I think it is a bit more complicated than matching to private sector as there are not often times an equivalent. Add to that the reality that public employees need to live within the revenue of their city, county or state, and it seems like it makes more sense to eliminate the retirement gravy train, set their budgets and salaries to track their city/county/state revenue base, and make some kind of contribution annually to their own personal retirement accounts.

This is not a short term economic downturn, this new "economy" is going to be with us for a decade or longer as regions of the nations continue to struggle, government debt rises, real estate continues to be stagnant, commercial real estate on the bring of it's own meltdown, small business continuing to be pressured and taxed, and nothing on the horizon that will move the unemployment numbers substantially.

This public union "experiment" has proven beyond any doubt that it is a complete failure, unsustainable, and we as taxpayers have had enough of the have's and have-nots, what with the ruling class and government class now living better than 90% of America.

Simple Math! Those in the private sector paying taxes, can not afford what govwenment employees are paid Government has been a cancer growing without restraint!

Watch California, what happens there, will happen in the rest pf the country.

- cut government!

MtMike,

Not all government employees are well paid. A recent series of articles in a newspaper in Virginia found that Virginia state employees were paid 20% or more LESS than those counterparts in the private sector. State employees haven't had a raise in over 3 years and tho a plan is in place for pay for performance, it hasn't been funded in YEARS. Back in the 80s, state employees salaries were readjusted to bring them to at least 10% LESS than private counterparts, but no readjustment has been done since. And in the spring of 2010, the Governor raided the state employees penison fund to "balance" the budget and now there's plans to do it again AND "ask" the employees to fund the plan, thereby causing them to take a paycut, which they can NOT afford to do.

Oh, and there ARE NO UNIONS in Virginia for teachers or state/county/city workers. It's against the law.

JKLD

Where your proof?Just because they say does not make it so..As the old saying goes everything looks good on paper...

Pension fund are paid into in good faith; it is no less than fraud to use that money for anything else!

Proof?

I have 26 years total in with the Commonwealth of Virginia. I haven't had a raise in nearly 4 years and we've just been informed that there won't be another one this coming year. Years ago, the then Governor and the General Assembly made a "deal" with the employees that to forgo a raise, they would fund the pension fund. That was about 20 years ago. Now, the present Governor raided our pension fund to fund his pet projects and now we've just been told he's proposing to ask the General Assembly to have us pay our portion, cause us to have a take home decrease, which we can NOT afford to do. Teachers and government workers do NOT have unions here. Virginia is a right to work state. Teacher contracts are NOT union - they are controlled TOTALLY by the county/city locality and negotiated as such.

A recent series of articles in the Richmond Times Dispatch, based on an FOIA request of ALL state agencies, published names, positions, and salaries of those who made $50K or more, a cut-off point established by the paper. The vast majority of state workers, tho, make <50k, and the skewing of the figures were because of larger salaries of public college presidents and some other very high paid upper level executives.

The paper itself published that state employes, on average, made a MINIMUM of 20% LESS than their private counterparts.

That's proof!

More class warfare being waged against the middle class. As a public servant for many years, public employees earned far less than their counterparts in the private sector, and yes, we were represented by unions.

The reason public employees are being bashed is because of their pension plans, however, wages have been reduced ever so slowly over the last several decades. When I relocated to the Northwest in the early 1990's from Alaska, my wage reduction amounted to a loss of 28%. It took 15 years for my public sector wages to increase and make up the 28% loss!

Since my job was outsourced to private sector contract workers 5 years ago, my hourly rate of pay for temporary work was reduced by 25%, and then a whopping 25% more---taking me 2 1/2 years to regain the lost 25%.

Rather than bashing public employees and the unions that represent them, it is time to look at corporate media who is really fueling this debate. Corporate America has no intention of paying a living wage to anyone and or even offering a sustainable pension plan.

Begin by looking upward, rather than bashing those who comprise the middle and hard-working class, and go after them! Factoid: Corporate America's hiring has increased overseas! So much for the end of outsourcing!

MtMike,

You are WAY out of line. First of all, a good portion of those in the private sector DO NOT pay anything in tax. A good portion of those in the Government employ, DO! Yes all of us in the govt do pay are taxes too!

Most of the local money comes from property taxes and such, which a good portion of the public does NOT contribute to, so why should they even have a say in where the money is spent.

The problem is that there are too many people voting people in to spend the money of the people that pay it. I say, if you dont pay, you dont have a say! If you want everyone to have a say, then adopt a flat tax where EVERYONE pays 10 to 15% of their annual earnings. Otherwise, the biggest blight on the budgets will remain, the poor leaches that drain us hard working people dry!

Government unions are merely the next layer of the socialist fraud sold to us by FDR ... just another in a long-line of Ponzi schemes always-destined to fail. But, for the last 70 years, the democrats have counted on their votes and have given them OUR $ in exchange. It's time to stand-up and take back OUR money!

Virginia is also finding that privatizing is, in reality, costing WAY MORE than having government employees do the job. Just mention the Northrup Groman (sp) fiasco in Virginia and how many hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars has been WASTED on a computer system that is so full of holes and stupidity, it's not funny. And the state keeps pouring money down that bottomless rat hole and the state employees are the ones getting the shaft!

The current Govenor has the moronic idea to privatize the state alcoholic beverage control but wants to sell off the biggest money maker the state has for a pennies on the dollar. That idea is already dead before the GA gets in session. And again, the employees get the shaft.

Bruce I agree ,the only fix is no more union ,I've seen so many union workers out of work , but still have to pay dues, but the ones at the top get richer and richer, you start your own company ,it's your money or loan that started it why should they get a piece of your profiets, Chevrolet, steel mills, coal mines , great examples, let them strike now and see how fast they loose their jobs,to someone who would love the job.

I worked 12 years as a state government employee, and I can tell you first hand, that public sector pays a higher salary (by far) for the same job. That's why many government workers get training in the Goverment job then move into private sector jobs for better pay.

State Government pensions have been stripped down over the years, and health benefits decayed to almost useless. Admittedly private sector, also has bad retirement (except high level managers), but they have better options to choose from with 401k plans, etc. Their pay is much higher too, usually double what we made for the same job.

The worst part of government jobs in todays economy, is that "Cost of Living" increases keep being denied (via senate vote), while insurance rates and gas, etc to do the job keeps rising. By the time I left my job, I was making less take-home pay than when I had started working there 12 years before.

The final blow for me that caused me to leave my goverment job was the cutbacks of personnel. As people left and were not replaced, I was required to pick up their duties as well as mine. By the time I left I was working 5 people's jobs, in 3 different departments, in 2 different rooms at opposite ends of the building. My health went right out the window with that level of stress and strain on my body, and if I had stayed I doubt would be alive to type this message today.

You can judge so easily and point fingers at government employees, but it's the big biz crooks with Golden Parachutes that are stealing your money. It's the companys like BP with windfall profits that demand bailouts and tax breaks or rate increases. It's the contractor waste in no-bid contracts thats is eating your tax dollars. Check what Haliburton, KBR, or any major government contractor or weapons developer uses in your tax dollars, and then tell me again how it's the lowly government employees fault for the failure in the government budget..!

I worked for Revenue, and when someone would make a comment about me taking their money, I would point out that it wasn't me who got to spend their tax dollars, and that it was those guys making legislation in that building with the golden dome that was getting and spending their money. On top of that, I had to pay those taxes too just like everyone else! Even worse on us, because if we screwed up on our taxes we got fired..!

Unions are not the problem. States being out of money because less and less of its citizens are employed - that's the problem.

Don't blame this mess created by the banksters on working people.

So, what are we gonna turn the US into FoxCon, China or Walmart! where employees with families need food stamps to eat, and ER visits are the only medical care? Is this the America you want?

Instead of going after your neighbors, how about looking at your state budgets, who is getting what. Better yet the banksters sitting on trillions and won't loanto anybody! Turn off Faux news and get involved there's plenty of crooks to go after, Civil Service workers are not taking anything undeserved, we pay into our pensions and for our benefits, like you do. Tired of seeing your jobs go to CHINA so are we! Go after the real enemys Wall.St and this dammed forever war, sucking up our money and returning mangled meat that used to be our sons and brothers!

The majority of posters in this thread just don't get it. They're outraged because the unions and their leadership did their jobs superbly. They did exactly what they were paid to do - very, very well.

On the other hand, the dimwits who did a miserable job representing the taxpayers, who handed the keys to the treasury to the unions get a free pass. Perhaps that's because to hold those jerks to account would mean facing the fact that we elected them. Holy smokes, that would mean it's our fault.

Hell no, that couldn't be true. We're the victims. Those mean old union guys walked into the negotiating room, and forced our elected reps - forced them, I tell you - to grovel, snivel, and do a rotten job. Grow up! If the people we elect did their jobs half as well as the union folks, we wouldn't be in this mess.

Fact is, the vast majority of whiners here couldn't name two of the members on their school board. They couldn't tell you who sits on their city council or who their county supervisors are. As surely as they complain about the unions, they'll be calling for more cops and emergency personnel and hand them ridiculous compensation packages and early retirements.

It's always someone else's fault. It just couldn't be yours.

When will people realize that globalization has LOWERED our standard of living. We were sold a new economic model that has been a massive failure. The entire system is broken. What should acknowledged is that workers in private enterprise must now compete against a global workforce. This has massively lowered wages. I make exactly 50% less dollar for dollar than my father earned in 70s and 80s. If private sector wages had grown as they had before they stalled as a result of globalization then private sector employees would also enjoy good retirements and health care benefits. But hey enjoy the race to the bottom. Continue to buy the garbage from walmart.

The erosion of the middle class continues by the practice of union breaking in all industries.

It is NOT the unions. It IS the ownership class, the banks they control, the corporations they run, the government they have bought and paid for.

People better start realizing this before it is too late, if it isn't, already.

Corporate owned media cannot be trusted. They serve the ownership class.

The problem we have had is that we have had politicians in the past gamble away our future to get re-elected, one of the great ways of doing this was to give the unions unreasonable concessions that today have California on the verge of bankruptcy and many more of our states ready to follow.

Maybe we should find these politicians that are now living on a fat pension and put them in prison for stealing our taxes and destroying this country. Then like it or not the people that are expecting these great deals are going to have to be told they are not able to be done. Sucks, but such is life.

I am a conservative and personally I think we are at a point where we have no choice but to raise taxes, reduce drasticallyour government, quit bailing out companies, states, unions or any one else. We need to stop paying tax refunds to people that are not paying anything in, and we need to stop all deductions. It will hurt me badly, but at least my child will have a chance of living better then in a third world country,

We also need to tell these countries (expressly the ones that take our money and then hand it to terrorist), that we will no longer be giving them any funds. I am tired of our country pissing away our taxpayers money (or more likely our future taxpayers money) and giving to countries that are not even our friends. Then next we need to kick out the U.N and tell them to take their anti-American rhetoric and preach it on some other land and with some one else money.

I had a medical accident that was not my fault and because the other person was not insured I lost everything, I never seen any state coming to bail me out, in the end I faced the music, filed bankruptcy and lived within my means.

This is our only choice or watch as our country goes faster and faster into a bottomless pit of debt that we will not be able to get out of.

It is unions! They have destroyed the steel, textile, airline, and auto industries and are in the process of destroying government. I've been in unions, they are evil. Government unions are particularly evil in that they sell their votes to politicians for more money and benefits. Government unions should be outlawed and all states should be right to work states.

Ultra complex tax codes and reliance on volatile tax sources (like land values or corporate income ) makes budget planing more guess work than anything else.

Creating pensions that are not funded, that is just retarded. And the public just went along with it but now are "shocked" by the results.

In nature forests stay healthy because the occasional fire burns through all the underbrush clearing out the hiding places where pests and parasites live. Stop the forest fires, and the forests become very unhealthy, and a fire eventually does burn through but so hot that it does more damage than normal.

I think that is what is happening now, economic "fires" were stopped by the real estate bubble for 20 years, now that it is here, all the pests and parasites are being revealed, and it is doing more damage than normal.

The system is broke, the free market ended here in 1930. In truth the only system that will work is to get everyone out of the business of others. Back before the government sold out to big business in the 30's. Major companies went out of business when they failed. When you didn't find work at your kinda wage you went hungry and took what ever you could get. This balanced things out and only a few who think their worth more than they really are fail. But as you get the controls of government involved. It really puts all your eggs in one basket. If any of it fails it all falls apart. From what I was reading here a month or so ago. Government retirement will cost the country about one trillion a year by the year 2021. One superintendent will have retired six times and will draw about one million a year for life and he is about 50. It is the few who use a loop hole to get rich off of what should be a good job. They will bring the system down. No matter what amount of money you throw at it. Because as it comes back up from the one, another will see their chance and feel justified to do the same thing. The system of unions and protest will hold the unbalance in place until it all falls apart as a whole. So even if you do deserve this the money won't be in the bank to pay for it. You can find all kinda reasons why it didn't work but the truth is still the same, it didn't work. The only way to make it work is go in find the problem and stop it. Balance will come to this country as it is an act of nature. You don't pee in the wind or hold back a landslide. I don't like the way it is going and I don't think anyone here does. But I understand that the nature of mankind demands a balance and it will come by war, by choice or by the total failure of the system in place.

"t is unions! They have destroyed the steel, textile, airline, and auto industries and are in the process of destroying government... blah blah blah crazy talk...blah."

Odd. American auto industry is resurgent.

Airlines? Fuel costs are a bitch. I prefer highly paid professionals to fly my plane, not poorl'y trained minimum wage 'tards. But in reality it is deregulation that did it. Cheaper prices for us, lots of failures. That's the open market. Deal with it.

Steel? Textile? It's hard to compete with slave labor in China. Thank your "free market" and globalization for that one.

So many of you sheep don't get it. You're being played by the guys at the top. Blame the unions so you won't grok what is actually happening.

You'll figure it out when the only jobs we can get are selling burgers to each other and everything else is done by Rajesh in Bangalore.

Obviously, if the towns, cities and states can not afford the people who are WORKING for them, they most definitely can NOT afford the career welfare recipients. Until all freebie giva-aways that reward people for sitting on their asses or popping out more kids than they can afford are eliminated, THOSE WORKING FOR SOCIETY'S BENEFIT can not be blamed for anything. Did you know that our government and tax system REWARDS people for having more kids than they can afford, especially if it is out of wedlock. Just 60 years ago, it was against the law .. a criminal prosecution ... to give birth out of wedlock. Now these same actions reward individuals with free to almost free housing, welfare checks, WIC program benefits and free medical care ... and NONE of that counts as income towards tax filing, where they can receive over $5000 in Earned Income Tax Credit for 2 kids plus thousands in additional "refundable" child tax tax credits (that means they get the money without having to pay into the system first). The only requirement they have for it is that they not make MORE than roughly $13,000 (it changes a few hundred dollars worth each year).

While the majority of employees, both government and private industry, work their asses off to barely get by with ~$50,000/ yr, we have leeches on society who ensure they dont earn more than the the maximum pay so that they do indeed get free housing, free food, free medical and a reward of $7,000 to $10,000 come April 15 each year.

Wouldnt every taxpayer love a refund of all their tax dollars with a additional bonus of $7,000 for each $13,000 they earned every year.

That is where the hole in our economy is ... those leeching off of our tax dollars from paychecks we earn that barely meet our living expenses. As long as society is paying even one person to breed beyond their financial means, NO working employee, be it private industry or government worker, should be asked to forfeit one cent in pay or benefits.

Even slaves fit in to the nature of things as some people can only get a few days of part time work and the cost is almost the same as they make. Who buys their goods? If the people they sale too make less than they do as a slave then how will they sale it? If no one can buy your goods slaves are an added cost and just to keep them around will bring failure. You can hold it off for a thousand years by letting it bounce around from one place to another until China breaks every country in the world. But you could take out all the stops and turn it loose to see what happens. Most likely it will balance out with a low price on things as they won't be able to sale anything at much of a price. Their slaves will cost them too much and it will have to stop. Then things will return to normal business.

To JKLD...I'll gladly trade you. Your comments are very typical of those on the taxpayer's payroll. So what if you haven't had a raise in 4 years???? I think you should feel grateful and thankful to the taxpayers for still having a job. Many of us, such as myself, went into work one day and was told this is your last day and your health benefits expire at midnight...this after 22+ years of faithful service and making huge sacrifices for the company. I would gladly take my job back if they said we can keep you but it doesn't look like any raises for 5 years.......things are tough and people on the taxpayer payroll should not be immune to what everyone else is being put through. In fact, you should feel it worse. When taxpayers aren't making money there aren't funds to pay people on the taxpayer payrolls. This last election there were a record number of tax and levy increases put to voters....how arrogant is that?...You don't have jobs and income but we want more money from your unemployment pay through payroll, sales and property taxes....get real!

The unions are doing what they are supposed to do which is to get the best possible deal for their members period.

At least public employees have representation at the table unlike many in the private sector, who would not join a union even if they were able to join one, as to some in the private sector being member of a union is beneath them.

Salaries in the private (non union) sector have stagnated. It appears that corporations that must deal with unionized labour are trying to stagnate the salaries of the union members also, thus have been on a union busting campaign for the longest time and even more so now so they can outsource the remainder of the jobs overseas or pay less than minimum wage to the masses or employ illegals or bring in employees from other countries to work for lesser wages, even as they feed at the federal corporate welfare trough and from the look of things aided and abetted by the many republicans/so called conservatives/right wing uniformed.

For the ridiculous actions of a few public employes gaming the system the many public employees and other unionized labour is rubbished. Think that some employees in the private sector do not also game their system? Think again.

One could hazard to say that if it was not for organized labour this country would still have sweat shops etc as the norm like in the past.

When you are at the top of the heap in the private sector you have a healthy benefits package including a golden parachute, when you are at the bottom of the pile you are luck if you have an or are able to afford an umbrella which you no doubt must purchase for yourself..... LOL

As someone stated before this is the old divide and conquer thing going on. While the masses turn on each other, those that are responsible for the mess sit back sipping champaign and laughing - all the way to their holiday villa with their big fat bonuses - at the gullibility of the masses and their 2 minute attention span.

Instead of pushing to get better wages and other compensations for themselves, the many are blaming their misery, lack and the crp that the economy has become on those unionized private and public employees for what they are able to obtain through their unions' bargaining ability, rather than the corporations who are busy outsourcing jobs, not paying their share of taxes, lowballing wages/benefits etc and the polititians who enable them etc. Amazing..... Perhaps it is true that misery loves company. LOL

Sad. People are angry at the wrong people. It's entities like Goldman Sachs that caused this crisis we're in and it is the everyday American who will pay, pay pay while the Goldman Sachs crowd prosper.

The government doesn't mind taking the blame. The same people will continue to get re-elected while they keep making sweetheart deals with those who can fatten their pockets at the expense of the average tax payer.

Why should people be paying out billions of dollars in subsidies to companies that already make billions? Why are we not putting our billions where they belong? Do we not want teachers, firefighters and policemen?

The worst scenario here in California is the superintendents of schools, fire chiefs, police chiefs, US Post Office directors, etc... retiring, getting big pensions, then getting hired back at a high price to train their replacements or do workshops. That's called double dipping. There have even been some younger management level people that have retired young enough to triple dip - pension, rehired to do training, and unemployment. By the time they get their double dip or triple dip, some are making a half million dollars a year.

Yes, this is a big government issue, but I hate to see the quick and easy label slapped onto it as a liberal issue. George W Bush is regarded by many Republicans as a conservative, yet he grew government and the federal payroll to gargantuan size while nearly doubling the national debt. Conservatives do not have a monopoly on concern about big government and spending.

Paying out billions of dollars in subsidies to companies already making billions? Here is a good example. ExxonMobile paid NO American income taxes last year while getting subsidies while making huge profits. The CEO has a salary of $27.5 million a year plus stock options. Halliburton was getting huge contracts through the US military while being incorporated offshore to avoid US taxes.

I agree there are things in government that need fixed like double-dipping, but the answer from the right/tea party is to end it all instead of fixing it.

They seem to believe that the corporations have their best interests at heart when there is absolutely no proof of this.

Did you not read the article? It states clearly that even with benefits included, the public employees make the same or less than their private sector counterparts. Again... The Same Or Less Than their private sector counterparts. Public employees have almost always made less than the private sector, and the counterbalance was better benefits. Why can't people see that they dont make anymore than the rest of us?

Please explain the sorry state of major industries where unions reign. The auto industry, education, aviation, construction, ect. All these industries are or were headed the way of the dinosaurs or were in such a state of disrepair that they should be scrapped entirely and begun anew, if the unions hadn't agreed to major concessions. Hollywood has for years begun outsourcing it's moviemaking business to more 'friendly non-union locations'.

The unions are to blame for their own demise, period!

And banks were to blame for what should have been their own demise and they did that without the help of unions.

We invest more in private companies who do business outside of the states than we do in businesses that operate inside the states.

The ones we do invest in here don't create jobs - like insurance companies.

When we do invest in those that create jobs here people start having fits about socialism and too much government.

There's a happy medium here but it's in the best interest of all the wrong people that we never obtain it.

This is from a union household in the middle of (what used to be) one of the most unionized towns in the country! Twenty five years ago (coincidently at a New Year's Eve Party) a guest (who was a member of the Nurse's union) made the observation, "Unions are dinosaurs that just don't realize that they're dead yet!"

Obviously the demise of the Unions hasn't been as imminent as predicted - but over the years I began to more closely scrutinize & question Union practices. I remember (as a child) when a neighbor went out on strike and my mom taking over bread, milk, eggs, etc for weeks which sadly stretched into months. At the time I didn't realize that while the workers & their families were starving on the picket lines - the Union bosses were STILL FAT cats - getting PAID to belly up & negotiate at the table . . . with NO reductions in THEIR OWN paychecks whatsoever. I've often thought, that if the Bosses had to at least take a pay CUT when the workers went on strike - perhaps they might be motivated to negotiate FASTER?

One of my biggest beefs is that Unions protect the LAZY worker . . . and are a fertile breeding ground for NEPOTISM and the good ole boy's system. I believe even FDR was against Unionizing government workers?

BZe1
One could hazard to say that if it was not for organized labour this country would still have sweat shops etc as the norm like in the past.

Now who honestly believes that even the "average educated" AMERICAN employee of today would put up with the working conditions of the past? (we're not talking illegals or undocumented workers!) Those conditions would have improved regardless of Unionization - which merely sped up the process in some factories. But just as social norms improved through the years - so too would have working standards in all industries.

We've also witnessed another Union's PENSION fund fall victim to embezzlement to the tune of members facing drastic reductions in their retirement amounts! So in reality they don't protect & shield their workers any better than the private sector. And health insurance premiums have been rising right along with the rest of the Nations.

Yes the Unions served a purpose in their day - but (imho) they have outlived their usefulness. OSHA oversees NONunionized jobs just the same as their Union counterparts. States and the Feds have passed Fair Labor Laws and set Rules & Regulations. Many Companies form their own grievance committees. In some ways UNIONS are now standing in the way of progress.

Practices such as featherbedding & sheltering nonproductive or downright BAD workers (and purposely dragging out a job to pad paychecks) do NOT promote innovation and creativity. Auck - we've become a Nation of lazy workers and fat cat union leaders. Who even takes pride in their work anymore?

Today's Unions are serving to stifle what made America great in the first place. It's time for Americans to break the bonds of Unions and stand on their OWN two feet . . . to finally take charge of their own FUTURES and VOTE out the career politicians from both sides of the aisle - who cater to all the demands of the Labor Unions at the expense of the people. Obviously we can't keep going down the same road without sooner rather than later coming to a total dead end.

The Future is America's to lose. We all need to stop snoozing & wake up and learn to work together or we'll all be going down with the Titanic back in 1912!

Isn't it about time for America to move into the 21ST CENTURY?

The real problem is the pensions.

While the typical private sector worker gets about $10,000 per year in 'benefits' (retirement and health care) and has to wait until age 66 to retire on Social Security income of about 30% of their former income, and depend on Medicare for health care, the civilian public employees get HUGE pension benefits.

A recent study of Federal public (union) employees showed that their average income for COMPARABLE JOBS (accountants, clerks, lawyers, secretaries, etc) showed that their average compensation was over $123,000, vs only about $61,000 in the private sector (more than double) - THIS IS FOR COMPARABLE WORK AND EDUCATION.

The biggest difference was in pensions, where the average Federal worker got $40,000 PER YEAR in pension benefits, vs less than $10,000 for an equivalent private sector worker. This huge disparity allows the Federal workers to retire early (some in their 40s) with retirement income of as much as 90% of their pre-retirement income, with free health care for life.

The problem is that public employee unions have been allowed to make huge political donations (at taxpayer expense), 95% of which go to Democrats, and they get 'sweatheart' pay and pension packages from the politicians in return. This is a huge 'conflict of interest'.

One other point about public employees. Another study showed that, while the average private sector job turnover was about 20% (a job change every 5 years on average from layoff or quitting), the average public sector worker had GREAT job protection, with the average turnover only once in 20 years (who would want to quit such a gravy train). It used to be that public employees accepted lower pay and benefits in return for better job security, but now, thanks to constant union pressure, they get far better pay AND benefits AND job security.

I am a federal employee and I looked at the methodology that compares private and federal salary. It is a joke. They use the average private salary vs. the base federal salary. Every federal employee who lives in any major metro area across the country gets paid significantly above the base salary. I am in DC and make $15,000 more than the base per year. So why would any rational person develop a methodology comparing the average private salary across the country and this base salary hardly any federal employees receives.

I bet when they talk about teachers salaries they also compare them to the average salary for people who work the full year, teachers generally don't. Teachers are also the only people that don't have to pay any medical premiums, they are fully paid for, but these unions love to just keep whining even in a time where we obviously can't afford it. It's not because people don't want to pay them, it is because there is no money there to pay them. People in this country need to start learning what a budget is, if you are negative you have to balance it by increasing revenues or cuts. In the current case it is both. Of course government employees are being laid off, probably more than would have been needed if the union employees would take realistic cuts. So are the unions taking care of their people or just themselves, they sure are making their base smaller.

Those conditions would have improved regardless of Unionization - which merely sped up the process in some factories.

The average educated American citizen didn't want to put up with that kind of working condition and was killed for it. It wouldn't have changed if people had not literally DIED to make it so. Changed on its own? I don't think so. Unionization is what happened when the average workers decided enough was enough. Even today you have coal mining companies harassing, threatening and some people even suspect killing people who work for them and their families to silence them.

Some people who worked for BP said the same thing of the oil spill. That they had been threatened to shut up and keep working even though they knew that safety violations were occurring.

Not all unions are what they once were but the fight of the past between workers and employers is still happening.

If not unions then who to protect the worker? Politicians? They've already been bought by your employer. They're bought before you ever get to the polls. Vote them out? All you'll do is vote in another just like them.

So what's the alternative?

Eris2010,

Nice joke, anyone can make crap like that up. Lets see, I will say that greenpeace actually blew up the oil rig because of the pollution of oil. Anybody buy that garbage. LOL

Low life politicians and unions cronies have bankrupted this country , is it to much to ask for these people to show up on time and do a days work?or are they to good for that ..i never seen such a bunch of lazy bastards in all my life..and they live much better then their counter part in the private sector ..full medical dental early retirement 20 years and out,, what a f***k**n joke....

The unions have brought the country to its knees just like in Europe...people on SS,, cant even get a cola raise its been 2 years since our last SS raise while the price of food and fuel has gone through the roof...

Wheres the textile industry ,the shoes ,TV,s name just about any consumer item and its made overseas because of the unions and their demand for outrages wages.

Airbus almost got the contract becouse of a lower bid until Boeing steeped in and said it was unfair ...just another eg.of how the unions are sucking the life blood out of our country..and giving nothing in return all they want is more , ...when you work 4 out of 8 hours a day,you can cut the work force in half.. stop this tenure bull@!$%# with incompetent teachers that are doing a lousy job in the first place and fire there ass..give them what the Private sector has been getting (( the shaft ))

the problem with unions is this.... even tho some swear to god, up and down they protect employees and their rights, there is no room for them in the economy anymore. a budget for a city.state, and even federal employee's are now being met with the same problem facing every company that ever had a union... they cant afford to keep up with madatory wages, pensions, and salaries, they are forced to pay by signing a labor contract with the union. The only major corporation to this day i have seen balk the union and get away with it is Harley Davidson.

Unlike all of the "big 3" who sent work over seas, and across the border to save on labor costs, Harley gave the ultimadum, "take what we have to offer, or we move, because this isnt working", and it has helped. Altho it got rid of a chunck of its workforce that was union, and outsourced that chunk our to local buisness to keep them going i find most admerable, rather packing the buisness and going to another state. Harley has been a fixture in Wisc since day 1, and unlike the big 3, when there's a 100 yrs to selebrate, even wanna be owners get in on the action.

Yet see, when we have the whiners not wanting to give on each side of the fence, its impossible to get things done without comprimise. We dont need unions...not for 90% of public sevice jobs. personally i dont feel we should have a union for any gov job, however, till the corporate buisness of government control learns the strife of the union is killing them slowly like a soft noose around their necks, they will not get the picture till its too late.

Union does not mean quality, at a finest level... it dont mean crap when it comes to getting a quality job done right. thats the person running the buisness' end, to make sure its taken care of, even in health care. We have regulators regulating regulators now, because we have alll this crap going on with infastructure, that was built to take up slack on lost jobs, and to keep people under the thumb, and buisness from making a fistfull of dollars for the petty things in life. Regulate! indeed, and as you do lets watch as by doing so, instead of actually ficing the problem, add one more to it, with more regulators to oversee the people who are supposed to be regulating in the 1st place, lol.... all it is, just adding more people to the job of someone who hasnt done his. Hold people accountable for their actions for once in the gov infastructure... make them pay like the rest of us when we dont do our job, instead of getting someone to do it for them. hireing a supervisor to watch a supervisor..... thats going to solve a lot of problems, and of course, this is just 1 little part of it im talking about. Then you have everyone in the gov, on a union salary, pension, and so on, lol.... we will cry about it till it fixes its self tho ok?

very well said Eris ...

Anyone who doesnt understand why unions came about have no clue about history. When history is forgotten, it will repeat itself, hence, thay have no concept of that which they will impose upon their own children and/or grandchildren should unions disappear. Many may say, "well, I am a professional and so wont my kids" ... guess what, with how the economy is being raped, you will be lucky (educated or not) if you or your kids have a job or retirement in the next decade.

They began undoing the laws that protect the citizens ... now they go after the organizations that protect the citizens ... next, they will go after the citizens themselves UNLESS WE STOP THIS VIRUS NOW. And yes, it is a virus ... a virus of the mind ... and it has a name: Memetics. If you do not know what that is, LOOK IT UP. Your life, your future and your dreams may very well depend on you being "armed" and prepared to battle them.

Joe48+ "Did you not read the article? It states clearly that even with benefits included, the public employees make the same or less than their private sector counterparts."

According to a study done by - a public employee. lol

It's interesting that all studies done by independent researchers show that unionized public employees make FAR more in wages and benefits than comparable private sector workers, while those done by public employees always find a way to 'explain away' the differences.

It's also very humorous to see people who are members of public employee unions try to justify their huge compensation packages, but some of them actually are honest enough to admit that "the public employee unions are just doing their jobs of getting great pay and benefit packages for their members, and the voters are the stupid ones for electing weak politicians that give in to union demands".

I was a state employee for a short time. I was an Oracle Database Administrator with 23 years experience. I made $50K a year in a position that paid about $90K in the private sector. Where are all those cush government jobs I keep hearing about? BYW, the benefits were about half of what the private sector provided as well.

This is what Age Discrimination does to your paycheck.

I have posted this story many times and I'll post it again! NBC Nightly News reported a story in November about a Yonkers police officer that made a base pay of about $35K to $45K. The last year and one half before he retired he accumulated a large portion of overtime and vacation buy back which brought his annual salary to $105K! He is now retired and his retirement is based on that $105K! See what's happening here? Take 100 or 1000 municiple employees that did the same thing! Adds up doesn't it? New York State is ready to borrow $8.3 billion to feed more of these pensions because of they're "Vegas Style" investing of the pension money! Too bad the taxpayers are going to flip the bill for this!

Survivors floated for hours in life boats in the Gulf of Mexico following the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon, and were greeted by company officials onshore asking them to sign statements that they had no "first hand or personal knowledge" of the incident, attorneys said.

"These men are told they have to sign these statements or they can't go home," said Tony Buzbee, a Houston-based attorney for 10 Transocean workers. "I think it's pretty callous, but I'm not surprised by it."

http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Lawyers-Rig-workers-asked-to-sign-statements-93434969.html

Steve Morgan's son, Adam, often complained to his dad about ventilation, coal dust and methane gas. Adam was a 21-year-old trainee, but his father spent 29 years in coal mines. Morgan told his son to go to his foreman and tell him when conditions were unsafe.

"The boss pulled him to the side there by himself and told him ... 'If you're going to be that scared of your job there, you need to rethink your career,' " Morgan told the House Committee on Education and Labor.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127096084

I could Google stuff like this all day long for you Brett.

Or maybe you remember who Jeffrey Wigand is. I could tell you but I don't think it would hurt you to do a little research.

The difference is your statement really is made up. Companies regularly threaten employees with all kinds of things for simply complaining about things like safety hazards. Being fired is the number one threat.

If you don't think corporations won't go that extra mile to protect their bottom line you should think again.

Recycled Hope "Anyone who doesnt understand why unions came about have no clue about history."

At one time in our past, unions brought about some very good aned necessary changes, but they have now become so powerful and predatory that they are a major part of the PROBLEM, not the solution.

We have plenty of regulations in place to protect workers now, and if new ones are needed in the future, a political process is in place to implement them.

If private sector employees want to unionize, and the company can survive the process, fair enouigh, but;

Public employee unions have no place in society today, and they have a 'conflict of interest' by using their hundreds of $Millions in political contributions (funded by taxpayers) to help elect politicians that will roll over to their demands. What do these public employees need a union for - to protect against a predatory government? Give us a break

.

Even Franklin Roosevelt, the most pro-union President ever, understood this conflict, and refused to allow public employees to unionize.

Pensions are received as negotiated salary increases and should not be touched. For the most part enough money is supposed to be invested to take care of the payments. Now the governments want to do the same thing the steel mills did and that is renig on paying people what the deserve because they cannot handle the budget crunch. In my town recently there was a tax levy on the ballot. This summer they also still hung the planters on the main streets and paid city workers to drive a truck around watering them everyday. I voted against the levy. Rising costs and less work available causes people to eat less and find other ways to survive while all these governments we have to suffer from go merrily on their way spending like there is no tomorrow. Maybe it is time to consolidate all those small communities into one large city and get rid of some of that excessive bureaucracy

I live in Lambertville, NJ and the state cannot afford benefits for public sector workers that only the Fortune 10 employers can afford to provide to their employees.

I was done with the unions when the teachers refused a one-year pay freeze.

The public sector has seen wage concessions, pension eliminations, multi-year salary freezes, year-after-year higher health care co-pays, etc. etc. etc.

Our teachers and other workers on the public payroll are NOT a special class of worker.

The economic reality is they need to incur the same cutbacks in salary & benefits to keep the state solvent and taxes affordable. Their intransigence sppeaks to lack of character, lack of maturity and I hate to say it a lower intellectual level that cannot comprehend the current reality.

Roy,

I worked for the IRS for 19 years ... for over a decade of my time there, I belonged to the union. There is NO employer more predatory than the federal government. They break the very federal employment laws that would shut down most private companies and hide behind other federal laws of "taxpayer privacy' and "security clearance - authorized use only" to prevent and obstruct anything close to what could be called justice from being pursued.

Many in management in the federal government do not have proper educations, many of whom had been hired when all the necessary requirements for employment was US citizenship, a high school degree and warm air coming out of your mouth when you took a breath. That was during the 1980s and 1990s, when because of pay being so much lower than the private industry, most wouldnt work for government. Now those people have tenure and cant be let go unless they break a law. After years of "going up the ladder", they end up as "leads", "managers", and "division chiefs" who have neither the professional skills nor the emotional maturity to properly manage individual employees under them, especially the college educated ones many of them envy and "get even with" through their management styles.

Unions are not to protect employees from a predatory government, but predatory management employed, directed and mandated by our government which is composed of human beings. The US Constitution is NOT predatory ... but if you truly believe our government officials arent predatory, then you have NO clue how they made it into their elected or appointed office.

The term many use "dog eat dog world" is understod and accepted in normal speech ... you cant get more predatory than that now, can you.

Recycled Hope

The very same 'predaory and incompetent' managers and supervisors that you complain about are protected by - union rules.

In the private sector, they could be fired, but in the government, union rules prevent that from happening - in fact, they even protect these incompetents from being disciplined.

I repeat - Public employee unions are part of the PROBLEM, not the solution.

Having the tax cuts extended for another 2 years, will do more harm than good. How can budgets be written up, if tax dollars won't be collected at the current rate? How high will prices be going up, how high will the sales tax be going up, if the state you reside in has one? Tax cuts will give others more of a reason to create jobs overseas, than in this country to maintain that tax savings, if not increase overall profits.

During the rise of American unions, the U.S. economy was a juggernaut. Since the right wing efforts to destroy the unions, the U.S. economy has been in a constant state of decline.

If you don't work 70 hours a week, and spend every penny at the company store thank a union.

Scott-1352085 "During the rise of American unions, the U.S. economy was a juggernaut."

Since public unions have flourished, so has government spending, and, as the Rahn Curve demonstrates, our economy will be stagnant, and unemployment will be high for the foreseeable future.

http://teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state

New Jersey ranks 35th in teacher's salaries. Here in Hawaii, we're the lowest @ #50. Teachers and other "non essential" government employees work Monday-Thursday. Friday is a furlough day. The US will see the results of the cost of under-educating the youth. It is obvious as to the cost by reading these statements.

Here's a great idea. Teach those kids at home and stop blaming others when they are are ill-equipped to function and compete with the rest of the world's youth. Nationally, teachers are under-paid compared to their counterparts in the private sector, (given the same education).

The right feels a constant need to divide by every imaginable way possible. Unions are not the root cause. Funds used for worthless projects are the problem.

This article is ridiculous and so is anyone that agrees with it. Public employees may have more secure retirements but what is not mentioned is the fact that they must work 30+ years at a job making considerably LESS than the private sector the entire time to earn it. Then most of them can't collect on it until after 65-68. Has anyone looked around to see who is taking the part time low paying jobs in your community? It's the ELDERLY because we can't secure any ones retirement in this country anymore when corporations are involved. Sure there are a bloated few public salaries like County Commissioners that have inflated pay salaries but they are elected officials. Its up to the public to quit armchair quarterbacking and get up and go the public meetings to bring there pay issues to light or to vote them out of office. The majority of the work force that educates your children, puts out fires-and sometimes burns to death, arrests criminals-and gets killed by gunshot, supplies your house with clean water to drink and bath with, or takes back raw sewage to prevent widespread disease, makes anywhere between 40-50% LESS than they would for an entire career than if they went private. They make this sacrifice for the survivor benefits for their family and for a possible retirement (if they live long enough) that you can actually retire on. Do your homework before writing ridiculous articles like this and post facts about wage comparison MSNBC. Every person who lives in this country is supported by utilities and public safety, and it is NOT provided by the elected officials and high end upper management in their respective counties. It is supplied to your home and your neighborhood by people scraping by to make a living for there families. As you may have guessed I am a public employee and although I qualify for 71 DIFFERENT WELFARE PROGRAMS based on my salary being below the poverty level I participate in none. This along with the fact that there have been layoffs, furloughs, and wage freezes for the last 4 years which are now to be extended for at least the next few years if not more. How many of you know what it is like to live on the cusp of poverty and watch the cost of living (food, gas, rent, health insurance) rise until you can no longer afford it? Anyone in the private sector upset about local and state retirement needs to ask theirself if they would be willing to take a 50% pay cut for 30 years as a trade off before spouting off about cutting services that directly support your home, health,safety, and your children's education.

Roy, the highest level covered by union is "lead" position, but i will tell you right now ... if a federal employee is a union member, THEY WILL NEVER QUALIFY per whatever standards management uses in the selection process, for a lead position. This was my experience at the IRS.

Another black mark against qualifying for "lead" or "manager" post of duty was any education level ABOVE high school. Towards the end of the 1990s, many professionals with degrees and advanced degrees lost jobs. Wang alone placed tens of thousands of employees making triple digit incomes (when the median HOUSEHOLD income was $62,000) in the unemployment lines when they went belly up.

Management is NOT protected by union rules ... in fact, for a manager to be publicly seen as "friendly with" a union steward or officer can both cost her her management position (which they must petition for re-instatement every year) and can get the steward removed from thier position because of complaints of "possible" collusion with management filed by active union members against that steward.

I dont know where you get your info from Roy, but it isnt from reality. My information comes from 19 years in federal employment with ~10 of those 19 years as a union member. The first 9 yrs, I didnt want to be in the union ... but after seeing what management did to employees, I began to appreciate them.

Joe48+ (post#1.31)

And you are using this article as a reference? UNION ZOMBIE

The Unions are the problem.

The Union city workers in my little town of 5,000 refused to take any cuts recently to help out the budget crisis. Nothing....absolutely nothing.

They pay no deductible for health care. That's unheard of. These guys are just as stupid as when I knew them in high school. Some of them only got GED's.

Guess what? Labor negotiations are coming up very soon. I hope all of these Union stooges are out on their asses and replaced by people who know how tough things really are right now.

Recycled Hope

Congratulations on having a Federal employee union job. You will probably be able to retire much earlier than people in the private sector, with retirement pay about 3 times those on social security, along with great health care benefits.

Unfortunately, not many in the private sector are so fortunate.

Those who "can" do, those who "can't" work for unions. I know a bunch of both Federal and State workers, they are flat out lazy, and they admit it. You can't get fired, you have one person working and eight watching. Teachers, work 9 months of the year and walk away after 25 or 30 years "taken care of for life". I have news for you lazy "union" goons, the American taxpayer is not going to BAIL your "pensions" out so get ready for a serious reality check. Welcome to the real world. And, you cops and firefighters, your work ethic is very questionable, and your "protected" class badge is getting revoked. Your legalized robbery of taxpayers is coming to an end.

MtMike,...the governor of Virginia Beach raiding the pension fund there is no different from our congress raiding social security for years and sticking IOU's in place that have not nor will ever be paid back in...how could it be since we fund it through our tax money. You are talking politics here...no politican is going to do anything that might even come close to reducing their own pay,,,to them all , its better to take it away from those that really will need it rather than take away from those that do not.

The public sector entitlements are the worst overhang on the future economy followed only by the union overhang on corporations...

After reading the complaints that the public sector gets paid less than their private counterparts I have a very strong suggestion.

If you don't like the pay in the government sector, get a job out of the government sector! And FGS stop whining! You willingly chose to work for government!

quote: Recycled Hope
very well said Eris ...

Anyone who doesnt understand why unions came about have no clue about history. When history is forgotten, it will repeat itself, hence, thay have no concept of that which they will impose upon their own children and/or grandchildren should unions disappear.

And anyone who keeps living in the past . . . is doomed to be stuck there.

Back in the days of "Norma Rae" people looked to unions for HELP because they really had little other options to turn to since large Companies held all the power. Workers had to JOIN FORCES to leverage for changes - hence the UNION ORGANIZERS appeared, offering their skills & ready made Leadership. While some Union Leaders had the best interests of the new members at heart - there were still those who saw the golden opportunity for easy pickings & cushy lifestyles (at the workers expense)!!

As pointed out LABOR UNIONS SERVED THEIR PURPOSE . . . WHAT PURPOSE DO THEY SERVE TODAY - save for negotiating wages & benefits AND PROTECTING THE LAZY WORKER?

Do you even know what OSHA is? An example is the Construction industry. There are Union Construction AND Nonunion Construction Companies. Does one have more job related accidents than the other? Does one do better work than the other? Yet, does one pay more and have better retirement benefits than the other? But which one has more cost overruns? Which one keeps supporting the employee who just can't seem to make it to work on time or always takes the day after payday off or can't quite figure out how to get the job done right . . . especially if that worker is somebody's best buddy or relative?!

(The majority) of Government OFFICE employees should be the last to be unionized!! Are their jobs so hazardous and working conditions so terrible that they need the protection of the Unions?!

Though let's face it - coal mining conditions ARE still for the most part awful AND yes the Companies still take advantage of their employees. So just WHAT have the Unions done for them? Thank heavens most of us don't have to find out first hand!!

Still if you want your kids & grandkids stuck with an anchor around their necks AND still living in the 20th Century - who am I to be disagreeable. Did you not raise them to be INDEPENDENT AND STAND ON THEIR OWN TWO FEET or to THINK FOR THEMSELVES AND STAND UP FOR THEIR OWN RIGHTS? Perhaps they have to have someone to still hold their hands?

What has happened to thinking outside the box? Is it any wonder that America is failing miserably? Regardless of WHICH party is in power! (career politicians and Wall Street are another topic)

Is Apple unionized? (without googling is Microsoft?) Facebook?

http://sfist.com/2010/05/11/facebook_swithces_to_non-union_driv.php

Continuing to rely on outmoded methods of doing things and outdated crutches like omnipotent labor unions will eventually drag America under. However there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel - ironically it comes with the retirement of the baby boomers & the mindset of those who refuse to let go of the past. (are we still clinging to dial-ups as well . . . in our Cold War era bomb shelters . . . wondering whether it's safe to come out yet after the 2000 doomsday while waiting for the next 2012 armageddon)

The Millennials are the future. Perhaps they will choose to retire the Unions too.

Yes "RecycledHope" embrace the past & remember the past . . . then take what you learned from the past and MOVE ON for heaven's sake. If you still need a union to dictate working conditions (rather than negotiate & lobby for more money & more benefits) and to ASSURE yourself of a job plus enough money to retire on - then you'd never make it in the NONunion sector (like the nonunion side of the construction industry!) Alas you would have starved to death a long time ago . . .

ps there are many HIGHLY SKILLED LABOR jobs such as certified welders & specialty machinists which are going begging (especially as the boomers start retiring) because there are not enough YOUNG PEOPLE (not talking about the older unemployed!) WHO desire blue-collar jobs!! (so if you're worried about your kids & grandkids - send them to trade school) The world does not owe you a living - you create your own future. If you're responsible enough - all you have to do is step into the 21st Century AND open your eyes to the possibilities of life without unions - bleeding you dry!

u can have the soapbox back now . . .

The poor and the weak is what this is about. The poor and the weak are easy to control. That's why all the bond institutions are under attack as they have been for quite some time now in years. The propaganda works. Witness people selling themselves out of the game with the master's call on their lips. You people are weak and poor and predators like that. Clear enough?

The unions? Seriously? Try the banking industry, the mortgage inductry, and Wall Street.

Public employees, besides the greedy politicians, have historically been underpaid and overworked. Now, since the wealthy are being successful, through free trade, in lowering the wages of the private sector workers, it looks like the public workers are "raking it in." Bullcrap, we need to demand that private sector employess are being compensated fairly. Europe and others have done this and kept their manufacturing base. Instead, we "compete" with the wages earned by third world, often slave and prison labor.

Our private sector wages have been stagnant for over 30 years, except the wealthy, who each year "earn" (lol) record wages and bonuses. We need to legislate a number that will not allow these greedy creeps to earn (for example) more than 40% of their average worker.

When America was solvent and the workers earning a living wage, it was a number similar to this. Of course back then, (over 30 years ago), we did not need to legislate the "number" because personal greed was was looked upon with disdain. Curently, CEO's are "earning" about 4000 times what their average worker does, and their taxes have been cut substantially. America will not survive much more of this. That is why FDR stepped in the last time the American elite was doing this to their fellow countrymen/women. They caleed that the Great Depression and our current situation, the Great Recession, but their is no difference. We still have modern day "Robber Barons" destroying those that are not in the wealthy class.

I can see no other hope, than to elect another FDR type personna, who will force the elite to to share. Unfortunately, in these times, the politicians are legally allowed to be bought by the wealthy, so it will be much harder and we may find another way to force the elite to share.

Remember that employment is optional. Your wages are not just your gross per hour, but your overall compensation per hour.

What exactly happened to GM and Chrysler? Ford also to a significantly lesser degree. They didn't talk about any problems with Toyota except the recall which hurt them. Has Toyota survived this recession without cutting employees or their benifits here in the states? Or is it more the case Toyota doesn't have the union politics to deal with and is able to adjust as needed quickly and efficiently?

The auto unions in the north don't care that shutting down all those plants or cutting back to 1 shift a day not only hurt them and their families, but it also hurt large numbers of people supplying the industry. First Energy has had to shut down power plants, have massive layoffs and institute a 5% across the board cut. This primarily due to power hungry factories not calling for power becouse they are shut down.

We have the right to work in this country. That means you have the right to do a job and get paid for doing it. Sorry, but if someone else will do the same job just as good for 80% of what you are paid I say use them instead of you. If you want more money then you have to know more than the next guy or be able to get more done then the other guy. You don't deserve a raise for showing up and doing your job.

When a union increases its cost it causes inflation. You increase the cost of school, that means more money is needed to pay it. That means all the locals land owners have to pay more in taxes for the school and they are going to want to make more at their job. They go get raises and the products they make increase in cost. Teachers go to buy those products and low and behold the price has gone up and they need to make more money.

When does the cycle end and who is the winner? The lawyers that make a living collection union dues to be their legal counsel. Wait a minute how set up all the labor laws and such? Lawyers. How do we keep electing into the position of being law makers becouse the public is convinced they are the only qualified people to do so? Lawyers. I'm seeing a trend her.

JKLD you are correct public servants in Virginia haven't had a raise since 2008, the retirement pensions were stalled with a promise to pay back by the government, and public workers are now told they may have to contribute to their pensions. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if they were at least earning a median income, which they are not. It's the curse of working as a public employee; there's always a budget limiting personal growth for the hard working American public servant. Income for these people, many who are in the businees of public safety, has historically been below the cost of living.

No matter how you slice the public employee pie, it comes out with people who earn less in the private sector paying for pensions they don't have and can't afford and healthcare benefits that are blue ribbon for public employees and barely there for private sector workers.

Then, you get down to the nitty gritty. I live in NJ. It's the worst case example of how one teachers' union can destroy a state with their greed. The system by which someone can work a 9-month year and then whine they get paid only for 9 months work because like people in private sector, they are "salaried", is just the tip of the iceberg.

How fair is it to ask a private sector employee to fund pension and healthcare benefits for people in public sector earning twice what they do? A lot of seniors on fixed incomes take the biggest hit just so some teacher can buy herself a BMW...and believe me in NJ that's not impossible. These whiners complain because they can't get the private sector to make them millionaires who can retire 20 years before anyone else and on their last year's salary in NJ.

The gaming of the system by public worker unions is more costly than infrastructure. These people can and should pay for what they want. They want a pension? Pay for it. They want healthcare benefits? Pay for them. Don't expect someone else to fund it in any way, shape or form. Until that happens, their paychecks will continue to destroy ours.

SUPER-SIZED PENSIONS, AND A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/11/in-new-york-a-44-year-old-firefighter-retired-with-a-101000-a-year-pension-for-life-near-chicago-a-parks-commissioner-q.html#posts

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

And....just wait 'till they start debating bailouts for all those union pensions for Cali, Illinois and Michigan! We already bailed out union pensions for GM and teacher bailout last summer to the states, so it ain't over yet. Express your concerns to the right people.

And yes, it is UNFAIR to expect private sector employees to keep the lavish public/union/government's lavish retirements funded.

Roy sorry, but as a retired Federal Bureau of Justice employee, we don't get pensions but annuities. Annuities are fancy word for 401K's. In other words we federal employees since the early 1980s get our retirement from what WE pay in, not from a pension. Just as you wouldn't want someone to take your 401K, why should federal retirees have their's taken.

Federal unions such as the AFGE do not fight for pay but for equity in promotions, safety issues such as bulletproof vests, etc.

Also, we Federal employees PAY for our health insurance, both while working and while retired. We pay taxes at the same rate as anyone else. And I do not know anyone who's retirement is 90% of their working pay.

I never met more than a handful of Federal employees who made the $123,000 pay.

Federal employees CAN be fired. I've seen many do it.

I was a medical records tech for the Bureau. You cannot compare that to a records tech on the street. I had to qualify yearly with firearms, respond to fights and riots, deal with more legal aspects to the job than those on the streets, had not right to strike, worked under Reagon for no pay when the govt didn't have a budget (no apparently slavery isn't dead -because if we didn't go to work we would be fired - although we go NO CHECKS), and much more. We had to keep stellar credit reports and people would be fired for not honoring their just debts. How many people in the private sector allaow their debts to get carried away without any risk to their jobs.

As a Federal retiree if I take another job, I am limited as to what I can earn because if I supposedly earn too much it is taken out of my retirement annuity - my 401K!!!

Also, for the one who says teachers don't pay for their health insurance, maybe not in their area. But here in Oklahoma they do. And they pay a lot for it. Ask my mother-in-law.

Why are the Democrats so spineless that the allow the anti-American, anti-Modern, and anti-intellectual Party of No establish the "political narrative" and set all terms of debate?

Are there abuses of pay for Public Employees? Yes, but very few.

Overall, the Public Sector and Unions have done more for this country than Corporations ever will.

Sheesh.

Persaonally I am FAR MORE outraged by the obsene bonuses of those on wall street that caused the economic collapse! Are people really so short memoried that they forgot that in the zeal to thow public workers under the buss!

Bruce:

I disagree with your philosophy. I have worked as a nurse, in the "private sector." Much to my chagrin, public nurses receive a higher retirement benefit and better insurance coverage and other perks. It is not that public nurses, work any less harder but, they were able to negotiate, through unionization. They are receiving the benefits they merited and earned. I have also done the same work but received a lot less compensation and benefits because I am powerless. Unionization is a powerful tool, when one is trying to fight for fairness. To be honest, management does not fight fair. They hire "union busters," to promote propaganda. I am glad to be out of the rat race of nursing. I am also sad. I turned 65 but that does not mean, I still do not love the nursing part of my career. I just could not handle the red tape and meanie managers, who never made very good nurses but, were great at bossing them around! There is a "meanie nurse" in every company, in this country. Too bad, corporations, cannot see what a great business they could have; if they gave their workers respect; instead of the back of their hand.

I ran into one of these CA state union workers - She's a teacher. We often discuss politics in the gym and she labels herself as an extreme liberal.

I saw her the other day. The first words out of my mouth were "we are not going to raise taxes." Lately, some legislators have been saying the only way to address our budget defecit is increasing taxes. Not to mention, we just passed two laws that limit the legislator's ability to raise taxes without voter approval.

She insisted that we are going to raise taxes and that the laws we passed did not mean anything. I guess she is worried that the voters are tired of funding the state workers gravy train.

We should have let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. Cutting spending alone isn't going to fix this problem. What would have helped is making those at the top who caused the financial crisis help pay for it... but we let them off the hook.

Even if we raised their taxes, the rest of us are still going to be paying when the cuts happen. Homeowners who bought houses they couldn't afford already got punished by losing that home.

The only people who came out of the crisis better than they were when they went in were the ones the most responsible for it. We got had and the tax payers who supported these extensions managed to kick themselves in their own ass.

It's the dumbest thing I think I have ever seen.

It's far more complex than the black and white picture many politicians would like us to see. There are jobs in the public sector that IMO are underappreciated and underpaid. I have so much respect for people who work in the public sector to try to improve people lives like some aspects of law enforcement, teachers and social workers. My mother taught in Illinois and Michigan and from what she described from teaching in mostly white districts that are a mix of urban and rural students, I would not want to do it. The parents are acting as if they have no responsibility towards educating their kids. The teachers are expected to be substitute parents and social workers on top of teaching. Same with social workers. Most of them have a bachelors and usually a masters degree but still make less than the people they are trying to help. I can see how it would be demoralizing and exhausting trying to help people who have no real interest in bettering themselves.

Most state employees in all 50 states have made concessions. Some have foregone a raise in return for not paying more for their insurance. Others are doing the work of several people because their departments are not hiring replacements for people who have left. I know that's common in the public sector, but they don't get overtime, a raise or a change in title to compensate for the extra work they have to do.

The areas that seem to refuse to cut back are the towns and cities. I moved from Michigan where many municipalities were upset because the state was reducing the amount of money they were getting for the 2011 financial year. It was part of a plan to reduce the state budget and most areas were affected as well. I worked in a small town that had a police department to put it kindly pulled a good con job over its city council. They had the city council convinced that for a town of less than 5,000 and little crime, they needed a chief of police who made $80,000 and 5 police officers making at least $30,000 a year. That's a lot of money for people with a HS diploma plus a semester worth of community college credit to be making. That's over $200,000 a year in salaries plus benefits. They weren't really qualified to do much more than traffic stops, which worked out well because the county got called when there was drug related crimes. They did conduct locker searches at the high school which technically was outside of their boundaries. Some coworkers went to that high school and they said that most of the drug busts done by the local police got tossed out for that reason - out of jurisdiction. The town could have saved almost a quarter million dollars per year if they didn't have to fund that police department. It could have gone to a trust fund, to fund education, road construction, or winter weather cleanup. They could have paid the county to do some patrols and come in to handle calls.

Unions had their place, but once the laws were made to equal what the unions had fought for the unions needed to be displaced or re-organinzed into better efficiency models.

Instead the next 60 years of Unionized Labor has been ran not by the members but those above them who use emotion instead of logic to get their votes for what ever politican will pad the pocket of the organizers.

California's are the obvious example because of pensions, most recent is the New Jersey/New York ILA workers who are in court over racketeering charges and some of which don't even show up for jobs, that they are paid for.

In a world economy and we are in it like it or not, the traditional union we know can not survive or it will take us down with it. A new union work force must prove it is nimble and the most efficient at what it chooses to do.

But as long as the current union itself looks toward the older members who don't think that they can't be touched then it will slowly crumble and take alot of other people with them.

Ray,

I had a federal job ... was there 19 years. Since I didnt contribute MORE of my own monies to the pension other than the required, mandatory by law 1%, it meant if I had stayed another 11 years, I was eligible for $227/month. If you consider that a great pension, then this country is screwed royally.

I was in what was euphamistically called Customer Service ... it meant that I had to know how to work every issue other than Exam and Criminal Investigation issues. Not only did I have to know all the separate divisions issues, I had to know it well enough to work it while on the phone with a taxpayer. Some of our time was off the phones working the paper cases, some on the phones with the actual taxpayer. The cases I worked were some of the most complex cases that came into that center ... I had to correct, adjust and explain to the person what you idiots pay your accountants $100/hr to $300/hr to screw up. It didnt matter if it was a paper case or a phone case, it needed explanation. During the last few years there, I resolved cases that would scare most accountants because they cant do them and most taxpayers cant afford to have them done.

I had 19 years employment there, experience most others there will never get, knowledge even my managers couldnt comprehend to "evaluate me" for $50k/yr with an anticipated retirement of $227/mo if I stayed another 11 yrs. Luckily my spouse makes a 6 digit income and I had worked because I wanted to, not because I had to work. After 19 years, I left. I had enough of the place when congress began screwing with us, our budget and began returning to "piecemeal" service even for Customer Service reps. I was experienced and had my experise in all of it and knew how to put the "whole damn car" together ... I was not going to waste my time working on merely the "car door" and then transfer the call to an inexperienced newbie to "adjust the mufler". Luckily the paperwork was a complete exercise in making things right, but once the phone became a joke of transfers and more transfers rather than complete service, I was out of there.

You dont take professionals ... teach then the knowledge and skills they need to know as professionals in the field, allow them to do a professional job with integrity ... then change it to "piecemeal" work and treated like assembly line laborers on an assembly line belt and treated like idiots.

correction: I am addressing Roy, not someone with a screen name of Ray.

Recycled Hope - Why didn't you try and get a management job instead of failing to perform as requested? I am referring to the part where you refused to proceed in accordance with the directives of management and in most cases, that is grounds for dismissal.

Karen, Considering that I received a bonus every year for outstanding performance and handles cases most couldnt touch ... I didnt "fail to preform". As far as management was concerned ... after taking the aptitude tests they offered, there was a push to get me into management. I refused, continually. 1) I wanted no part of management, I loved the job I did because I made a difference and resolved issues that actually affected peoples lives with the outstanding job preformance I did do in resolving their tax woes, especially in the identity theft area of taxes; and 2) given the majority of people working there with the fact I took pride in my job and did it with integrity, I wouldnt want to "manage" a bunch of others who didnt give a damn about that which I personally took great pride in. There are many who do their jobs well and with integrity, but they are NOT the majority and usually get "punished" for going above and beyond. Management apparently prefers throwing "bandaids on surgical wounds" so that the appearance of efficiency exists instead of actual efficiency. Hell, if you help a taxpayer with merely 10% of his issues, you closed a case and 9 more cases can be closed on his behalf later ... instead of resolving 100% of his issues in 1 call or written correspondence. The bandaid takes alot less time than the correct administering of those stitches.

Karen, I have seen many of your posts on various threads ... if anyone is a failure to preform, intellectually and socially, it is yourself. Can you say that you were successful every year that you were employed to the point of receiving special performance awards above and beyond the normal end of year bonuses the AVERAGE person gets? I have seen your kind in the workplace ... do the least amount for the most and kiss the right asses to ensure the lightest load. They dont get far ... and they dont get respect from managers or their co-employees. They are also the ones trying the hardest to get management positions because that would mean they dont actually have to do the job, just push others around who are trying to do the job. Without that necessary respect though, they dont quite make it.

"Just tell us how many police, fire, teachers and all the other public employees you saw protesting that so many people in the private sector were losing their jobs, their houses, cars and being evicted. NONE!"

About as many private sector employees who protested when their pay and benefits were better than mine (30+ years as a police officer). When I started, people in this town's factories laughed at those of us on the police and fire departments, because they had better pay, benefits, hours, and working conditions. Now that we're catching up, it's a big travesty.

That said, I'm not against paying more into health and pensions. Thirty years ago, a defined benefit pension was the norm. Not so today. Times do change. But I won't apologize or kiss anyone's butt for being a public employee.

roc...how much would you think a police officer that puts his life on the line every time he goes out to do his job should make? How about the firefighter who risks his life in hazardous situations like burning buildings and trapped confined spaces to save another?

I tell you, the police and firefighters are hated by criminals and now vilified by the people they are paid to protect. Some people in the public sector definitely deserve to be a part of this discussion such as an $80,000 teacher salaries plus a pension or those double dipping government officials.

But police and firefighters should be left alone.

I know cops that are making $150,000 with OT and some even more. These are guys that mostly serve warrants and take reports. Firemen that make similar numbers, most of their days are spent at bar-b-que behind the station and polishing their classic cars. If we had unemployment numbers at 7% and everyone working, paying taxes, businesses making money I wouldn't have a problem. But, when people are starving and scraping to get by, these public employees are not to be exempt!

Please prove police and firefighters are more in danger than a utility worker in a trench or in traffic. Show us the numbers. Police work is incredibly stressful but I doubt more dangerous than many other jobs. Empirical evidence please...

Police work? LOL No one twist anyone arms to have these jobs..All these people see is the $$ signs and dont care about the danger..That life..

As long as Police and Fire as well as education are public services (as they should be) then those employees have to be goverment employees. It is not their fault that politicians have for years delayed contractual payments into pensions and now that bill is coming due. A private company can shed employees as the demand for their product or service decreases. The need to fight crime or fire or educate our children is not subject to economic forces. Pay should be based on performance. Why should a teacher be forced to carry the weight of a politicians poor policy?

Last year, 160 police were killed in the line of duty, 819 farm workers died on the job. Farm workers put their lives on the line every day to make the flour, sugar, and lard for the cops' donuts.

Clint, that was a poor argument. You are comparing a person that deals with armed criminals, or dealing with an danderous situation, so someone that has plenty of safety precautions on the job? Let me guess, you were turned down for govt employment, so now you are bitter?

lppster, do you think police go on a call without safety equipment, safety procedures and the ability to have the upper hand? It is stressful and I don't take that away from the equation but again, I ask for the numbers...the actuarial tables.

I'm retired military...is that govt employment?

I agree cops and firefighters are not worth $100,000 thats just crazy. But so are politicians with 3,4,5 pensions retireing at $500,000 on the QT. nobody's worth that kind of money, I think Obama does I guess thats why he refuses to make fatcats pay their fair share. Eliminate LoopHoles that allow fatcats to pay less tax thhan their maids do!

Why should someone selling used cars or delivering packages be able to make more than $100K but not a police officer? Let's be fair here.

Why don't these people think they should be part of the economic downturn the rest of the Country is facing. You want to raise property taxes to fund your pension. So more people that can't afford it should lose their home.

The reason you get paid less is you have job security. That is the trade-off. When the economy turns down how many carpenters, plumbers and electricians are out of work. And they are Union. So why are you above them?

Just like business has put people's pensions into 401k's why shouldn't yours be? You just can't tax people to death to make up for the foreclosures and the people who aren't paying their taxes. If where I live is running short on money I say pay the cops and firefighters before we pay the teachers and office workers pensions. And if you don't like your job or it's new benefits then go out into the job market with the others looking for work.

There are engineers working as waiters to support their families you are not above this. Don't take everything as a given because in the end it's the public that votes. And in alot of instances now the unemployed public. Who would be glad to take your job without benefits.

Some of those engineers working as waiters used to work at the city's development department. Some of the people standing in the unemployment line were building inspectors and deputy fire marshals.

There isn't a single building inspector that could ever earn a day's pay performing the equivalent task as a tradesman........not even close. They failed, were let go so many times they looked for some respect. LOL

roc, that's pure BS

The only fair and realistic way to help this is a wage and benefit freeze on everyone. Add to this a price freeze on all necessities ( food , fuel , utilities, clothing, rent, etc.), and it will stabilize over time. we as a country have become accoustomed to "quick fixes", and this won't be quick. To get jobs that were shipped overseas back - easy. Tax any company that is registered in the USA, but manufactures out of country. Tax the product at about 40% and watch the jobs come back ( remember, we froze their prices, so they can't raise them to cut the losses). Those making over $500,000.00 a year should pay a flat tax of 40%. of course that would mean that 3% of the people will be paying 80% of the taxes collected. But a family of four, \making $50,000.00 a year can afford to pay 10% in taxes ( half now pay nothing, and 20% of them get more back due to "earned income credits").

Just as an aside, it costs General Motors one billion dollars a month just to pay the pensions and medical for retired auto workers. That's why your new car costs 10 times more than in 1965.Average auto worker makes 29.00+ per hour, plus 29.00+ per hour in benefits. That's where the problem with unions lies.

Great myth about public service jobs is that they earn less then comparable positions in the private sector - flat out is not true. What everyone neglects to mention are those medical plans available to public service employees no private sectror company could affort, add in an overly generous pension that begins years before private pensions plans do and that is if the private sector even has a pension plan to offer.

Consider also that most public service employees are rarely qualified for the positions they hold - they received the postition because of a family member or union contact. The power of public sector unions need to be crushed - they are the biggest threat to our economic recovery - they are literaly bankrupting all 50 state with labor wage demands and huge pension buy-out. They have sweetheart deals withn local politicans - commonly referred to as an incestuous relationship. Unions are corrupt and public servants overpaid, under utilized and should simply wear a mask everytime they get paid.

Ternan, the brush you paint with is so broad I'm surprised you were able to get here with it. There are incestuous relationships and there are corrupt unions but they are the exception rather than the rule. If you tried to take your indictment to a courtroom you would be tossed out on your ear.

Many people fail to consider that many if not most public pensions are substantially funded by employee contributions. I have two small public pensions, one for a city job and one for teaching, and in each case I contributed 9% of my salary to my retirement and that amount was matched by the employer.

You people are cattle. You're falling directly into the argument that the ownership class wants you to. (Stop being concerned with bankers, corporations, the ultra-wealthy, which are the REAL culprits for the mess this country is in, financially. Don't look there, look over here! It's the unions! These people make too much money!)

Sure. Go ahead. Pay them Walmart wages and see where it gets us.

It's not the unions that are @!$%#ing us over, people!

Jeff, not all unions are adding to the problem but there are plenty who do. If unions would just take a step back and even pretend they wanted to be part of the solution it would help immensely. The locals are electing people who think everybody is out to sqrue them and the union managers are treating them like customers they can't lose. Haven't unions ever heard of PR?

Clint, are you telling me that electricity is unpredictable and that it is planning on committing crimes? No, I don't think so. A policeman does not know what will happen. Yes they have some safety equipment. But the two jobs do not compare. A line worker knows what to expect when he goes up the pole. If he doesn't he should not be there. Maybe you should try each job and then tell everyone which is more dangerous? I have worked on poles. But, I woudl never want to be a policeman. I do not care to take the chance of someone attempting to take my life.

The government is the one driving jobs overseas through high taxes, regulations and especially the EPA. Why do business here when it is much easier to go overseas.

Lpsster...Do you have a flagger's card? Tell me they know what the next car is going to do. Utility workers are killed all the time by unforeseen danger. A tree falls when they didn't expect it, they go into a confined space that is clear but someone flushes something toxic, a trench wall collapses, a hose breaks and chlorine escapes, the snow plow slides off the road, a chain breaks and so on. Police don't have a corner on the danger market. Most of the first responders for floods and earthquakes are non police and fire personnel. Again, police have a lot of stress but I need to see proof the danger is greater for them than many other public employees.

I have to turn in...good night.

"Last year, 160 police were killed in the line of duty, 819 farm workers died on the job. Farm workers put their lives on the line every day to make the flour, sugar, and lard for the cops' donuts."

Johnny, there are way more farm workers than Cops.

You fail at statistics. Try again.

"The government is the one driving jobs overseas through high taxes, regulations and especially the EPA. Why do business here when it is much easier to go overseas."

Steve, what taxes are those? The Oil and gas industry pays ZERO taxes in this country. Many others pay way less as a portion of their income than any of us. The USA has some of the lowest business taxes in the world. Personal taxes are at a sixty year low when inflation adjusted. Just WTF are you people complaining about?

In my industry (software) we bring in H1B folks and export jobs not to save money, but because we cannot find people locally. It's not due to taxes. If our schools cranked out thinking people with engineering skills we could fill locally. But they don't.

Should have slave labor like China and India? Lets cut taxes, and services, and get rid of all the public servants. Lets pay teachers minimum wage. NO! Lets abolish the minimum wage and pay them NOTHING. You don't need to teach kids anything. Just tell them Jesus did it and call it good.

We should live is hovels and have sewage running in the streets? No clean water? Brown air? Everyone hates the EPA until their entire town starts dying from leukemia due to PCBs dumped into the river, then they all whine about the government to DO SOMETHING.

You want to race 3rd world cesspits to the bottom? Because that's where we're going. Enjoy the ride. Yay "free market." Enjoy being played by the folks at the top.

While corporate America, wall street and banking are making record profits without fear of taxation this year ... why is main street and local government in such a financal crisis needing to cut pays and increase taxes? Has anyone even begun to ponder that question? Lets NOT forget that everyone depending on 401ks, which are in the hands of wall street, were nearly wiped out in 2008 thanks to private industry greed. While middle America saw nickels on their dollars invested returned to them, Wall St got bail outs ... dumped their bad assets into the government hands ... "paid off" their bail outs without having to re-assume those toxic assets ... and are now making record profits so they can force others into more 401ks that they can trash and at taxpayer expense, NOT WORRY ABOUT TRASHING.

Public employees and unions are just like the person who decides to buy a house close to an existing airport..........you know what your getting into but wait a few years and complain about the noise at the airport and forget about it was already there when you moved in....duh..........public employees, if you don't like your jobs, benefits package or the fact all of these may be curtailed, you will be happy to know that no one is forcing you to stay. Good luck out in the real world.

Steve

The government is the one driving jobs overseas through high taxes, regulations and especially the EPA. Why do business here when it is much easier to go overseas.

There have been 10 years of lower taxes for corporations Steve. Where are the jobs? Haven't you had enough proof yet that the whole "tax" line is Bull&%$!?

They created 1.4 million jobs overseas in 2010 and less than a million over here. Yet the Republicans assured us if we kept the tax cuts we'd see more job creation. They've had 10 years.....

Enough already. The only thing they understand is penalization and that's what they should be getting. Instead they're being rewarded.

We saw a record amount of deregulation under Bush. Again.. where are the jobs?

If your wife lied to you as much as the corporations do, I would think you'd stop believing her after a while. Why do they continually get a pass from people? I don't get it. I really don't.

If the banks hadn't screwed this country over so badly we wouldn't be having this discussion. For some reason some people want to make their fellow citizens pay for that but get really upset if you suggest those who made it happen be held responsible. I don't get that either.

oldman young eyes........cool. another lets blame the unions for this mess...as for auto companies...the ones there making the money are CEO's..not union workers...I find it hard to compare a CE"S multi millions a year with maybe 40 to 50K for a auto worker that builds what they are making their money from. It is not the same thing ...to compare what a union worker gets to a public worker who is paid from our tax money.

All you lay down and whine types who think shared misery is the answer should form your own union. You weak sisters are being used against those of us whom know that the problem originates at the top, with the money grubbers. Record profits and little investment. It is obvious that the middle class is being eliminated, in favor of profits. Clear now? The problem is not the people who desire compensation for work performed. We are being hosed and all you fools can do is rip and tear and bleed on each other. Disgusting America.

The average salary of a cop in NJ is somewhere around $90,000 a year. You can't live on that? But you expect those living on so much less to fund your pension and healthcare right?

Ten years ago, I police chief in my town retired. He was owed over $210,000 in unused sick, vaction and personal time. That's because his union fought for those damn roll over unused time benefits that are nothing more than a fat bankroll at retirement time. It's the same with NJ teachers. They get a bump up in pay in their last year before they retire so they can retire on that salary for life. They pay $10 in a copay and then bitch they are having to pay for their healthcare.

The state of NJ owes more money in unused time which is plain nuts. If you are not sick, why should you be paid for that? That's getting paid twice. Use it or lose it. If you don't like that policy, get a job in private sector where the cold, hard, cruel world will toughen up those tender asses who are overindulged in public sector.

SUPER-SIZED PENSIONS, AND A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/11/in-new-york-a-44-year-old-firefighter-retired-with-a-101000-a-year-pension-for-life-near-chicago-a-parks-commissioner-q.html#posts

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

When a city near me laid off firefighter last year, 90 fires "mysteriously" were set in just a week.

And my garbage men didn't show up last Thursday...still have not seen them in our township. Garbage dragged and blown all over the county. The Unions are "making a point". Ya gotta just LOVE those Unions!!!!

Looki at NYC and the lazy snow plowing! Deliberately "dragging butts" to get overtime and endangering the public by their negligence!

efff-ewe

I believe you have the story backwards. Government entities hired these people, offering health care and retirement benefits in order to attract quality employees ..... employees who also had the option to work for private industry. Now, mostly because the financial meltdown has affected pension funds and health care costs continue to rise many conservatives are advocating that those government entities re-neg on their commitments. It's easy to bash all unions and characterize all government employees as substandard, but that is not only flawed thinking - it is also a form of prejudice that reduces any potential for rational solutions to our problems.

So, efff-ewe, it is actually the government entity employers who bought the house near the airport and are now complaining about the noise. It is important for all employers to honor contracts with their employees and, where necessary, re-think their commitments to current and future employees.

roc....how many of those on wall street that caused this mess were complaining EITHER! NONE....they were just collecting those obsene bonuses!

Some poster wondered why the public employees were not out on the picket lines in support of people losing their homes jobs etc......

The police was busy keeping the peace and providing security etc ie doing the jobs they were employed to do.

The firefighters were busy rescuing people and making sure they could respond to citizens other safey concerns with regards to fire and other issues as per their job discription.

Teachers were busy teaching/educating your kids per their job discription.

And many of these public servants were also busy trying to help out (financially etc) family members that were laid off from their jobs too.

If you want to freeze/cut public workers salaries or do lay offs why don't you freeze/cut the salaries of the folks in Congress - senators and congressfolk - ie the penultimate public employees? LOL

How about this country cannot afford their pensions or healthcare cost either? LOL Especially that of the did nothing, appologizing to BP, would only do the country's job if they got the taxcuts for the rich, and believe they now have a mandate from the masses to take care of their rich contributers only at the expense of the less fortunate, people need to get off welfare and find a job, the unemployed should not get unemployment insurance benefits because it makes them lazy, healthcare is not a right but a privilege, go get help from charitable organization for your healthcare/cancer treatments, republican /teaparty ones, who did not do their jobs for most of the year and then complained about working so hard at Christmas. LOL You know those sprouters of the rightwinged conservative family values who want to take us back to socalled fiscal sanity/soundness by defunding and cutting all social programs even if it leaves folks without food, shelter or healthcare etc while giving tax breaks to the wealthy?..... LOL

Aren't these folks at the top of the heap of the ultimate overpaid, fat pensioned and underworked public employees and thus should have their benes trimmed/pay cut/frozen and no COLA in these times of austerity etc, or are they like the financial institutions, corporate heads etc cannot be touched?...... LOL Shouldn't these folks show their conservative values by practicing what they preached and take a pay/benefits/ pension cut and give up their government run and paid for healthcare coverage. LOL

Those of you who want the unionized private and public employees to take a pay/pension/benefits cut why don't you give up yours first? LOL

To those of you who agree that social programs that people have paid into all their work lives should be cut/defunded, and the public safety nets should be discarded like last years bad news, why don't you give back or give up yours and live only on what you have left in your practically depleted IRAs and 401Ks? Refuse that COLA raise with vigor....... tell your private employers that you will work for food only....... LOL

Nothing like the masses turning on each other, while the wealthy laugh at all of us and our stupidity.

When Blagojevich was still governor, he proposed raiding the public employees pension fund to fill a hole in the state budget. It was defeated but I think a similar proposal either may have gone through or is on the table this session.

I just have to roll my eyes when I hear people claim that police officers and fire fighters deserve to get paid a lot because they have statistically risky jobs. So do utility workers, construction workers, and factory workers. Last I checked most of those in non union environments get around $12 to $15 an hour. Most of these people are experienced and have some education beyond high school, which is more than most patrol officers have. I worked in a small town with an absurdly overcompensated police force for what they did. The county came in to handle the more serious crimes because their drug enforcement and other specialized teams were actually trained to do those tasks. Plus, if they did the drug busts at the high school, it would stick in court, not get thrown out for lack of jurisdiction if the local police did it.

I do really appreciate the hard work that the road crews do in getting the roads cleaned up after a blizzard. It's a necessity and makes it easier for everyone to drive after they get the roads cleaned up. Kudos to them for their hard work.

If you think teachers make huge salaries, your address must be in Wonderland. Most teachers I know (as someone going to school to become one) are barely making it, and having to pour their own money into their classrooms because the school won't pay for anything and parents whine and complain about the cost of sending their precious little snowflakes to school.

cascadia - one of the reasons that many teachers doe not earn more, is that they do not work for 3+ months a year. No other business can pay full time salaries and benefits for part-time work.

Don't misunderstand, I know that many teachers put in overtime as a regular part of their job. But quality of life is not just about income - and I would bet you that most American's would gladly take the work hours and pay, along with the benefits of being a teacher. It's not a bad life.

Tell them to enroll in the summer school work instead of taking the summer off. That should help them out financially. It's amazing. Work = pay.

Sounds like some of you were too stupid to pass the civil service exam and are envious of the public employees. If you continue to listen to the rich tell you what to do, then you will get what you deserve. You people want to scream about the public employees and the outrageous salaries and retirement packages but it's ok for the big companies to keep shipping your jobs overseas, charge you more for insurance of all kind, constantly raise your rates for entertainment (cable, satellite, music), charge confiscatory rates for banking and they give themselves huge salaries and bonuses on wall street but no one complains. You guys are sheep. Pretty soon there will be only 2 kinds of class in the USA: Upper and poor. No middle class.

Hibeam - it is apparent you have never been a public worker/ aka 'public servant.' I, as many, did not earn huge salaries, and while our health plans and pension plans were protected, no one I know has a huge pension as it is based on earnings.

As far as selecting teachers to pick on, perhaps I can shed some light on that too. My mother was a teacher for four decades while my sister was an educator for four and one-half decades. Both put in long hours; taking students papers home at night and on weekends to grade students' assignments and prepare for the next school week.

And when summer arrived, they either returned to college for further certification and accreditation or accepted temporary summer employment. I remember my mother holding summer school classes for her low-income students in our home. She did this free-of-charge and purchased all of the books and learning tools for the children she taught with great devotion.

Before you go charging after a sector of public employees, please do your homework rather than passing judgment on an issue you know little about and of the great sacrifice that accompanies it.

hibeam

I couldn't agree more! I retired after 26.5 years in law enforcement and on a pension of $1,987 a month. It is outrageous that I should draw this much money after dedicating 26.5 years of my life, being shot twice, stabbed once and then finally having to have my back fused due to an on the job injury.

You and idiots like you are a real joke if you think the average public employee is the problem. This is nothing more than a diversionary tactic from Washington to divert attention from the real problem and that is our Washington Politicians and their runaway spending. Wake up and get your head back on top of your shoulders where it belongs and the sun shines one it!

One thing about government workers is that they refuse to deal with reality. They have epxensive health insurance which is mostly paid for,they retirment plans most don't have, and the have decent paying jobs with union protections that protect all but the most incompetent from being fired. Yet, the cry and whine about how hard they have it, and can just barely make it. Hey, I git news for you, the rest of aren't making it, especially in the long run while you're collecting your 50-60% of highest annual wages in retirement and sucking the public dry.

hibeam you're an idiot. You obviously don't want to see what's really happening. If the corporations and the greedy rich, not all the rich, the greedy rich, get us to fight among ourselves then we won't have time to watch how they manipulate things in their favor. It's happening right before our eyes. Black-Bush just made a deal to keep tax cuts for the bastards. They don't even try to hide things anymore.

And lets not talk about the public employees who retire and then are hired back at the same job so they can double dip. And then they retire young and get another government job or two and end up with several retirements from the same or another government entity. What a rip off.....

hibeam: Thanks for the good news!! I am 38 and I can now retire in 7 years!!!! Thanks!!!! NOT!!!!!! I have been a state employee for over 15 years and I am certainly not getting rich working for the state. After 15 years, I was recently promoted to a managerial position, which I earned through hard work. But with a pay freeze for the past 3 years, I did not receive much in the way of compensation. And we I have been furloughed for 30+ days in the past 3 years. Our stated (MD) is in trouble not because of state and county workers....but because of one simple thing....over spending on needless projects. I am tired of the gov't taking the financial crisis out on us. Do you know that it is like to live day to day in fear of losing your home?? Do you know what it is like to have to try to make sure you have food for your family? Until you do, you have no room to talk.

Hey Heinz ---well listen to you , a person who cant get fired ,unlimited sick days ,retire after 20 years ,and sweeping leaves in the park,not to mention public employees building roads ..LMAO you people sit on your ass and let private contractors do that,, build and pave roads,fix the street lights trim the trees etc.etc. oh yeah you clean the snow BIG F****N DEAL..any wino can do that.. the hardest part of your job is getting to work..Stop crying,, you got it made...Yes you deserve a retirement and health benifits (( WHEN YOU PAY INTO THEM )) ........

PS. stop plowing the snow into my driveway TY......

John

take the shaft.

Cascadia....NJ has the highest paid teachers in the country. You know what I pay in school taxes 30 years after having no children in the schools? $3700 a year. In NJ, these teachers bitch because they can't earn six figures for a lousy 180 days of work. And then, you hear it....they are overworked because it is in fact their job to attend PTA...in NJ? That's considered overtime. Each classroom in NJ has at least one teacher's aide...why? The teacher can't handle 25 kids? Why become a teacher if you can't live with the idea of teaching children?

Most NJ teacher salaries are on average close to 6 figures. That's insane for the amount of actual daytime hours they teach. 180 days a year, less than 6 hours a day and then 3 days off in the first semester of the year for their union convention in Atlantic City. What? They can't hold their convention in a high school auditorium? Which wouldn't be so bad if it was actually a mandatory attendance...less than half of NJEA membership attended their own convention last year. This they get paid for?

hibeam...I'd settle for them retiring at age 45....In NJ, you've got cops who game the system big time. First they go on disability for "work related injuries" so they collect not only their regular paycheck but also one for disability. Then, after that runs out, they game the system by retiring a few years later claiming they can no longer do their jobs. We had one cop in my town retire at age 38 because he was "injured in the line of duty"...Yeah...he fell on his fat ass chasing down a kid who robbed a convenience store. Some line of BS that line of duty is.

I'm fed up with the sob sister routine in the public sector. They know all the ins and outs of how to retire early on their last year's salary while someone else is working till they drop trying to pay these lazy lumps salaries for life.

Agree, ewent! And, the more money they make, the more our Meap scores decline! The dumbing down of America!

Imagine that a disgruntled over paid public employee...I forgot i cant fire you,but i can suspend you with full pay..wake up dip sh*t...earn your money..KED

A few pension facts from a California public employee:

- CA government employees (police & firefighters excluded) do receive a pension, but unlike private sector employees with pension plans (union, or otherwise), we don't pay into Social Security. So, in most cases, a pension is all we receive when we retire.

- Although we may be able to retire at 55, we would do so at a fraction (about 1/2) of the maximum monthly benefit possible, for life. Not a "benefit" for the vast majority, especially since we don't "benefit" from the equally burdened Social Security system most private sector workers receive their retirement from.

- Our pension benefit is calculated factoring in years of service and average earnings. We pay a fixed percentage of our pay into the system. Since most of us won't ever earn a 6-figure salary, we won't ever receive anywhere near that in pension benefits.

Pension burdens may vary from state to state, but they're little different than the Social Security burden faced by the federal government. If you're smart, like this California public employee, you'll start your own retirement savings plans and not solely rely on any government controlled retirement program.

As a teacher, I get it. Apparently NJ teachers are greedy and whiny. But as a teacher in TEXAS, i can tell you Cascadia and Noelle are right. The two MOST OVERUSED cards played when people want to lash out at teachers:

1. Teachers only work 9 months. My personal favorite. My work day begins at 7 am, and 9 1/2 hours later- after being not only educator, but therapist, nutritionist and sometimes parent to 170 9th and 10th graders, not to mention being a punching bag to parents and magician with ridiculous state exams-- I get to leave. To go home, grade essays and homework, evaluate the day's plans, and make necessary changes. If I'm REALLY lucky, I won't have reason to worry about one of my students and their problems. Because any teacher will tell you, we don't punch a time card at the end of the day and leave our worries at the office. For argument's sake, let me do some quick math as far as the 3 months go:

9 1/2 hours a day, is 47.5 a week. We are salaried, no overtime...so let's take those extra hours and figure them into "paid" work days. In my district we have 6 week reporting periods, so every 6 weeks that's 45ish extra hours of time. We'll call that another 5 days of 8 hours' work. Roughly. Times 6 reporting periods, thats approximately 30 more "work days". We'll call that 7 weeks of work, just short of 2 months that we work "unpaid" and unreported. Not to mention trainings (on campus for us). Yes, that's still over a month for summer, BUT- that time is figured in for the kids. I'd prefer teaching year round. And I'd also prefer to not see all teachers generalized into the 'priveledged' catagory. I drive a 98 nissan with two hubcaps. Livin' the life I guess.

2. I don't have kids, so why do I have to pay? Well, I don't have kids either, but I sure have an interest in their education. After all, I hope that when I am too old to take care of myself, the person taking care of me has SOME sort of education.

Paul....that OFF SEAON that teachers have, that 6 week period MAYBE that they have, are spent hard at work by MOST teachers. They have to maintain qualifications and plan corriculium.

You must NOT know any teachers outside of school do ya! If you did, they would kick YOUR ass for such a STUPID comment!

FYI......teachers also put in more time than that just in the classroom. Correcting tests and plannig lessons for the next day among other needed activities. BTW.....I am NOT a teacher. I was at one point married to one. Education Administration should have cuts.....like the superintendent and the upper management!

wheatfield...Or, they can move to China, India or Mexico, whine their lives away and see if their salaries will see 6% increases every year for the life of a 3-year contract....as if they'd even get a contract for work they'd be expected to do for more than 180 days and a whole hell of a lot more than 6 hours a day.

ewent, YUP!!!

And devilsadvocate....I know a bit about teachers and the actual hours worked/gross salary. AND their ed requirements are not any different than my trade organization that requires my CEU's every 3 years in private industry for their personal certification. Most of teachers district ED requirements are PAID days, teachers INSERVICE, and their personal requirements are periodic. And I think their average hourly wage is close to $65 per hour for starts. It gets pretty bloated when they get tenured. Administrators do have a year 'round schedule, and they start at $90 per hour. Take those wages and paid vacations, holidays, etc and divide it up into a meaureable unit so the public can see the actual compensation for their bucks. My sis is a teacher and many relatives are teachers,.

Why do teachers think they are the only people that take work home? Any salaried employee will tell you there are many, many extra hours put in and not paid for. I never go anywhere without taking work with me -- doctor's appointments, long car rides, even those boring seminars I'm forced to attend at my own expense for my continuing education credits.

It would be a different story if you were forced to stay at the school until all the extra work was done, but you get to do it in the comfort of your home, and don't need to pay for childcare while you grade your papers and plan your next day's lesson.

Stop comparing your 9-month job to a full-time job. Now that your winter break is almost over, exactly how many weeks is it until spring break? Cheer up, there's bound to be a few snow days in between, plus every federal holiday, sick days, personal days. If it gets to be too much, you can always show a movie and take a nap.

Wheat....what state? I'm sure many teachers in MY state would love that $65 an hour teaching job.

Last I looked, no one was holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to be a cop, or a fireman, or a public school teacher. You are all welcome to get a job in the private sector. There are jobs out here for loggers, commercial fishermen, and farm workers just waiting for you.

Exactly. What we need is a huge work stoppage. A week of no one answering the phone. let the public fend for themselves. Time to start fighting back.

Let them pick up their own trash, put out their own fires. Pull out the injured and dead from car wrecks. Shut down this country. Time for a class war and time to fight back.

R. Scalzo - I'll ditto that....and before any of you are forgetting this one tidbit, the majority are paying social security and medicare taxes---something, I as an unemployed American is not currently doing!

The reason all of it is going bust is simply because so few of us are working at all! GO AFTER THOSE ON WALL STREET AND BE DONE WITH IT!

JohnCarter-If the public sector is so darn "sweet", then why aren't more people rushing into jobs as police, fire, and teachers. In the end, people need to start looking at the companies basically raping and pillaging the US while shipping all the jobs overseas! Global Economy equals lower living standards for us!!! Its amazing how many people want to blame the workers/unions instead of the companies.

No one forced me to become a public servant either. But that is the field I chose and have no regrets. I never expected to become rich and didn't! I'm amazed that so many have bought into the bashing of those of the middle class who educate our children and protect us and our homes from loss or harm. This is an indication that Americans have 'dumbed down!'

Stop it and go after the 'fat cats' on Wall Street!

Stop it and go after the 'fat cats' on Wall Street!

How about we just stop going after people unless they have committed a crime? We are tearing ourselves apart by going after people instead of solving problems.

Wall Street HAS committed crimes.

This union bashing is a distraction.

And unions have committed crimes. Should we go after all unions? We need to go after the individuals who commit crimes. Unions need to think public relations and show they want to be part of the solution.

Unions are part of the solution and negotiated contracts are supposed to be sacred in this country. Alll this Union bashing BS is just another opportunity for the union bashers to raise their eel like heads and bash a portion of our society who take care of the people. Remember this the Unions are all that stand between you and your boss. Now days that boss is likely someone who inherited not built the company and these jerks only think about themselves and to hell with the workers. All unions are not criminal backed as some believe that is just right wing rhetoric. This is like entering into a contract then saying oh I cannot live up to my part of the agreement. If this is true and they get away with it then maybe we all should just stop paying our bills. There would be no difference/

When you can't see the enemy, when you can't control the enemy, when you have no weaponry, attack your comrade. You people complaining about other WORKERS are attacking the thing you can (and be directed to do so by propaganda) which is YOURSELF. It's like the guy throwing a rock at one giant to get the giant to blame the other giant and start fighting. That little rock thrower is the problem. Only thing is it is Goliath throwing the stones at David now, and all David's contemporaries are joining in on the stoning.

bport....The fact remains that with every single increase in teachers' salaries, that increases property taxes. In NJ? YOu don't want to know what the average property tax is. It's the highest in the country and 85% of it is because of teachers' salaries.

The cost of teacher healthcare in NJ is obscene. They can take up to 2 months off for sick time, which means taxpayer pay their salary plus the $400 a day for the substitute to take over their classes. The standards in private sector industry are something no teachers union wants. NJEA is one of the biggest reason NJ taxes are outrageous. You have seniors on fixed incomes who were lucky enough to afford to pay off their mortgages 30 years ago now paying more than their original mortgage in school taxes. If that isn't insane, I don't know what you call it.

The problem will end when students begin to depend more and more on online classes and start to rid themselves of the horrid student loans that are a slush fund for most teachers.

SUPER-SIZED PENSIONS, AND A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/11/in-new-york-a-44-year-old-firefighter-retired-with-a-101000-a-year-pension-for-life-near-chicago-a-parks-commissioner-q.html#posts

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

Clint...No one on Wall Street committed a crime? Wow..I hope you aren't a cop because I can't imagine how you missed the shenanigans of Madoff, Hunt, the Enron boys, the CEO of Healthcare South, shall I go on? Or do you want to manup and admit that your pro-greed bias no longer cuts it with Americans who are fed up barely making it so that some pig at the top can fease on foi gras and champagne. They didn't earn their money. They use fraud to get at the money that was supposed to be invested in other people's retirement funds. They used fraud to steal money for themselves that should have paid for people's healthcare.

You need to take off the blinders. When 1% of the population has all the money and the other 99% is scrambling to barely make it, it's time to start pillaging from those who got their money fraudulently. They stole it from us...now...we will simply cut off their supplies.

R Scalzo-- Do your slow down and see how fast we replace your lazy butt with someone who is willing to work for a living ..Not sit for life..there's plenty of veterans returning looking for work,and 10% unemployment.. Go ahead and do your thing we can replace you in one day..It will be as if you never existed....

ewent, go back and read what I was responding to. Try to see things in context. I said unions have lawbreakers too...

John.....no one is forcing them. Just wait until they quit cause of how they are being treated and how they loose what THEY WERE PROMISED! Kinda doubt most of those jobs will be filled by volunteers. It may owrk in small communities as far as fir fighting is concerned but I don't know anyone who isn't a sadistic MerFer who would like a job that will in all probibility of getting shot at for nothing. Those that do will look forward to busting anyone, even innocent's, heads!

Clint...Union leaders are like party bosses. I have little respect for either one. Most workers want to do the right thing and earn a decent day's pay for a decent day's work. The problem is that those we sometimes allow to squeak into place as leaders, aren't leader quality materials.

I'll give you an example, while the teachers in NJ earn around $90,000 for elementary and high school salaries, you have college professors teaching 2 hours a week earning 6-figures who demand 2 assistants who each have 2 assistants. That's half a million in salaries right there. Yet, NJEA union leaders are clearing $200,000 a year in salaries. Smell anything stinky in that?

ewent....what is the cost of living in NJ? I'm sure if it is comprible to my state, plenty of our teachers will be looking to relocate!

ewent, I agree it is unconscienable abuse of the taxpayers money. And....what are they really producing for the GDP? Think...most of the innovative industry creators had an 8th grade education. It was the entrepreneur that grew their businesses, that provided jobs, that resulted in the U.S. becoming a higher power.

NJEA...epitomy of corruption. You must listen to this.

Top Union Official Caught on Tape Discussing Voter Fraud

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NuLVvVb4oc

Now, do you now realize why people like Harry Reid and Barney Frank keep winning elections?

Devil, never said volunteers just ordinary people looking for work ,that's what public employees where when they started ..and there's plenty of them right now,so don't even talk about work slowdown......

I'm just saying no one is indispensable ,you remember the air traffic controllers and how that ended up.Regan fired them all .They where arrogant enough to think we couldn't do with out them ..so we hired new people worked out ok..

All I'm saying is an honest days wages for an honest days work i have no problem with that..and a reality check on the wages we are paying out that's all I'm asking ..

We have to stop this bull@!$%# that's going on with the public employees..before we end up like Europe, never to soon to start ,have a good day ,Ty..

Dont worry thing will work out just fine even with new blood..

Most public workers aren't raking in the $$$$$$. They take advantage of a system and that is human......not necessarily ethical but human nature. But many were promised secure retirement benefits! WE souldn't screw them cause others have made bad decisions! Personally I believe for what we expect of our police, fiire and even teachers, they should be conpensated more for the most part. Look at what those who hacew office and desk jobs are compensated and make changes there. The superintendent shouldn't make 6 figures while the teachers have to hold fundraisers to get classroom tools. Our priorities are screwed up!

The public has already contributed their taxpayer blood to keep union workers comfortable, while having to sacrifice paycheck to paycheck to pay the outlandish taxes to fund them. If the city/state/ etc is going bankrupt, why should private sector take their grocery money to pay for federal union bailouts? And ALL this while some have NO pensions at all? And, privatizing all those police, teacher jobs would give the public more for their money. Right now, public jobs are a liability and do not contribute to GDP, while private industry does.

I will be hounding my representatives and the Whitehouse vehemently opposing any bailout for states! Let them go bankrupt!

We are all blaming the system,,but because they are only human is no excuse,, if it is,, then wall street was only human, and that for sure is not acceptable,,, you read my post ,, i think i was fair in what i was asking for... a wage and benefit package that wont break the back of government...

Don't you agree DEV.??

I agree our priorities are screwed up....Ty Jhon

Geeezzz gotta stop typing in low light,

john :) lmao..........

Ok brother looks like we agree on something so onward and forward...nice talking to you ...

John.....those CONTRACTS that the public workers signed were agreed to anf felt to be fair compensation. If we want to renegotiate, that is one issue. If we just want to screw them, that is another totally different issue. Many UNIONS have made concessions in the past fort the good of the company.....look at the UAW and the Pilot's Union and machineist Unions among others. They allowed concessions but when push came to shove and the company is raking in record profits, did those who made those concessions get what they gave up back......the corporations certainly DID! And the shareholders! IF one group must
tighten their belts", so should EVERYONE involved. THAT is what is so mess up about our priorities nowadays. Look at how those who got us into this mess are bei ng REWARDED and those who didn't do a DAMN thing are being punished!!!!!!!!! And our politicians do NOTHING!

Why blame rich people for making the right decisions and becoming successful? People who are successful weren't blessed by some magical money fairy. Some may have inherited it, but a great number of them earned it themselves.

You should look at self-made wealthy people as role models, instead of expecting someone to just give you money.

Sorry arch, I live in California, in a city in the center of California, outside of the expensive LA/SF region. Our cost of living is very reasonable, and our newspaper recently published salaries of our city workers. We have dozens and dozens of paper pushers earning six-figure salaries. Several years ago the state also changed up how the retirement system works, allowing our state workers to retire in their early 50's with, in some cases, more than 100% of their current salary.

The poor town of Bell, CA gives another example of city workers earning $250k - $400k, and now the UC system executives want their $180k annual retirement pay increased to $300k - and they are SUING US to get this done.

Government IS the problem - from elected officials, to the crooks stealing from us from within, to the lazy bums who surf porn, to the clowns who simply do little or nothing for their pay. My guess is that we could cut city, county and state government by 50% (from the top, not the bottom) and there would be no noticeable change in the quality of our lives.

We do not need less rich people, we need less government. Any time we transfer wealth from people to government, we lose.

I have no problem with any public employee earning a fair and decent wage and I fully expect them to have decent benefits. But do not punish or single out those that have been successful for the reasons you mention above.
My brother in law and sister in law are both public employees. My S-i-L worked for the county coroner for several years until she had a "disabling injury" She is so disabled, she can hardly stop herself from shopping 24/7. As for my B-in-L, he is a policeman that has been off more than he works. He hasn't worked since last April because he claims to have a sore back. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that they live in a 3,600sq ft house in a gated communuity and both drive BMW's? Yeah, that's your tax money hard at work. 2 losers. Want to know why people are fed up? They are the poster children.

Is it really just police, fire and teachers or are there others that this article may be referring to? Without a doubt, we need the three mentioned, I applaud what they do and how they help society. Teachers, police and fire departments are areas where unions need to protect, but everywhere else, questionable...

To me, I feel that this article may be meant for those that sit behind the desks in City Hall or municipality offices? Have you ever applied for a business license? Have you ever waited in line waiting for service just to pay a ticket? You can be standing in front of the cashier in city hall, which is a union job, they will blatantly disregard you, even if you stand in front of them, because they are talking about them being hungry or their date or their hair or a party...

Go to a major metropolitan city such as Chicago, go there on a Monday or Tuesday and listen to how much time gets wasted...

Unions are needed in areas where it can help society, such as teachers, or protect society, such as police or fire department personnel. Where they are at risk every day, even streets/sanitation workers can fall in this category. Where they are not needed are the numerous admin workers that sit at a desk all day and chat about their social life, such as the cashiers collecting payment from business or individuals. Look at how ineffective the gov't or cities are that are unionized...again, aside from teachers, fire and police...

To be honest some teachers do need to go...but most are worthy...

I know a public employee who drives a late model high end European luxury car. He bought it with over 90,000 miles on it and paid less than $20K. How about some facts instead of this silly anecdotal stuff?

So true, I just do not understand how working people fall for this crap, is it ignorance or is it just plain fear of the future? How can the actual people that work for a living forgive the 2 % of us that do nothing but spend the workers labor and then bash public servants? Remember THE NATIONAL MEDIA DID NOTHING TO HELP OUR CITIZENS WHEN EVERYONE KNEW BUSH WAS WRONG BUT NOTHING WAS DONE TO EXPOSE THEM? the CORPORATE ELITE WILL ALWAYS FIND SOME AD AGENCY THAT WILL CONCOCT SOME LIE TO SELL TO OUR PEOPLE. DO NOT FALL FOR IT!!!!!

You're 100% correct ArchStanton. The repug party has been demonizing unions for thirty plus years now. I can't understand why the middle class and the poor in this country can't see what the elite and the polititions are doing to us. They got us right where they want us, blaming each other for the very thing they created.

The poor town of Bell, CA gives another example of city workers earning $250k - $400k, and now the UC system executives want their $180k annual retirement pay increased to $300k - and they are SUING US to get this done.

They will have to draw their pensions from jail. This is no example of what public officials are paid. These guys ripped off the people and they will do time for it.

Geri it must be sad for you to be jealous of your sister. You would rather have some big company like Chevron getting a tax refund after posting record breaking profits in 2009. Yea, that makes sense. Your sister and her husband, according to you, shop and put money back into the community both locally and abroad. If you invested in FedEx or UPS then you want more shoppers like her because that's more business revenue. Living in a gated community means they pay significantly higher property taxes, which means the money is recycled again. And as for his sore back, well isn't it amazing how people like you think those are all phoney injuries but when it happens to you then all of a sudden it is as true as the day is long. How pathetic.

Wow, are you carrying some anger. You really know the medical history of your BIL and SIL? There are things known as "hidden disabilities". You can't see them but they are real. I have three extremely painful neuromas in my feet that make it difficult for me to stand or walk for long periods. I have to wear wide shoes and sandals, but, to look at me, I seem fine. I also take serious meds for back pain as well as having a knee that's a breath away from being replaced. I am the last person to judge people who have been granted WC as I know it can take years to be granted a permanent disability by the court. More power to them if they can get out and about from time to time and try to live a normal life. Thank goodness I don't have to deal with judgemental people like you in my life.

As for where they live and what they drive, who knows, they may have other sources of income. Just because one is disabled from one job does not mean one is disabled from working altogether. That would be punative.

Your comments should be sent to every major newspaper and (for those who never read anything) to the major cable news outlets that read comments on the air.

I'm not a union member, I used to be a part of management that dealt with unions. I always said that management (or in this case the public) gets the unions they deserve. During contract negotiations, management just shrugs and gives away the store, then years later, the taxpayer takes it on the chin trying to pay up. Well, don't blame the unions, folks, blame management for caving in then not paying their bills.

Even more important, blame the states who agreed to incredibly generous pension schemes year after year, while kicking the can down the road by refusing to contribute annually as required by their own laws. The unions' fault? Not by a long shot--many of the governors who were supposed to fund these pension plans were -ahem- Republicans who failed to contribute state funds when they were due for decades, and are now screaming how irresponsible and greedy the unions were. But public officials agreed to these schemes and many collect the same types of pensions as the unions.

Wake up all of you, but especially my old home state of NJ. Quit demonizing the public servants that you made the promises to, and start behaving responsibly, especially at the top. Freeholders, attorneys and other double dippers should have their benefits cut first and by the greatest amount, with those having modest pensions that they have worked all their lives to earn penalized the least.

Oh, and let's stop letting cops and other public servants retire in their 40s only to get great paying jobs in the private sector while being supported by the taxpayers for the rest of what could be a very long and cushy life. No one should work for 20 some years then collect for possibly 40+ years at their last year's highly inflated salary plus full health benefits for the rest of their lives.

But don't hate the public servants. Hate the politicians who promised the moon and then failed to fund their promises. I admire teachers, firefighters and police, but like everyone else, feel that their pension plans must be realistic and funded each year to reflect the promises made.

sciencenew- so you believe that those we hire to protect us (fire and police) or educate our children are chumps for choosing public service. Please tell me that as your house burns or your life is in jeopardy. And as a side note most teachers are now required to get post grad degrees at their own expense. And as for only working for 9 months out of the year, even at annualized rate they are still underpaid as compared to those of similar education in the private sector.

Want to know why people are fed up? They are the poster children.

Just because your in-laws abuse the system, does not mean everyone does. I'm sure you've reported your in-laws, and don't expect that government should decrease pay and benefits for all public employees because of 2 people.

General overall cuts are not the answer, it's just the lazy mans excuse for not wanting to bother digging in the dirt to root out the few bad apples that are the actual problem.

It's sad, isn't it?

The wealth of the USA hasn't been this packed into the hands of the top 5% of us since 1929 and we all know how that turned out.

Pensioners, public or otherwise, are about the last people we should be slinging our rocks at over the current economic mess yet they seem to the latest target. It seems like only yesterday nearly the last bastion of union strength, the UAW, was taking shots over their make-believe $75/hr compensation while $trillions in bailout funds went to the bankers to only pad their $million bonuses. Now, "overpaid" pensioners are the target.

The Koch brothers, the Goldman Sachs bankers, the corporate media and their various robber baron allies have somehow convinced legions of Americans that the more wealth the rich hold and the less the rest of us own the richer we'll all be in the end. The propaganda is that golden riches will somehow trickle down on the little people while the facts only prove the only golden shower we're receiving is only making us wet and smelly.

The math only proves the TeaBaggering parrots wrong yet they continue to crow their nonsense.

Americans had better straighten up ... fast.

I can guarantee not one of you whiners would last a day in a classroom. Why would you want to, after all, we are the real ones raising your children; doing the job you don't want to do. I am your child's mother because you are too busy earning money for your trips, nice cars, boats and 3 car garages to parent them. I am your child's counselor because you turn the other way when they are struggling. I am your child's disciplinarian, because you want to be their friend and you won't say "No" to them; disciplining children is hard work. I comfort your child because of your broken homes. I am your child's moral compass because you think that's the schools responsibility- to teach your child character. I am your child's nutritional specialist because you think pizza rolls for dinner and an energy drink on their way to school is just fine. I am your child's med administrator because instead of learning how to be a good parent, you dope your kids up with speed (ADHD meds) in alarming numbers.

I am your child's teacher. I earn under 50K and drive a 2001 saturn. I own a house. We teach your kids, we care for them, we help them in all ways we know how. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about your kid, what he/she needs tomorrow. We are dedicated to them. You, you are spoiled, entitled Americans. You don't have a clue about real issues, like the suffering in the world. Do you know how many children die of starvation a day, are you starving to death?

Dis us, really? Didn't your mother teach you to never bite the hand that feeds you.

Edna, I don't know why these discussions can't be about facts. Thank you for bringing some to examine.

...because CEO's made all of their money on the backs of exploited people. They will cut our retirements and benefits so they can get a one time bonus. We're told to work harder for less, while they take private jets and live lavish lifestyles. That is why I don't support business leaders. All they do is preach water and drink champagne.

Arch Stanton you are so correct!

And what union is paying your salary Arch?

It is only because of shoddy thinking by men like Arch Stanton that we are in the trouble where we find ourselves. Their solution is always "find the rich guys to tax and we will solve all our budget problems." What he refuses to realize is that the percentage of the "rich" is actually fairly small, a narrow strip of elite folks whom you would have to tax to the level of confiscation if they alone were asked to shoulder the burden of public welfare. There are simply too many of the middle and lower class populations to demand that the wealthy pay an inordinate share of the costs of government.

In addition, does he ever consider that the wealthy got that way because they created businesses that hired workers? They are the engine to our type of economy, and without business investment dollars, NO ONE will be hired.

Shoddy thinking? The percentage of the "rich" is small, so therefore you would have to tax to the level of confiscation? So, by your logic, if the top 1% hold 100% of the wealth, then they should still only pay 1% of the tax. Brilliant.

Local 109 of 217?

>Why blame rich people for making the right decisions and becoming successful?

Who said that. That is total BS. Nobody thinks that it is just the same old troll bait we have been seeing since the rich heir hired you trolls. This is about governments trying to renege on contracts they signed with workers. Rich people are backing this because it is an opportunity for them to get richer on the backs of the people who made them rich the workers.

This country is losing its competitive edge because of unions. Workers should compete for jobs, and the most valuable workers will get the best jobs.

Now that is what may be called employer utopia and is what is going on in America today because we got rid of most of the unions. In the first place there are not enough unions left in America to even have a minor effect here. Wake up that Kool Aid is affecting your thinking.

You are absolutely correct, in every way. While this "battle" continues against public workers (who, except the already wealthy politicians are receiving less compensation than they deserve), the wealthy and elite keep "earning" (their birthright) record salaries and "bonuses."

Yes, divide and conquer, that way no one looks at their wealth. Every worker in America deserves to be represented by a Union (their working brothers and sisters) and earning (through collective bargaining) a living wage and benefits.

Instead we get tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and because of this lost revenue and therefore empty public coffers, the wealthy (who control the media), gets the working class to turn on themselves as the reason for the lack of cash. Despicable. No, by taxing the wealthier at a progressive rate (which we have always done, except before the Great Depression and now, they are not being "picked on" for being successful, they are paying their fair share. Since the wealthiest 2% of Americans "earn" or "have" over 50% ( 2% own over 50%, that is slavery) of the nations wealth, then they should pay higher taxes than the average and struggling workers.

Want to be rich? Either become a politician, a lobbyist or be born wealthy. Of course then you have to manipulate everyone, especially the media, so you are not taxed accordingly. America is the country with the most uneven wealth distribution in the world. Anytime this is allowed (or manipulated) to happen in a country, you have a serfdom. That is what we have in America. Cutting the pay or benefits of a few civil servants (except politicians) will not change this. "They" will just find another working class to destroy so their butts are protected and they can keep stealing from "us."

Science

apologist for the masters. Misses the point entirely. You confuse free enterprise with corporatism and mutant capitalism. You act as if these people (the evil rich) got there through hard work and not manipulations. It does not matter that all wealthy are not bad people. The rich are bad enough buying the government gutting the economy and causing the distress we non-wealthy share. You are my enemy and I'd drop you like a fly without hesitation, push come to shove.

Could it be that you are a public employee? Teachers make great money, yet our kids are falling behind countries like Japan, India, and others. I say pay them according to how well educated their students are. Teachers appear to have been vaccinated by the same needle of greed that has infected all unions. MORE, MORE, MORE MONEY. In the mean time, many of us are cutting back MORE, MORE, MORE so teachers and other public employees can have MORE, MORE, MORE. We are become piggy banks to public employees. What is next: Serfdom?

Arch Stanton...Exactly when did the Founding Fathers indicate in any government document that it is the private sector's responsibility to make millionaires of the public sector? If you work for government, you know going in you won't be a millionaire. Sorry, but that's reality hitting public sector employees in the ass. And, let's not pretend that they don't earn salaries commensurate with people in the private sector. The problem is that no one wants to live on their present salary. That includes the voracious feeders at the trough who swill away always believing the rest of us will always fill the trough to capacity for their next feeding.

SUPER-SIZED PENSIONS, AND A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/11/in-new-york-a-44-year-old-firefighter-retired-with-a-101000-a-year-pension-for-life-near-chicago-a-parks-commissioner-q.html#posts

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

What's the Republican-Corporate solution??

--Privatize and Outsource teachers and other state workers...

"Tank you for calling 911 services, this is Vijay. Please give me your credit card information and then state your problem in a slowly manner..."

So let me get this straight. The class warfare that continues to grow and fester under Obama is, in actuality, being fomented by he rich? It is they who have an interest in encouraging all this?

That's positively one of the dumbest things I've read in a long while. Maybe ever.

Way to go internet, giving voice to simpletons and morons. Geesh.

sciencenew, paul f, etc,

I think a lot of you are very naive about how rich people get their money. Many of them made their fortunes with tremendous help from the government/public.

You apparently believe in the various fairy tales that have been invented and publicized by the corporate media (owned by the very wealthy) since the 1800's (Horatio Alger, etc) about people who "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and all of that BS. While a few of those stories may have some validity mostly that is not the way people become rich in the U.S.

Let me give you an example: Stewart Resnick is a billionaire because he who owns paramount farms, a big Ag corporation in the San Jouquin Valley of California. Mr. Resnick is a very weatlthy mainly because he gets cheap, water subsidized by the public, (way be below market price) to grow his crops with. And then on top of this he probably gets various agricultural price supports etc courtesy of the tax payers, too. The subsidized water was never intended to be used by fat cats and big corporations like Resnick's. I've seen the relevant documents. The water was intended to be used by Family Farmers, and there was a limit set on the number of acres a farm could be to get the water but of course as they say, "money talks" and various loop holes have been exploited to make a joke out of original intention of the water legislation.

At the same time that Resnick (and other big growers in the San Jouquin Valley on publically subsidized water the huge amount of water taken out of the rivers and he San Jouquin/Sacramento delta has devastated the states once great king salmon run as well as other fisheries, which caused the state to close commercial fishing and put hundreds of thousands of people out of work.

Or for another example: Right now the Federal Reserve is giving away the public's money to the huge investment banks at 0% interest. The banks are then turning around and buying treasuries that pay around 3% interest and making a lot of money on the deal.

Or take an example from the 1800's when the federal government gave millions of acres of land to the rail roads as an "incentive" to build the rail road lines.

And I could go on and on with other examples, for instance the "defense" industry is almost totally subsidized by the tax payers.

You might call it corporate socialism or socialism for the rich. My point of view is socialism seems to work pretty well for Stewart Resnick (and many other wealthy people) so why not have it for everyone?

correction to my post above:

At the same time that Resnick (and other big growers in the San Jouquin Valley) got rich on publically subsidized water the huge amount of water taken out of the rivers and he San Jouquin/Sacramento delta and shipped south to the growers and big developers in S. Calif. has devastated the states once great king salmon runs as well as other fisheries, which caused the state to close commercial fishing and put hundreds of thousands of people out of work.

Atlas Shrugged!

SUPER-SIZED PENSIONS, AND A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/11/in-new-york-a-44-year-old-firefighter-retired-with-a-101000-a-year-pension-for-life-near-chicago-a-parks-commissioner-q.html#posts

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

Hey Arch, we live in an age where writing a few clever lines of code can result in billions. THAT is the source of the so-called inequality you bemoan. Whine all you like, but we live in a world of unbelievable leverage created by the very technologies that allow us to have this debate. The incomprehensible wealth that resulted completely distorts the wealth data class warriors like yourself enjoy citing.

The Sergey Brins, Larry Pages, Mark Zuckerbergs, etc. of the world drive the data. Wake up and get a clue. Worry a little more about yourself and not what the other guy's making.

With the caveat that wherever wealth results from crime or corruption, whether public or private, go after them with guns ablazing.

"Our schools should be run by companies like Wall Mart and Target."

You're joking right? Most public schools do a damn good job. Those schools that are failing fail often because of lack of parental support in their child's education. You could run a school like a company all you want, all you'd end up with is all schools failing.

Charter schools are run like companies... some are amazing, some are worse than the worst public school.

If what you say is true, private education would be a failure. But contrary to your liberal fiction, private education and home school's offer the best education in the nation.

Certainly there are some examples of poor private side schools, but as hibeam points out, this is the benefit of for-profit businesses, if you suck, you will fail (unless propped up by fake government subsidy like our public schools).

Blame the parents all you like, here in our city we have ample examples of crappy schools, teachers that cannot be fired, lazy administrators, and an overall grad rates that drop year after year. A hybrid of public/private education could offer the best of all worlds, and accountability, along with the ability to fired bad teachers would be a good start to cleaning up another union cesspool.

Agree with Paul F and Hibeam. Public education is a Farce. The quality of education in the USA is laughable. Kids in CHINA and INDIA get far superior education and are better prepared to take on challenges. IRONICALLY --they are not saddled with the kind of educational debt (both financially and Intellectually) that their US counterparts are sadled with.

As far as all other govt. functions, fire fighters and police are concerned --these operations have to overhauled. Living in the US is more dangerous than ever (physically and financialy). sometimes I wonder if we are rapidly progressing towards a SOCIALIST society (we probably already are ).

Like Wal Mart< what an idiot!!!!!!!!! Wal Mart is the problem, NOT AN ANSWER TO ANYTHING BUT OBLIVION. Old man Sam Walton has been turning in this grave ever since the "bean counters took over after his death. Cascadia, your "solution" is as bad as George Jr idea of weapons of mass destruction. BOTH WERE TERRIBLY WRONG AND COST THIS COUNTRY IT'S FUTURE.

Cascadia, you can see by the other comments that we have indeed been dumbed down. PaulF, PYridine and of course hibeam haven't figured out that the private schools and homeschooling succeed because they don't have to accept everyone like public schools do. If they were forced to accept and teach the delinquents and other associated rejects then they too would not be so successful. We were progressing toward a socialist society when the first group of cavemen and women realized that they could stay safer in a group or (say it with me) SOCIETY.

Hibeam - you must be kidding---Wal*Mart & Taget? Business savvy, right on! A little known fact about 'Wally*World,' as they nickel and dime their workers and employ them part time, WE, the American taxpayer (if you're working!) foot the bill for the workers and their families health care, because their pay is so low, they qualify for welfare and food stamps!

You must return to your earlier comment and read the replies! Where have you obtained your knowledge of the subject of public and private education and what do you do for a living?

Our schools should be run by companies like Wall Mart and Target. The quality would increase 1000% overnight because you could shop around for a well run school

No, you would shop around only to find that the only education available is sub-standard crap manufactured in China. You would probably end up thinking that Walmart is two words.

Really? Walmart's business model is to exploit the poverty of their workers. You my friend need to realize that Walmart forces the taxpayer to subsidize the health care of their employees. That's how they keep their prices so low! I would rather my child learn how to run an honest moral company than learn subjects such as "greed is good 101".

Most schools fail because parents fail at being parents. Maybe the parents should do their job and ensure that their child is making responsible choices to become successful. Teachers are there to TEACH not babysit. If your child doesn't receive all A's and B's then I say you should lose the tax deduction for having dependents. Tie the parent's tax liability to the success of their children!

Most countries respect teachers, in America we treat them like garbage and tell them they should function more like a walmart associate? Disgusting!

I'm so sick of the "apples and oranges" comparisons between charter, private and public schools. Private schools can hand pick students and any parent handing over great sums of money each year are far more invested in their children's success. Charter schools also can pick and choose, to a lesser extent. The main difference is that private schools are not burdened by all the mandates forced upon the public schools.

I also think it would be better to break up the large districts into more manageable sizes. In our area of California, almost every elementary school has its own district. My children's school ranked number 20 in the state in testing. I always felt it was due to the excellent reading program (Scribner), which was NOT on the state list. The school used lottery funds to buy the books and instituted just enough of the Whole Language mandate to get by the reviews. Speaking of the Whole Language mandate, has it ever occurred to anyone that most of our younger teachers did not learn to read, write and spell through a phonetically-based program, but under the Whole Language mandate. As a result, children are being taught by teachers who often can not spell well and who may well have no real understanding of phonics.

I subbed in a Whole Language pilot program many years ago and I was disturbed that the idea was being embraced. I watched in sadness as it became a mandate. It has now all but gone away, thank goodness. Unfortunately, for a couple of generations of students, the damage has been done. Thank goodness for spell-check, sad to say.

DetroitSocialist...I agree to an extent but I also think a teachers pay should be based on their kids performance. After all they are the ones being payed to teach and not the parent...I think that is something most teachers have forgot from what I have read hear.Many parents do not have the ability to teach their kids...where I live many never finished school themselves.

Last year I spent from the end of October thru March trying to meet with my sons teacher and was never given a meeting...I even took off work and went in one day and was told I could not see her because I did not have an appointment...then to my amusement with just over a week left in the school year I get a letter from her saying she wanted to meet to talk about my sons future.

As far as one other poster claiming to be the childs mother and disciplinarian and so on...all I can say is I discipline my child at home and when he is in school I expect you to do the same there...sorry but I can't quit my job to sit there all day to do it...and as it seems most teachers don't approve of how I handle discipline you need to handle it yourself there anyway...If you want it done a certain way then do it your self...I still believe in spanking a child.

As far as parents just wanting to drug their children for adhd...that really made me laugh...I had to threaten my sons teacher with a lawsuit to stop her from trying to force me to put my son on meds for that...even after a Dr. said he did not think it was needed...she insisted I take him to another Dr. until I demanded to see her license to practice medicine.It is normally the teachers pushing the meds...not the parents.

The bottom line is teachers are paid to teach so stop trying to blame the parents for everything.Start punishing kids again (yes spank them when bad) and quit trying to spare their feeling when they fail...let them know they failed.Start having quarterly teacher conferences again like when I went to school so the parents can actually talk to the teachers face to face and find out what is going on in school...guess what...the kids are not going to tell the parents most of the time as you all expect them to.

I have a great deal of respect for some teachers and very little for others...you can tell the ones who do it for the love of their jobs and the ones who do it for the paycheck and benefits.The good teachers deserve every dime they make and then some but many don't deserve a fraction of what they make. Base the teachers pay on the results of their class and I think you would see a major turn around in the school system.

DSLODGE: I must disagree. The teacher is paid to TEACH not to coddle or babysit. If your child chooses not to learn, disrupt the class, and be lazy then it's not the job of the teacher to force them to learn. None of those things would be acceptable in the private economy. This is why I hate no child left behind legislation. Good teachers are losing their jobs, because the students can just choose to fail the test. I mean, nothing will happen to them if they fail.

Everyday I go to work and have to make the decision to be successful or a failure. I choose success so I can continue to have a job. Many of our kids are choosing failure. Many of their parents don't care. I would also like to add, once a child drops out of school then all benefits should be eliminated. This means NO tax deduction! The parents should be forced to pay a higher tax percentage to cover the cost society will need to pay taking care of this individual over the long run. This includes medicaide, unemployment, wic, and etc.

hibeam...The biggest mistake was allowing tenure of any kind. The public sector loves that status quo comfort they get from never losing a job. That's patently wrong in today's business world. And, it's costing those who have so much less in the long run.

Get rid of all tenure. It shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. The public sector unions claim it prevent their jobs from being politicized. Then, you get a teachers' union that spends over $2 million a year lobbying at the statehouse to give them more, more, more.

The fixes are simple: public workers have to fund their own pensions entirely. That means out of their own paychecks...just like the rest of us. Then, their healthcare costs have to be borne by them...not the taxpayers. Out of their own paychecks...like the rest of us.

Why should an ass like Mitch McConnell get his heart surgery at the best hospital in the country and then dump the cost onto the backs of taxpayers?

SUPER-SIZED PENSIONS, AND A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/11/in-new-york-a-44-year-old-firefighter-retired-with-a-101000-a-year-pension-for-life-near-chicago-a-parks-commissioner-q.html#posts

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

Now we can agree on that at least...if a child drops out of school a parent should lose their tax break for that child...I would have no problem with that at all.

But the fact of the disruptive children and the ones not wanting to learn...sorry but that has been created by the school system with their lack of discipline and not by the parent. My son knows what will happen if he acts bad around me and talks back and knows better than to let me get a call from the school about his behavior and I am very proud to say he is a well behaved child...granted he has his moments as all children do but he is a child I can be proud of...I also spend all of my free time with him in things like scouts...hunting...camping and anything else I can find for us to do together that don't cost a lot...TV has been banned in my home for the last 10 years...he is not allowed to watch it (and I don't either) as I choose to raise my child and not let the TV do it for me.

This year I put my son in a charter school and he is doing better than he has ever done.If a child acts up there they are suspended for 1 or more days for their actions...the problem kids are removed. Even my son got suspended for one day for getting out of his chair without permission...and I did not yell and scream at the school but warned him of what would happen if it ever happened again. That is what I want for my child and is how a school should be run...if the child can't behave remove them and keep removing them until they can.

That premise is good for a laugh. Thanks Detroit!

I think people should google how education is conducted in Japan, China, and Singapore. The United States Public would not stand for it.

dslodge, Teachers operate under tight restrictions that govern what they can and cannot do. Also basing teacher pay on student performance is an imperfect model. What happens if a tenured teacher who does the bare minimum gets a group of high performers and a highly motivated teacher without tenure gets a class of low performers? The teacher with the high performers who put in no effort will get a raise and the motivated one won't get a raise and could be out of a job as a result.

My male cousin worked at a urban high school as an industrial arts teacher for a year. He didn't go back in August because he couldn't take the juvenile delinquents he had for students. He knows what high school is really like and how to push his teachers buttons because he was that type of student. He was probably more prepared for the realities of a classroom than the typical fresh out of college teacher. He wanted to quit after a semester but stuck it out. The shocker was that he expected them to work for their grades, not just show up and get As like under his predecessor. He couldn't do anything to discipline these kids because some of them allegedly had "disabilities". He made a comment that lack of motivation and laziness is not a disability. He's over six feet tall and was physically threatened numerous times by his students. He probably could take them on, but legally could not. He's now subbing full time and hoping to find another full time teaching job next year. He still wants to teach even after that horrific first year.

I find it interesting that many parents who make shows of being good disciplinarians really aren't. Their kids know how to manage Mom and Dad's personalities and tempers. They also know what picture to present to them. It's easier to present the image of the uncaring teacher than to admit that they preferred to screw around and ignored the teacher's suggestions. They know that most of their parents will take their side most if not all of the time because admitting that their kids are wrong is admitting that they are not a perfect parent.

I find it interesting how most responses to my post find it that the teacher should have no responsibility for performance. Sorry but the problems with discipline in school is the schools problem...not the parents. It is the school systems that refuse to discipline a child...even when a parent tells them they can.You have created your own monsters by thinking that timeout and talking or a note home to the parent ( which will probably never get to the parent) is a form of discipline.

As I stated last time...since it is no longer allowed to spank a child in school then a teacher should be allowed to suspend a child for a day every time he/she acts out of line.I had no problem with my son getting suspended for a day for getting out of his seat without permission.His reward for the day off was spending the day doing yard work for 8 hours.Instead the school system now allows all disruptive kids to stay in class and make it almost impossible for anyone to learn anything.

Bottom line is any job you do you get paid to perform...if you fail to perform you do not keep that job for long...I see no reason why a teaching job should be any different. The charter school my son attends now has a very good record...the only real difference between them and a regular public school is that they are willing to remove the disruptive kids from a classroom until they learn how to act.

because the imperial exam system worked out so well....

Maybe the workers in this country should challenge those dollar a day Chinese workers.

This country gained it's competetive edge because of its unions. Workers should compete for the jobs? Man, were you born a century too late or what. What would you propose next, gladiator fights. Well thank goodness for Karma. Maybe you'll get a note that says "congratulations, your job has been shipped to India and if you would like to compete for it we will give you that opportunity". I would love it. But my money would be on you because you sound competitive.

You'd think so China and India are now your rols models America, %5 with jobs 80% living in dirt huts, the rest in the Army, waiting to defend the status quo. Even if it means blowing away their own grandmother.

If you think you'd really like to live like that, please Move to China! Don't help the fatcats drag America into the sewer of globalism. How long till America looks like Haiti! Stop the Race to the Bottom!

I am a member of a union. I never saw them accomplish much in gains. They were too busy trying to maintain the little we had. It was being chipped away each year. While my unit did get a huge raise (after I had retired) it was only given because of a judgement over the denial of past raises, which were connected to another unit's pay (parity). I understand it has been severely reduced in the past year or two.

As for keeping bad employees on the job, I blame the employers. A worker does not have much in the way of power if the employer has not followed protocol. It is called "due process" for those that don't understand the proper way to get rid of a bad apple. It CAN be done but many supervisors are too lazy to do their job. As a result, the employee wins their appeal. "Due process" is there to protect those who do not deserve to lose their job.

Lastly, I'd like to make on thing very clear. In the State of California, there are many employee unions and units within the unions. So when you hear that the UC employees do not pay into their retirement, please do not assume that is true of most employees. Both my husband and I paid hundreds of dollars a month into our retirements. We also began with 100% medical and that has been severely chipped away over the years. Also, the state often saves big bucks when employing spouses as many do not take separate medical and dental as there is no benefit to doing so. They may get a small refund, less than $150 a month, for not taking the second medical benefit but that ends upon retirement. Huge savings for the state.

Why blame rich people for making the right decisions and becoming successful? People who are successful weren't blessed by some magical money fairy. Some may have inherited it, but a great number of them earned it themselves.

You should look at self-made wealthy people as role models, instead of expecting someone to just give you money.

I think the poster you were responding to was referring to the ultra-wealthy, the ownership class, the people who have purchased Washington. If you call buying our government hook, line and sinker, the "right decision", then I guess you have a point.

Sorry, I meant to say "A worker does not have much in the way of power if the employer HAS followed protocol.".

That's right... F*ck the workers to get the competative edge. Treat them like slave labor. It works in other 3rd world countries, why not this one?

"This country gained it's competetive edge because of its unions."

This might have been true in the 1930's -1950's but it is no longer true.
The top union leadership is more interested in maintaining their well paid upper class lifestyle than anything else.

Obviously you've never been in a union job. As a union sheet metal worker I can tell you that we all compete for our jobs everyday. If you can't pull your weight, the boss will just lay you off and call the hall for someone who will work better. Guys are allowed to solicit their own employment, so there are always a few applications on the bosses desk, waiting for one of us to screw up. The best workers make more money, the average workers make decent money, and the slugs sit home.

Joe, I was in a union also. You are only talking about the trades who work out of a local and are sent to various jobs, when needed. You come off of the so called bench. The companies can request another. My father in law worked out of a local like this. The guys that kissed the locals leaders butts, got the best jobs and best paying jobs. The others either sat on the bench or got the worst paying jobs in the worst locations and drove hundreds of miles to get to the job. If you are employed by a company whose workers are unionized, it takes a whole lot more to get rid of workers, which costs millions of dollars a year for the company. In most cases, the company puts up with the ineptness and laziness of the union employee, rather than pay the cost of going through the grievance process. A union employee, just like a salaried employee deserves to get fired if they can not perform their job.

And here are two examples of public sector unions screwing the taxpayer. Would someone please tell me how this helps the student?

http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/12/teacher-jail-in-los-angeles.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/new-york-teachers-paid-to_n_219336.html

One thing that happened to unions was the inability for the steward to pull their union card. Employers then hire marginal workers to weaken the union. As a steward there were a number of people whose card I would have pulled because they didn't live up to union work rules. Those same people are in non-union businesses. Only there, they are called son, cousin, buddy, and suck-up.

I was a Teamster never paid more than 14.00 hr.

SUPER-SIZED PENSIONS, AND A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/11/in-new-york-a-44-year-old-firefighter-retired-with-a-101000-a-year-pension-for-life-near-chicago-a-parks-commissioner-q.html#posts

Federal workers earning double their private counterparts
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

Public unions have always had a cozy deal with politicians, they traded their votes and ability to organize at election time for pay and benefits that were never sustainable. Now the chickens have come home to roost. It is that simple.

Seriously - you example points out what a joke unions have become, and how utterly corrupt they are.

You trust the union - which negotiated a deal that left your contributions in the hands of politicians, who failed to fund the retirement plan - no one in that loop is a GREEDY CEO.

At what point do you take off the blinders and realize it is the union executives, and our government who work in collusion to bilk all of us of our money?

I'll take a greedy CEO any day over a lying, thieving union or government official - because the motives of the CEO's are clear, and the union / government fools just keep promising, lying, and stealing.

Teachers are certainly not overpaid in Texas. Before they were organized nany teachers in this country lived in one room and could not afford a car.

You can have your greedy Ceos, Paul. When the ceo of Disney made 600 million in salary and God knows what in bonuses, he had children working in Haiti for 12 cents an hour. Also, in the one year I know about, the Saudi royal family made 250 billion on our rigged stock market. I don't know if they paid the full 15% capital gains tax. The Emir of Kuwait is a trillionaire and he has hundreds of billions in that same market. We pay for troops to defend both these absolute dictators.

America is being run by banks, wall street and big corporations. They love outsourcing for slave labor and the own both political parties. This government wrote special treaties and did everything possible to aid the greedy pigs that are destroying our country. Why do you think the capital gains tax where, most big money is made, is only 15%?

Big money with the help of government is destroying our middle class and that is obvious.

The more comments i see coming from the dumb Faux News listening repukes on here makes me sick to my stomach. Paul you are a knucklehead, and the rest of you whacked out conservatives can walk the plank right behind Paul. Stop blaming the unions for the problems that we are having. The unions built this country. I swear most of you need to go back to elementary school and retake American history 101, and stop listening to stupid Glenn Beck, & company.

The unions of the 30's and 40's built this country not the unions of today.

Bill, do not forget that in many states, the retirement/pension is as much as the union employees wages when they retire. States like California and New York are prime examples. It is more lucrative to retire than to work. What is going to happen when the states can not afford to pay for the pensions and benefits? Whether you liberals and union employees think it is great that you received all these raises, retirements, and benefits. The unions, like the democrats and the federal government, look in to the shorter future and not the extended future. The states and cities will be unable to meet the financial obligations of the pensions and retirements. It is estimated in the hundreds of billions and some studies in the trillions of dollars in unfunded retirement liabilities. What happens when the cities and states default and/or declare bankruptcy? Your unions and employees need to look at this. The retired union employees may end up with a lot less or no retirement pension and benefits. Does any one realize that this is partly what happened to the auto industry? Multiple raises with cost of living increases. Pensions are more than what many americans make in the workforce. When the pay, benefits, and retirements of the auto industry unionized workers kept going up a lot faster than the workers in other jobs in our countries, it made cars too expensive and most Americans can not afford brand new cars any more. The costs of the vehicles have to increase to pay for all of this. What will happen in the cities and states? Higher taxes and/or reduction in retirements and benefits. I can not understand why other people can not see this. I can only hope that when these cities and states are close to financial ruin, that the federal government and taxpayers will not bail them out. The cities, states, and unions need to pay the piper on this. The longer cities and states wait to deal with this, the worst it will be. The federal government also needs to understand this with our deficit, Social Security, Mediare, Medicaid and other issues facing our country.

At the root of all of this it is State and local governments that are the cause of the shortfall in their deficits and in order to deflect the incompetents that did it from blame they are using the unions as scapegoats. Arnold and the republicans in Calif were the first to beat this drum. Now all of the right wingers are jumping on this effort to further this cause and hopefully attain their goal of getting rid of Social Security so we can all work right up till we drop over and die making 3.85 an hour. When you have an obligation you are suppose to invest enough money to meet those obligations. Many many both public and private employees will reach the age of retirement because of the booler effect and right on time here comes the right wing stirring up dissent agains ensions so they do not have to pay the retirees . ... Wake up folks you are being fed a line againe and there is a hook at the end of it for you to bite on.

bill2you...Like you, I am ambivalent about trashing unions altogether. I am quite mouthy about unions that abuse or game the system. Unions are no longer productivity focused as once they might have been. Now, they are totally money focused and that's where the problems lie most. When you have people in a union and that union's sole purpose is to increase salaries beyond the ratio of the cost of living, that's an abuse.

The reality is that people have to learn to stop insisting on yearly salary increases. You can and should be able to live for 3 years on the same salary. And, by not doing that, it only invites further price gouging. With every pay increase a worker receives, the guy at the top has already figured out a way to get you to spend the increase. Either that or they lobby so that your taxes increase.

It seems you haven't had much exposure to that teacher, or any other one.

Go where there are no unions and you will find out they are very much needed.

I've been working for a long time and with all the laws protecting the worker today there is NO NEED for a union. All they do is suck the life out of companies and in this case the states.

JT, not sure where your going with your comment. True, my I only know of this teacher from what I have read and heard. But when she stands up and complains about the money she makes in the economy we're in she deserves eveything coming at her! Other teachers? What does that mean? please explain. I know a few teachers here in FL and I'm not impressed with all of them.

Why aren't teachers paid based on performance? Why aren't all union employees paid based on performance? Why would anyone want to be part of a union anyway? Give away your "hard earned" money to someone who you only see at the end of the contract? I knew plenty of union reps when I lived in MA and always wondered why the worker just got by and the union rep lived comfortably. Union workers are lazy and mindless...They do as their told. When and how to do it and they PAY for this. LMFAO!

SUCKERS

And you're the enemy of common sense!

BWIII-Most union members I know are paid on a performance based scale, if you don't perform up to snuff, you get laid off. And the union reps live comfortably because they get paid for forty hours a week every week. No seasonal layoffs, no layoffs due to lack of work. That said, the sheet metal workers union in my town(which I'm a member of) has started cutting the hours and pay of our reps. because there aren't enough guys working to merit their hours.

Joe, where? I would love to see examples of what you are talking about. I was in the union for a large company in Michigan. To my knowledge, there are no companies, cities, or states that pay the union employees on a performance based scale. The union contract pays the exact same wage for every worker on any job at the same level. Yes, there is different pay for different jobs. You were asked before to give examples. I like many others would like to see examples you pull off of the internet and not just taking your word for it.

You are clueless and just proved it with that silly post.

Union suck...They are not needed anymore. As for this teacher and complaining about the 80,00 she makes is all you need to know about the abusive unions. This woman deserves evey comment she gets for her outburst against the Gov.

Liberals are the enemy of the United States!

Joe...Obviously you don't live in NY or NJ. Just try to get rid of a teacher, cop or firefighter who has gone so far as to commit a crime. NJ only recently began to debate whether or not one of their golden boys should be allowed to collect their retirement while they were in prison. Can you imagine? These guys commit a crime and they are still owed something they never paid for in the first place.....their public union pensions. How much more insane does it need to get? We pay for three hots and a cot for these criminals out of taxpayer dollars, while Mr. System Gamer is considered "entitled" to his public worker pension paid for by ...taxpayers.

But, the part I detest most of all in NJ is how the gamers can work three municipal jobs and get three healthcare packages, three pensions and three salaries they piggyback so they can retire at age 55...courtesy of taxpayers. I believe this is another law in NJ that was just "restructured". That usually means there are enough loopholes so that all the gamers of the public system can help themselves...as usual.

Bill in Mill Creek: I am not rich, I am an attorney who is an expert in pensions and welfare benefit plans. There are no free lunches. 40% of the people in this country pay no income tax. 5% pay over 50% of the taxes. The wealthy pay a truly stunning amount of tax, and there are virtually no exceptions. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been misguided. the wealthiest Americans do pay the bulk of the individual income taxes collected in the U.S. The statistics are complex and I am sure that we can do something about the tax system in America. But this constant drumbeat that the rich and the not so rich do not pay their fair share of taxes is not supported by reality. The people who get hammered are those who make between $70,000 and $250,000. Many in this group are primarily small businessmen who generate most of the jobs in this country.

Sorry to break it to you Bill, Democrat President Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress gave the rich the extended tax cuts.

They could have shown leadership and stood their ground, but like most politicians, they got what they wanted in the deal and showed you and all the fools who voted for them they they are bought and paid for, friends of the uber wealthy, and if you do your homework, your little libbie leaders are richer than their Republican counterparts.

You say Bill Gates is sticking it to the poor? Do you truly know what Mr and Mrs. Gates pay in taxes and how much they give to improve the people of the world? Clearly, you don't!

Bill Gates worked to get what he has and now makes more than any of us can imagine, still, he spends more to improve the human condition than any of us can imagine. Don't just spout off, get the facts first.

Aaron: You are right one one point. the people that get hammered are the middle class. But your statements about the rich are absurd. the capital gains tax where most giant money is made is only 15%. Oil companies get billions tax free from the "Oil Depletion Allowance".

Our 4 biggest banks have 8 billion in assets and get billions in 0% loans. The big rich are raping the middle class and the government helps them every way possible. They even passed a law making it illegal for poor elderly to buy drugs out of Canada for greatly reduced prices. There is nothing these pigs want do and the are wrecking our country.

"The wealthy pay a truly stunning amount of tax"

No. Almost everyone pays about 40% of their income in various total taxes with the very top and the very bottom getting off a bit lighter.

That the top % are paying a higher share of federal income tax (NOT "TAXES", federal income tax) isn't proof of how put upon the wealthy are and how the rest of us are freeloaders. It's proof of the wealth redistribution into the hands of the rich that's been ongoing since Reagan began to tilt the game in the wealthy's favor years ago and how the Republican revolution has continued that to this day.

Americans need to straighten up ... fast.

Our government has been srewing us for many years. THEY HAVE FAILED!

Aaron-822126

You are dead wrong. For your information, I'm in the $500,000 to $1,000,000 income bracket and if I took all the deductions allowed, I would pay zip in taxes on my income, zero, nothing. But I'm an American that see's it's my duty to pay my fair share. Just like my duty in Special Forces while you were in lawschool, or in diapers.

So, you say 40% of this country do not pay any taxes? Prove it! Where do you get your data!? What kills me is you are an attorney claiming to be an expert.

T Thelen

Yes, I said Bill Gates. Aside from the fact that he is arguable the biggest giver in the world, have you seen his auto collection? I have because I used to work for him. Yes, he's a nice guy, but he hardly needs a tax break. In addition, he didn't "work" to get where he's at. I was there and here is how he made his money:

They would see a small company that makes a great little application that Microsoft wants to buy. Then Microsoft would make this small company an offer that states exactly this "$XXXXXX is our offer and if you refuse the offer, we'll make a similar product, provide it for free and leave you with nothing".

That was until they were found guilty of antitrust laws. Yep, they were found guilty.

Aaron, how can the wealthy pay the bulk of the taxes. When there are more middle class workers than rich people in this country?

Here's a question for everyone here. How much money is too much money for one person/family to have? I'd like to see the responses.

Bill in Mill Creek.....Aaron said " no income taxes", and even the Ultra-Leftwing Huffington Post has an article on it....In fact the real number is 47%....not 40%.

"The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners – households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 – paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.

The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/07/income-tax-47-of-american_n_529059.html

Joe48+.....Let's start out with your number...you tell us in your plan how much someone should be "allowed" to have.

Joe, whatever they make they deserve!!! That is the bottom line. My wife and I are far from being rich, making around $100,000 per year, combined. Most of these people have worked their butts off to get their money. It is pathetic and sad that other people think they deserve part of the wealthy Americans money. How can any rational person think it is ok to take 50% or more of any persons money? How would any of you like to work for 6 months out of the year for nothing? I can not believe that any of you liberals would like this. The top 2 percent of wage earners pay over 40% of the federal income tax. Over 40% of Americans pay ZERO income tax and many receive the earned income tax credit and get a refund. How is this fair? For all of you doubters, read this.

http://www.hpe.com/view/full_story/10723018/article-YOUR-VIEW--America%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98wealthy%E2%80%99-pay-plenty-in-income-taxes?instance=main_article

It is inherently wrong and would turn our forefathers stomachs to see you crying and whining liberals thinks you have a right to take other peoples money and give to to others. It would turn our forefathers stomachs to see our federal government bail out companies and take them over. This is pure and simple socialism. Is what the liberals want any different than Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? No!! This is partly what our forefathers fought against over 200 years ago. The democrats stand for nothing more than redistribution of wealth. Taking for the earners and giving to people that would rather sit on their couch, do nothing, and take other peoples money. WE HAVE NO RIGHTS TO OTHER PEOPLES MONEY!!! We need to earn it ourselves. There should not be any deductions for income taxes. NONE!! Everyone pays something in income tax.

Isn't it the liberals that want to take care of all the people that Do NOT work!!!

Income redistribution only goes one way today, up. The profit motive unrestrained creates a one way flow. It is simple enough logic to me, you take more you pay more. I don't pay income taxes, having made less than 40g in my life. All the monies that I COULD have paid taxes on went to the wealth as profit. In the meantime, my property tax goes up unconnected to anything except the need for government to raise reavenues the rich are accumulating. When the rich % control 90% of the money and the economy it is quite obvious what the problem is for workers. Bill Gates could pay 99% taxes and still be quite wealthy by any grounded standard. I'm not saying that he should pay that rate. I'm saying that his rate should be higher than it is now. Or the Bill Gateses of the country could take less (Optimizing instead of maximizing) pay more and not be liable for the taxes on their overage. This country enabled the rich. It is time they developed some moral courage and helped someone besides themselves with other than charity grandstanding. (I smell a rat in the Gates/Buffet donation pleas.)

Joe...the problem isn't how much someone earns...It's how much MORE they want to earn. It's not a bad thing to want to earn a higher salary. No one is saying that. What most people don't get is that expectations of grandeur set in the minute a guy earns that first million. So, that's not enough...then the next tens of millions aren't...nor the next hundred million. Sorry, that's greed pure and simple.

The question isn't how much should someone earn....The question is how much do they need to live comfortably? I laugh my ass off at those who say $90,000 isn't enough to live on. Why? Because they have aspirations of grandeur? Or they need 2 more BMWs? Or McWifie has to have a million dollar wedding for McDaughter? When I see people spending $100,000 on orchids exported from South America for a GD wedding I want to retch. That $100,000 could feed a family for 3 years.

It's the extravagances that overdulged a generation of young people who believe life without a cell phone is akin to hermitage. The Gravy Train is over. A lot of young people are angry that it is...kind of like taking the lollipops away from them because their teeth are rotting.

ewent...I know, like that $3-$5 Million that Bill Clinton's McWifey spent on Chelsea's wedding.....Could have fed 100 to 166 families for 3 years with that amount of money.....

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/07/27/2010-07-27_chelsea_clintons_lavish_starstudded_ceremony_will_cost_between_3_million_and_5_m.html

On the plus side, Bill and Hillary Clinton can afford it. Between 2000 and 2007 they earned a reported $109 million.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2010/07/27/2010-07-27_chelsea_clintons_lavish_starstudded_ceremony_will_cost_between_3_million_and_5_m.html#ixzz19uoo0oGR

Oh yeah...and one of them gets a Government Paycheck and the other one gets a Government Pension/Retirement check and they both have the best health insurance available on the Planet....is that double-dipping ???

Michelle Obama's personnel staff cost taxpayers $1.75 million per year

http://www.examiner.com/county-political-buzz-in-san-diego/michelle-obama-s-personnel-staff-cost-taxpayers-1-75-million-per-year

Desiree Rogers Stages One Party Every Three Days In First Year of Obama Reign

http://washingtonalert.org/2010/01/desiree-rogers-stages-one-party-every-three-days-in-first-year-of-obama-reign/

March thru August 2010-5 vacations in 5 months!

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation!

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/04/michelle-obama-sasha-on-lavish-vacation-while-president-turns-4/

President and family on multi-million dollar Christmas vacation in Hawaii

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/12/president-and-family-multi-million-dollar-christmas-vacation-hawa

I wonder why those Democrats get so rich while in office?

Look at the pension theivery that went on in Milwaukee County a couple of years back, phew, something stinks...

Aaron....Right...and then Mr. McGreedhead Actuary decides that his commission isn't sufficient so he slimes a little here and scams a little there...and what do we get then? Madoff.

Medicare is not a Ponzi scheme because people benefit from it. Not one single person. Madoff is King of Ponzi schemes. He got it all and the people got zip. Nice try though.

No one trusts Wall Street to be honorable and do the right thing anymore. Anyone who is dumb enough to believe Madoff pulled off a 17 year old Ponzi scheme all by himself is a nut job. Where did he keep that $65 billion? In his mattress? Or did he get help from his "associates" at the SEC? At banks around the globe and in the US?

We should also remember that big corporations stole the hard earned pensions of millions. The low life thieves got away with that and began to steal the country blind. Themiddle and working class are not destroying America. Big corporations, wall street, banking and their government is the gang that's destroying our country.

You got that right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who do you think help the republicans get back into office with all their money!

Unions anymore are just a fund raising arm of the democratic party. Take from the workers give to the lying politicians for favors. Ain't it wonderful.

I find the claim you have friends in public service dubious.

Hell, I find the claim you have friends at all dubious.

So you work in city waste water treatment plant eh? I think you have eaten enough sh!t it's gone to your brain. Keep doing it until you are seventy!

cascadia...Is that because all public workers are like a brotherhood instead of a professional employment environment? Find me a single town hall that doesn't have at least 2 generations working together and I'd bet anything it's a public worker union with a clique attitude.

roc.....YOU are Right!!! I know how it is, also!

Just look at what the SEC was doing while Fannie And Freddie bled us to death!!

SEC Workers Spent Hours At Work Watching Online Porn

http://www.cio.com/article/591836/SEC_Workers_Spent_Hours_At_Work_Watching_Online_Porn

"""""Seventeen investigations involved senior SEC staffers earning between $100,000 and $222,000 annually.

Kotz's report lists several instances where SEC employees spent several hours daily on porn. One such case involved a senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters who sometimes spent eight hours a day surfing pornographic sites and downloading explicit images. The attorney apparently downloaded so much porn that he filled up all the available space on his government-issued computer. He then downloaded more images onto personal CDs and DVDs, which he stored in boxes in his office.""""""

NO ONE was fired!!! Just LOOK at the "reprimands" they received!!! 1 and 3 day suspensions, keeping all their wages, benefits watching porn instead doing their jobs!!

SEC porn peekers at work confess

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/26/sec-porn-peekers-at-work-confess/

""""The Times previously reported that some workers caught viewing porn, often for weeks or months at a time, were allowed to stay on the job. One SEC employee who attempted to look up pornography more than 400 times received a three-day suspension. Another employee who looked up porn 271 times received a one-day suspension, records show.""""

Shh, you're using facts, logic, and reasoning here. If you haven't gotten by reading the messages on this board there is only one answer to everything: Unions are the cause of every problem in the world, and the only answer is a libertarian free market society in which everything is privatized so that we can all choose the best schools, police, fire department, roads, military, everything... assuming they don't do what corporations do and that is M&A their way into a monopoly or near monopoly.

Oh, wait.... they do.

We wouldn't have the America we have today without Unions and socialistic principles. I really wish people would come to understand this.

It is easy to make a case using half of the story. Do you have any real working knowledge of the German economy? If so, you know that you are leaving out their flatlining productivity due to union limits, ever expanding time off. Nothing can be done, their population is aging as ours is, and so their long-term outlook is not promising.

There are structural problems with both liberal and not so liberal economies. Some are doing better than others right now, but make no mistake, using old ideas or past models will not work, as our pool of productive workers will be shrinking while a larger % of our population begins retirement, making this current economic downturn all the more troubling.

There is no example in our nations history of raising taxes creating prosperity - and please don't start with the dimwitted half-truths of the Clinton years. Tell the whole story and you see raising taxes was the one bad thing that happened.

If you really doubt this - explain how giving our government, with decades of history showing that they will overspend during the good and bad times, will produce anything but slow or no growth, an ever decreasing economic basis, and a larger and larger dependent class?

Has your 7 decades or so of public education gotten better or worse in the past 20 years? How about welfare - are there less or more people dependent today? How about anything the government does - from monitoring off-shore drilling to maintaining streets and highways to giving millions to terrorists (or was it billions that was "misplaced" in Iraq and Afghanistan?)

History has shown us beyond argument that our only hope is a smaller government.

Yes, the Germans have problems; But, they are in much better shape than us for one simple reason: Their Ceos only make about 30 times the average worker and distribution of income is much fairer than here. Also, they have labor represented on their board s of directors. In short, they show a little respect for each other and have a sense of community. We have abandoned that and all bow to the rich.

My experience of smaller government is that, yes, fewer people work for the entity, but they are frighteningly incompetent, they ,usually let power go to their head, and, they line their pockets with bribes and other corruptions. Give me the good government of a city like NYC where people do their jobs, and get paid a decent wage, based upon their competency, not who their daddy and mommy are, or was it Uncle Joe, who placed a nephew as a favor, or threw out that traffic ticket??

Don't forget that NY only gets back $0.80 out of every dollar put in the federal coffers. We are starting at a loss.

When you give 20% of your money to other states, you struggle to keep your own in the black.

Amen LoisB! Don't know about other county or municipal workers, but those of us in Michigan are far from overpaid!. I work for a county road commission and make a yearly wage in the mid 30k range..I'm far from over paid! And I'm proud to be a Teamster, If it wasn't for being Union we'd be paid half what we make now like those in Indiana. We recently agreed to a pay freeze, and had no problem doing so in light of the economy and the mess Michigan is in.

George -- simple Logic --- its called supply and demand !! the unions kill this FAIR concept that the capitalist system of the good old USA was based on.

I am a county employee in Wyoming. We have not had a raise in two and a half years and don't expect one in the next several years. Local governments cannot borrow money without a public vote and we must balance our budget each year. Some department heads actually got a 5% pay cut.

After the Orange County CA bankruptcy our state passed a law that placed our retirement funds and 457 funds into a trust so the state couldn't get there hands on our money. This year the state legislature raised the contirbution to this defined benefit plan to 14.2%. The state pays half and the employee pays half of the increase.

We used to contribute 1/2 to the retirement fund, but after the county hadn't given the employees a pay raise in 4 years they agreed to pay our 5.6% share. It was cheaper than paying wages since they did n't have to pay social security taxes on the retirement contribution.

Yea, I'm sure you're right, that was obama's plan................

forrestoak - You are wrong - Zontar is correct. Proof below.

http://articles.cnn.com/2007-04-10/us/controller.fatigue_1_controllers-doug-church-work-overtime?_s=PM:US
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/02/chicago-air-traffic-contr_n_225243.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1735387,00.html

product of the US education system !!!

you understand that private education will be funded with public dollars and would be as large as the public system that we have today.

Mandate sounds a lot like larger government who will pay for this?

What will be lost?

you are Snead,look what happen to the workers at OTB, those workers were laid off after being on the jobs for 30 years or more. Did the Union fight for them, to me no, not as much as they were suppose to. they were laid off right before Christmas. The workers have familes,and Bills just like the rest of us.

It doesn't matter how long you have done something, or what time of year it is. If the guys paying the bills are losing money on what you do, you are not going to be around very long; as it should be.

It is pretty simple on why jobs are going overseas. Part of it is union and salaried wages. Part of it is the cost of litigating to get rid of poor performers in the union. e.g. California where teachers spend time every day in a room playing games and reading newspapers and books because the school system can not get rid of them for a variety of reasons. Part of it is rules, regulations, laws, environmental zealots, and our second to the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Only behind Japan. When will any of you see that higher taxes causes less business, less jobs, less money? This is so simple. Why do any of you think that California, New York, and liberal states are in so much trouble? They have raised their taxes to pay for their out of control spending. Businesses and people move out of the state because of the high taxes, rules, and regulations to set up in another state or country that does not force this on them. You can not use an excuse that other countries do not have a safe environement and safety. Whether you like it or not, America has made it easy and made it essential that companies move to other countries. If it costs an American company $1 to make a part and other countries 25 cents. How long will the American company stay in business, unless they move overseas? Buy American is a cheap term and sounds good, but does not work. There is a valley in California that has an unemployment rate of over 40% because they can no longer get water. Why? To save a stinking sardine. The water the valley needs is now sent directly in to the ocean, being wasted, just to save a fish. We mandate things that sound fantastic, but do not understand the consequences. We think it is fantastic to take 50% or more from the wealthy in income tax, but do not care of the results. How would any one of you like to work 6 months or more out of every year for free? This is what the liberals are asking of the wealthy. The same ones that spend billions of dollars in our taxpayer money for perks and do not have to claim any on their income taxes. What about the estate tax that the dems and liberals want at 50% or higher? How many businesses and farms are sold because of the taxes? Our governments are way to huge and need to be cut.

Yes, blame it on people that don't want to work for slave wages, people wanting regulations to control what companies do to communities and our environment. Blame it on good worker's rights, labor conditions, environmental regulations, and the standards that make us live in a First World Country We did not have regulations in the late 20 Century and the beginning of the industrial revolution. Companies threw toxic waste into our water supply, they raped the surrounding environment. China is dealing with this issue now because of their non-existent regulations. All their major water ways are dangerous polluted, some of their lakes catch on fire. Unions were needed because of the horrible treatment of workers with robber Barons. We see it happening again with companies like Wal-mart with their employees.

The fact is we traded our good paying jobs for horrible trade agreements that made the rich richer and killed our middle class. I agree with our corporate taxes and capital gains. However, everything else. If you want companies polluting our environment and working for slave wages, GO LIVE IN CHINA. You will fit in pretty well there..

many of you have lots of blame to share but no solutions just fear and sound bits.

How many days do you work, oh yea, around 135 per year.........Sick days, holidays, vacation days. all of the various types of leave, all the other time off, yep, sounds really tough.

Perfect example of the whiny union teacher perspective. I am 51, have been self employed much of my life and have not had more than 1 week off in more than 10 years. My choice, no whining.

God forbid your greedy union negotiate for adequate supplies - you are all too damn greedy, insisting on all the extra days off, your nice benefits package and retirement.

Most Americans have NO retirement, no guaranteed benefits, and would love to suffer through 7 weeks of vacation.

And if all you teachers and administrators are so "educated" that you can't figure out how to pay for paper and pencils, it really says a lot, as at least here in CA education is the largest budget item in our state.

Sorry dude, you really don't get it at all, and you and your ilk are exactly who we are sick and tired of - blaming, whining and selfishness instead of creativity would equal a big FAIL in the private sector.

Hey Paul, maybe if you would have gotten a education instead of believing getting to the right grade was enough you would have been able to get a decent job. Want to see some real thieves? Check out some trades that charge a hundred plus an hour for shoddy work that fails in a matter of months.

I am not whining about my job.... I am whining about pathetic uneducated morons like you who blame me for a life you have chosen! I became a teacher before I ever even heard of what a benefit was.... private sectors start with benefits.... I learned about mine 45 days in maybe.... stop blaming me for your life choice.

A teacher referring to someone as uneducated is a little funny, don't you think? Most teachers (at every level) aren't the sharpest tools in the drawer, that is why they are teachers and not engineers, physicians, or dare I say, attorneys.

Let's see, where I am at the teachers get from June to September off on summer vacation and yes, every few years need to take some classes. They get almost two weeks off for Xmas vacation. One week off for spring break. This also does not include their paid vacation and sick leave. Not sure how you get much sympathy from other people that work 50 or 60 hours a week, like myself and only too two weeks vacation and sick leave off for the whole year in 2010.

I recently heard the states, especially with Republican governors, will demand public employee unions, to renegotiate contracts. The objective is, to prevent the states from filing "bankruptcy." The plan is to first, break the unions. And then take all the union benefits away. Everything from health insurance, to retirement!

I foolishly thought the government would wait at least until January 3rd, but I forgot with whom we are dealing.

President Obama, hit the middle class, with his freezing of the government employees, pay raises for the next three years. I know, my wages had been frozen, by my employer, for three years all ready. I am not even a government employee. I was able to retire this year but, I also received a letter (from the government) , stating, my retirement benefit would stay the same, this year. Apparently, the cost of living, remained the same. I wonder what country they were talking about.

At any rate, it is the goal, of the state governors, to break the unions, thus decreasing the middle class, even further and make those wealthy 2%, even wealthier.

Does anyone know, of a nice guy, with lots of money, who would like to meet, a retired nurse. I have no money but I am still able to preform nursing duties. And I do give a mean enema, if I do say so myself.

I guess I'll go rest now. I am so demoralized, I am thinking of taking up drinking. Most likely I will not be able to afford alcohol either. Well, I could hang around gas stations and smell the fumes. Not now though, I have a headache. Maybe some Tylenol....