FoxPolitics.net - Appleton, WI News - What's really going on in the Fox Cities

FoxPolitics.net Blogs

FoxPolitics News

Local/State Govt Links

Salaries

• Appleton School District, 2007-08
• City of Appleton
• Town of Grand Chute
• City of Menasha
• City of Neenah

Candidates

City of Appleton

• Elected Officials
• Salary Watch
• Directory
• Mtg. Agendas/Minutes

Advisory Board

Blogroll

Selected News Sources:
Business Jrnl of Milw
Christian Science Monitor
Daily Caller
Drudge Report
La Crosse Tribune
Milw Journal Sentinel
National Journal
New York Times
Public Policy Forum
Real Clear Politics
Stateline
The Hill
TPM
Washington Examiner
Washington Post
Washington Times
WI State Journal
Selected Blogs - from the Right:
American Mind
Blaska's Blog
Boots & Sabers
Charlie Sykes
Dad29
Freedom Eden
Heritage Foundation
Jerry Bader Blog
Life Voice
Marketplace of Ideas
Marquette Warrior
Natl Review Online
No Runny Eggs
Patrick McIlheran
Real Debate Wisconson
RedState
Rhymes with Clown
Shark and Shepherd
The Lote Tree
Vox Populi
Wall Street Jrnl, Opinions
WI State Jrnl, Opinion
Wigderson Library & Pub
Wisconsin Family Voice
WPRI
Selected Blogs - from the Left:
Big Money Blog
Blogging Blue
Brenda Konkel
Caffeinated Politics
Capital Times
FightingBob
Folkbum's rambles
Griper Blade
Huffington Post
Lost Albatross
MAL Contends
Mid coast views
Moneyed Politicians
One Wisconsin Now
Open Left
Playground Politics
Political Environment
Rock Netroots
Talk to Tony
Uppity Wisconsin
Waxing America

Today's Blog: Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie
My husband and I and a couple hundred friends watched in Green Bay as ...(more)

Search Archives

Blogs

Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie (6/28/2011)

Time for Gov. Walker to talk more about the cake (3/4/2011)

Today, reality hits home (3/1/2011)

FoxPolitics News going on hiatus (1/28/2011)

Brown County Executive candidate forum Feb. 8 (1/28/2011)

Education done right (1/27/2011)

To Obama, the ‘We’ is Government (1/27/2011)

(more)

5/28/2010
Will you vote for courage – or fairness?

Mona Charen helps me extend my ‘courage’ meme today, commenting on the Chris Christie video clip up and running lots of places (including FP) yesterday. Charen points out that the Christie exchange with a teacher highlighted a political opportunity for Republicans.

Fairness.

You recall that a New Jersey teacher ranted to Gov. Christie that she should be paid $83,000, only reasonable in light of her “education and experience.” Christie’s reply brought hand-clapping in the audience: “Well, you know what?” said Christie. “Then you don’t have to do it.”

Charen:

First, the problem: How can smaller-government Republicans win elections when more and more Americans are receiving government benefits while fewer and fewer are paying taxes? In 2010, 47 percent of Americans paid no income taxes at all. Among those who do pay, most pay comparatively little.

…. But as Christie is demonstrating, voters are open to a new fairness argument. Whereas Barack Obama and his party invoke “fairness” as a license to take property from productive people and transfer it to the unproductive, Christie is inviting voters to consider the unfairness of our current arrangement, in which government employees enjoy better salaries and benefits than private-sector employees. As economic historian John Steele Gordon points out, “Federal workers now earn, in wages and benefits, about twice what their private-sector equivalents get paid. State workers often have Cadillac health plans and retirement benefits far above the private sector average: 80 percent of public-sector workers have pension benefits, only 50 percent in the private sector. Many can retire at age 50.”

Christie spelled it out:
A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing — yes, nothing — for full family medical, dental, and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime. Is it "fair" for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess? [Is it] fair to have New Jersey taxpayers foot the bill for 100 percent of the health-insurance costs of teachers and their families from the day they are hired until the day they die? Is it fair that teachers have a better, richer health plan than even state workers and pay absolutely nothing for it?

Christie’s response to the teacher in the town hall meeting, via the extended YouTube piece includes this attempt to reach “fair” with the New Jersey teachers union.

What I’m saying is in times of economic crisis, this whole argument is over the fact that I asked people to not take a raise for a year and to pay 1 ½% of their salary towards their benefits – and your union is saying that that is the greatest assault on public education in the history of this state. That’s why the union has no credibility. Stupid statements like that.

It will take courage for our representatives to vote for fairness. If talking about fairness is what works, I’m all for continuing this discussion.

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net

COMMENTS

Kind of ironic that unions came into existence to protect workers from unfair compensation and abuse - and that today it is necessary to call on fairness (otherwise known as justice) to protect taxpayers from the unions.

How wide the pendulum swings!

Andrew Ellis (Fri May 28 08:27:25 2010)

Look, we have greed on both sides. Union leaders have only one thing in mind: to make themselves look good and protect their jobs. They very often demand too much, and then get it, thus driving jobs offshore.

But I cannot forgive the greed of the CEOs who rape the system far worse and are the decision-makers in sending those jobs offshore, where wages are 1/10th ours. And then they complain when they have to pay the bulk of taxes on their gigantic stash, often seeking offshore tax havens.

Some day they'll tire of counting their increasing dollars and themselves move offshore, leaving the country pilfered and in ruins. That's what we call unfettered capitalism.

Billie said it best: "I never thought I would see the day when the result of hard work would be the demise of the American middle class."

Jack Lohman (Fri May 28 08:46:46 2010)

Billions and trillions lost/stolen in the recent meltdown due to corporate greed and we pick on teachers? I think it is time that everyone sacrifices and that also includes public employees. But, it is lots easier to pick on an individual (teacher)for a relatively small amount than to fathom the trillions. That's why Ronald Reagan's "welfare Cadillac" woman though totally false played so well politically. We find it easier to attack our (comprehensible) neighbor than we do the real (complicated and diffuse) problems. And, yes, this is the death of the American middle class and when many people begin to realize that the deck is stacked, no matter how hard they work and no matter how smart they are, the tide of the country is against them being rewarded, watch out. We are starting to see that now but this is the first wave, the general unhappiness that is directed against the "other guy".

dave allen (Fri May 28 12:24:18 2010)

Jack

I knew it was too good to last, one day of agreement, and there you go again. As I have repeatedly pointed out, we do NOT have unfettered capitalism here, but a system of corporate welfare and crony capitalism that favors the rich and powerful. AND a Federal REserve system that steals wealth by creating dollars into existence to the benefit of large corporations, governments, and their preferred special interests.

IF we were to make the US a more appealing, more profitable place to do business, more businesses and more investors would stay here. The real cost of government is right around 2 of every 3 dollars in our economy right now. That means that goods and services must be more expensive to pay these costs. Cut government in half, and you effectively take home twice as much. The effects of these policies are not evenly distributed. Often the poor and middle class who have less ability to shelter their investments, have less wherewithal to move if things get really bad are hurt the worst. In one way, because government rules and regulations and taxes increase costs to the point that low paying jobs are not profitable for the employer, and cease to exist. It does no good to preach a philosophy of envy. I do not want what the rich have earned, I just want a more level playing field, and the ability to keep what I have earned.

Greed of those who want to soak the rich is just as evil, just as destructive a cancer as the evil you portray. Greed and envy, even if not especially of the have-nots IS destroying us. Under the system that is evolving, the rich who create many jobs will either be destroyed or wisely vote with their feet, leaving us even poorer either way. I refer here to the productive rich, not the money manipulators who create wealth out of thin air, upset markets, cause booms and busts, stealing wealth with a proverbial printing press.

Ken Van Doren (Fri May 28 12:29:11 2010)

****In one way, because government rules and regulations and taxes increase costs to the point that low paying jobs are not profitable for the employer, and cease to exist. It does no good to preach a philosophy of envy****

Good post, Ken.

I can't figure out why everyone doesn't know that government is at the bottom of our failing country. They mandate law after law, willy-nilly with no apparent regard as to what the end result will be.

When you get $600 toilet seats those seats are mandated to just about be able to survive a nuclear war. Of course, there's probably earmarks or pay-offs that go into it, too.

The solution to a government-caused problem is not to haul in more government. That is self-defeating and could be described as the definition of insanity.

Government employees (that includes teachers) receive way too much in health care and retirement anyhow.

They still demand they receive raises and pay no health care costs when the country and individual states are still in economic trouble.

Government people are supposed to be servants of the people, after all we pay their salaries. They aren't getting that money from Uncle Sugar because Uncle has no money. The money they distribute with such a lavish hand comes from the people.

C. R. Stevenson (Fri May 28 13:13:12 2010)

I have yet to see the waste, fraud and corruption in "government" as I see in private industry. It's just that in private industry it ignored and companies go out of business. No, there isn't a perfect or pure system. It takes a change in psychology and spirit.

dave allen (Fri May 28 18:13:50 2010)

Ken, I am so, so sorry that you have to "repeatedly point out" how stupid I am. Problem is, you are a libertarian and I am a pragmatist. We will never agree. Don't even try.

Cut government in half? I agree. Go ahead, be my guest.

Often the poor and middle class ... have less ability to shelter their investments??? Uh, what investments?

You need to get real.

Jack Lohman (Fri May 28 19:30:01 2010)

Why do we always look at public employees when times get tough? I myself am a public employee in the fox valley; I make a good wage have good benefits. I took my current position in 1996 my starting wage was $10.75/hour I pass on a job at a local paper mill that would have paid $19.00/hour. Back then no one was complaining about my wage or saying the public employees need to make more. That’s when the unions were thinking ahead and did the smart thing, instead of asking for big raises like the private sector when times are good we took 3% and very modest increases in insurance premiums. Know that times are bad people forget about their double digit increases in the 90’s when they should have been worried about pensions and insurances, but they all want the big pay check.

Why do people say we are servants of the public and taxpayers pay are wage, that would be like me going to buy a new car and telling the sales person I pay your wage you should take a pay cut so I don’t have to spend so much money on the car. By the way I work at a water plant you pay my wage by turning your water tap on if you don’t want to pay me don't turn it on.

joe (Sun May 30 10:40:23 2010)

Post a Reply

Print this Article

Email Article to a Friend