primitives discuss New Jersey Democrats cutting benefits

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1355018

Oh my.

marmar  (1000+ posts)        Fri Jun-24-11 07:44 AM
Original message
 
New Jersey State Assembly (yep, controlled by Dems) moves to cut benefits for public workers 
 
from the NY Times:

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

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

In a statement released after the vote, Mr. Christie said, “We are putting the people first and daring to touch the third rail of politics in order to bring reform to an unsustainable system.”

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

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/nyregion/nj-legislatu...

no_hypocrisy  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jun-24-11 07:54 AM
Response to Original message

2. It's worse than the article describes.

More money will be taken out of the salaries of public school teachers and it WON'T be applied to their pensions. The money has been redirected to deficit spending, not their retirement funds. The State has not paid into their pension funds for more than 15 years. That's right, public school teachers have been taxed TWICE by their collectively bargained pension funds having been applied to the general revenue to pay general expenses of the State. When they retire, the money won't be there. And now MORE money will be taken away from them and NOT applied to their pensions.

[dandi]

no_hypocrisy  (1000+ posts)      Fri Jun-24-11 07:54 AM
Response to Original message

2. It's worse than the article describes.

More money will be taken out of the salaries of public school teachers and it WON'T be applied to their pensions. The money has been redirected to deficit spending, not their retirement funds. The State has not paid into their pension funds for more than 15 years. That's right, public school teachers have been taxed TWICE by their collectively bargained pension funds having been applied to the general revenue to pay general expenses of the State. When they retire, the money won't be there. And now MORE money will be taken away from them and NOT applied to their pensions.

And who, exactly, ran New Jersey for all of those years?