Madison and do a job. Just because the Senate Democrats won't do theirs, doesn't mean we won't do ours."

Backbreaker....

Tyranny of the Minority

Let's break down a complicated issue into a simple equation. This can bring to focus the heart of the issue.

According to news reports, there are 300,000 public sector employees in Wisconsin.

According to the US census, the population of Wisconsin is 5,654,774.

If we do the math, that means that the public sector employees make up 5.3% of the total population.

That means at present, a little more than 5% of the total citizens in Wisconsin think they can set the tone for the rest of the State of Wisconsin and that have the right to tell the rest of the citizens (i.e. taxpayers, who the public sector employees work for) what they will or will not do, not show up for work and lie about why they refused to come to work when they should have worked or been fired.

If this is not a clear cut case of " Tyranny of the Minority", I don't know what else is.....

The Public sector Employees work for the taxpayers and should be grateful to have a job as many others would like to have their jobs. Enough of the BS already. Get back to work, and that includes the cowardly Legislators who ran across the border and abandoned their responsibility to serve the public's interests, and instead chose to serve their own shallow interests.

The fiscal burden of public-employee unions - a class of citizens who set themselves up as "Lords of the Manor"

We learn our mistakes and how the mistakes happened when we study history. Only in hindsight can we see that decisions that seemed to be in our best interest at the time, can have disastrous consequences late on.

We now have a class of citizens who by virtue of working for your local, state or Federal Government, have set themselves up as the "Lords of the Manor", granting themselves entitlements that last a lifetime that few if any other citizens could possibly hope to achieve. And at the same time, they will expect all others to pay for their entitlement, even to the detriment of all others needs.

Siegel writes " Instead, the decision to grant this privilege was a political decision designed to enhance the power of a pressure group whose interests, even many liberals assumed, would be at odds with those of the general public. Political decisions can be reversed."

Agreed sir. We NEED to reverse the decision to give them this ability to hold all us collectively hostage, the sooner the better. To not do so, would to put the success of our nation and it's communities at grave danger. These greedy Unions don't care about you & me,or how their demands effect the rest of the population, only their own selfish needs.



How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage -
The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York's Mayor Robert F. Wagner.
The Kennedy White House took notice of his success
Text By FRED SIEGEL - Wall Street Journal Opinion


The turbulent years of the 1960s and '70s are best known by the headline-grabbing civil rights and women's rights movements. But there was another "rights" movement, largely overlooked, that has also had a profound effect on American life. The looming public-pension crisis that threatens to bankrupt city, county and state governments had its origins in those same years when public employees, already protected by civil-service rules, gained the right to bargain collectively.

Liberals were once skeptical of public-sector unionism. In the 1930s, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia warned against it as an infringement on democratic freedoms that threatened the ability of government to represent the broad needs of the citizenry. And in a 1937 letter to the head of an organization of federal workers, FDR noted that "a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

Private-sector union leaders were also divided. George Meany, the president of the AFL-CIO from 1955-1979 who came out of the building trades, argued that it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government." Private unionists more generally worried that rather than winning a greater share of profits, public-sector labor would be extracting taxes from a public that included their own workers. But in the late 1950s, with the failure of the labor movement's organizing campaign in the South, Meany's own executive council insisted on the necessity of winning the right to organize public employees.

The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner. The mayor's father, a prominent New Deal senator, had authored the landmark 1935 Wagner Act, which imposed on private employers the legal duty to bargain collectively with the properly elected union representatives of their employees. Mayor Wagner, prodded by Jerry Wurf of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme), gave city workers the right to bargain collectively in 1958.

Running for re-election in 1961, Mayor Wagner was opposed by the old-line party bosses of all five boroughs. He turned to a new force, the public-sector unions, as his political machine. His re-election resonated at the Kennedy White House, which had won office by only the narrowest of margins in 1960.

Ten weeks after Wagner's victory, Kennedy looked to mobilize public-sector workers as a new source of Democratic Party political support. In mid-January 1962, he issued Executive Order 10988, which gave federal workers the right to organize in unions.

Two young and militant public-sector unionists, Al Shanker of the American Federation of Teachers and Wurf of Afscme, both strong supporters of the still nascent civil rights movement, seized the opportunity. Shanker saw both teachers and African-Americans as second-class citizens fighting the old-line political bosses. He'd also called a brief teachers strike in 1960. Shanker called another strike in 1962 that shifted the balance of power from principals to teachers, where it has remained down to the present.

In 1958, there had been but 15 public-employee strikes nationwide, involving a handful of workers. By 1968, after the old guard in Afscme had been deposed by the so-called young Turks led by Wurf, more than 200,000 union members, mostly in local and state government, were involved in 254 strikes.

In 1968, amid rioting, civil rights and antiwar protests, Martin Luther King Jr. backed an Afscme strike by poorly paid, mostly African-American sanitation men in Memphis, Tenn. After King's tragic assassination, the city quickly settled with the union.

In the 1970s, government-worker unions became a political venue for New Leftist, feminist and black activists hoping to carry on in the militant spirit of the 1960s. The divisions within organized labor over the Vietnam War allowed Wurf and his allies to take on the declining private unions of the AFL-CIO, whose leader Meany backed the war. Wurf made himself a key player in George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, and public employees have had a lead role in Democratic Party politics ever since.

Public-employee unionism seemed to be moving from success to success—Afscme was gaining a thousand (mostly female) workers a week—until the summer of 1975. At that point there was a surge in strikes, and the government unions began to threaten Democratic officeholders.

On July 1, 1975, New York sanitation workers walked off the job, allowing garbage to pile up in the streets of a Gotham already in the throes of fiscal crisis. In short order, cops objecting to furloughs imposed by the city's liberal Democratic Mayor Abe Beame shut down the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, with marchers carrying signs that read "Cops Out, Crime In" and "Burn City Burn."

On that same July 1, 76,000 Pennsylvania state workers went on strike against liberal Democratic Gov. Milton Shapp's austerity measures. Afscme's leader in Pennsylvania, Gerald MacIntee, told his members "Let's go out and close down this God-damned state." And in Seattle, the fireman's union initiated a recall ballot on July 1 directed against the one-time union favorite, Mayor Wes Uhlman, who held back pay hikes in the midst of rising deficits.

Mr. Uhlman narrowly survived and he, like Beame and Shapp, calmed the situation by largely caving in to the striker's demands. But a line had been crossed: With New York's near-bankruptcy a visible marker, the peril posed by public-sector unionism became a problem for Democrats as well as Republicans.

The fiscal burden of public-employee unions briefly became visible again in the early '80s, when many warned of a looming public-pension crisis. That crisis was averted by the stock market boom that began in 1982-83 and lasted until 2007-08. It is now back with a vengeance.

Restraining the immense clout that government-employee unions have accumulated over the past half-century will be difficult, but not impossible. Civil rights for African-Americans and women was a fulfillment of the universalist American promise as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Collective bargaining by public employees was not rooted in deep-seated American tradition.

Instead, the decision to grant this privilege was a political decision designed to enhance the power of a pressure group whose interests, even many liberals assumed, would be at odds with those of the general public. Political decisions can be reversed.

Mr. Siegel is a scholar in residence at St. Francis College and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute

"Public-sector unions have a guaranteed source of revenue—you and me as taxpayers,"

I wrote before how POTUS & PELOSI hurried the Congress back in session to give out $26 BILLION dollars of your money as a "bail-out" for Public Sector Unions. They also allocated $10 Billion of that to rehire teachers, which was promptly taken by School Administrators -

http://usnavyjeep.blogspot.com/2010/08/lesson-today-at-school-we-canned.html

The idea that voters can be persuaded to allow this type of wholesale corruption of the system to continue is delusional in this day & age. Our economic situation makes the idea that the Unions will do what is best for anyone other than themselves is not only moronic, it is sad.

VOTERS need to wake up, pull the eject handle on all those that enable & support the corrupt unions and then get on with the business of devoting the taxes taken for the betterment of our country, not solely those who are on the public dole, via a position working for the local towns, counties or State governments.

Enough is enough - These arrogant " I-got-mine-screw-everyone-else" idjits have taken too much already. Send them packing.

Campaign's Big Spender
Public-Employees Union Now Leads All Groups in Independent Election Outlays.Article
By BRODY MULLINS And JOHN D. MCKINNON - WSJ

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.

The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending.

"We're the big dog," said Larry Scanlon, the head of AFSCME's political operations. "But we don't like to brag."

The 2010 election could be pivotal for public-sector unions, whose clout helped shield members from the worst of the economic downturn. In the 2009 stimulus and other legislation, Democratic lawmakers sent more than $160 billion in federal cash to states, aimed in large part at preventing public-sector layoffs. If Republicans running under the banner of limited government win in November, they aren't likely to support extending such aid to states.

Newly elected conservatives will also likely push to clip the political power of public-sector unions. For years, conservatives have argued such unions have an outsize influence in picking the elected officials who are, in effect, their bosses, putting them in a strong position to push for more jobs, and thus more political clout.

"Public-sector unions have a guaranteed source of revenue—you and me as taxpayers," said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Workforce Freedom Initiative at the Chamber of Commerce.

Gregory King, a spokesman for AFSCME, said conservatives make too much of the issue, especially the link to taxpayers. Based on their logic, "the government is funding the movie industry every time AFSCME members go out to the movies," he said.

The union is spending heavily this year because "a lot of people are attacking public-sector workers as the problem," said AFSCME President Gerald McEntee. "We're spending big. And we're damn happy it's big. And our members are damn happy it's big—it's their money," he said.

Spending totals are still in flux, and another group could overtake AFSCME in the race's remaining days.

Campaign spending by outside groups is increasing rapidly but is still smaller than spending by the Democratic and Republican parties, which combined have already doled out nearly $1 billion in this election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

AFSCME's campaign push accounts for an estimated 30% of what pro-Democratic groups, including unions, plan to spend on independent campaigns to elect Democrats. It was made possible in part by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that permitted companies and unions to use their own funds to pay for certain political ads. That unleashed a flood of contributions and spawned an array of new outside political organizations, most of which were set up to help elect Republicans.

The political debate over spending by outside groups has focused largely on advertising buys by those Republican-oriented groups. Unions have mostly escaped attention in that debate, in part because they traditionally have spent much of their cash on other kinds of political activities, including get-out-the-vote efforts.

Previously, most labor-sponsored campaign ads had to be funded by volunteer donations. Now, however, AFSCME can pay for ads using annual dues from members, which amount to about $390 per person. AFSCME said it will tap membership dues to pay for $17 million of ads backing Democrats this election.

President Barack Obama has criticized the Supreme Court decision that opened the door to more spending by corporations and unions. When asked about AFSCME's ramped up campaign efforts following the court's decision, the White House focused on largely anonymous campaign spending by what it termed "special interests."

"The president has been crystal clear that third-party groups which spend tens of millions of dollars from anonymous sources are a threat to our democracy—regardless of which candidates they support," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest. He said these groups are disproportionately backing Republican candidates.


Public-sector employees are bracing for the most severe budget crunch yet in fiscal 2012, which for many states starts in mid-2011. Federal stimulus aid will run out in a few months and Republicans oppose providing more. Tax revenues remain well below pre-recession levels and state lawmakers who raised taxes at record rates in 2010 are reluctant to go further.

Republican takeovers in Congress and statehouses could breathe life into efforts to restrict how public-sector unions collect and spend members' dues. Republican Gov. Chris Christie has proposed including public-employee unions under New Jersey's pay-to-play rules, which generally limit political contributions by affected groups and individuals. Other Republican governors are likely to pursue similar measures.

One group, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, one of the main conservative union critics, advocates turning public-sector unions into voluntary organizations. That would deprive unions of the ability to use the government payroll system to collect dues and contributions. It would also allow state and local employees to organize and bargain in other ways.

Mr. Scanlon, who has run elections for AFSCME for nearly 15 years, acknowledged the connection between the number of government jobs and the union's political clout. "The more members coming in, the more dues coming in, the more money we have for politics," Mr. Scanlon said. AFSCME's membership has grown 25% in the past decade.

AFSCME began the year with a $70 million budget to campaign for Democrats who supported its priorities in Washington. It wasn't planning to help those who opposed issues including health-care legislation and extending unemployment benefits.

But with a Republican takeover of the House in the offing, AFSCME reversed itself and began supporting Democrats it once opposed, following what it calls the "218 Strategy," after the number of seats needed for a House majority.

In eastern Ohio, AFSCME is campaigning hard for Rep. Zack Space, even though the second-term Democrat has been abandoned by other unions and Democratic interest groups after he voted against health-care legislation. "We know he has been bad on the issues, but the point is, if you don't elect the Zack Spaces of the world then you end up with Speaker Boehner," said Mr. Scanlon, referring to Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, who is a leading candidate to become Speaker of the House if the Republicans take the majority.

"We may not be happy with him, but let's get people re-elected and work to change their votes. It's not a perfect world."

Because the union no longer needs to use volunteer donations to pay for attack ads, it has more money left in its political action committee to donate directly to candidates. AFSCME has donated a total $2.2 million directly to Democratic candidates in this election cycle, including nearly $100,000 this week to the re-election campaigns of 57 House and Senate candidates.

The union has also donated a total of $5 million to the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, making it the top donor to the Democrats' efforts to win gubernatorial and state-legislative races. It's also the top donor to Patriot Majority, a leading Democratic outside group that is running ads to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other congressional Democrats.

News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, is one of the larger corporate donors on the other side of the ledger, and has donated $1.25 million to the Republican Governors Association and $1 million to the Chamber of Commerce.

Write to Brody Mullins at brody.mullins@wsj.com and John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com

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