The End Of The "We Pay Taxes Too" Argument?

You ever get that argument from the teachers, or town, or state workers, that they pay taxes too? Like that makes everything "equal?"

Well yes, you public sector workers do pay taxes.  But we pay the same taxes as you do.  And we pay for most of your retirement, and most of your insurance benefits.  But we are also paying for most of our own retirement, and most of our own benefits on top of paying for your salary and your benefits.

So if public sector employees are genuinely interested in making a parity argument, where the cost paid by each and every working family are as close to equal as the statement "we pay taxes too" implies, then public sector workers either need to start writing each of us a check for the same percentage of our private sector retirement and insurance benefits costs as we pay for theirs. or they can just start paying for more of their own until we achieve some kind of cost equality. 

Until then it can never be equal.  We will always be paying the same taxes, plus the cost of our own retirement and benefits--which (by the way) you public sector employees and your unions have made quite clear we need to support along with raise increases regardless of the economy or our incomes--which means we may have to give up adding to our own retirements so you can keep your sweet deal.

In fact.  The only way there could ever be "equality" is if  state or town workers paid for their own retirement and benefits, out of their pay check, just like we do.   Most of you guys have the unions to represent you.  Have them go work out a deal with private 401K providers and insurers like every other business owner or private citizen does.  That would make the "we pay taxes too argument" almost reasonable.

So to sum up, in case you just can't follow, unlike your tax bill,  my tax bill does not come with a living wage, a pension I can collect for decades and benefits during and after employment.  My tax bill just comes with a due date.

By the way, I'm just as happy to take cash for your share of the cost of my retirement and benefits.  It doesn't have to be a check. 

Cross posted

Union Thuggery -Coming Soon To A State House near You.

I was just thinking back to all the loose talk from the left about ending the gun ban in the New Hampshire State House.  How they imagined someone just unloading over testimony supporting same sex marriage--to use one example--kids getting cut down in the cross-fire.  And how they fell over themselves trying to scare parents into keeping their children from ever visiting the place because it was now just too dangerous.

Then I look at the way the union run leftists in Wisconsin are acting.  How they are storming the state house, climbing in through windows, and forcing people to flee for fear of their well being.  These pro-union forces are pushing against state troopers trying to get past them.  Maybe being let in by union cops.  Just because they demand the ability to collectively bargain for benefits (not wages--they still have that privilege as far as I know.)

What is perhaps more instructive is that the left in New Hampshire supports them.  I'd bet money you will not hear a peep in opposition to any of this from the state leadership of the democrat party.  Nothing about State Senators running away like spoiled children.  Nothing about the hate speech, the Hitler signs, the threats or the aggressive mob tactics and intimidation.  They support that--and by their own rules support it through their silence.

So what of it?

America gets to watch the new civility--again.  And this is good.  This is how leftists work.  Elections only matter when they win them.  Democracy is only important when it servers their left wing needs.  Owning the cogs of public service, from education, to public safety, to the boards and bureaucrats, to the halls of political influence, all through a coordination of unions, is not about rights or benefits.  It is about power.  And it is little different than that of dictatorship where a few strongmen, through fear and intimidation, mandate politics and policy for the majority. Because when the people charged with public safety pay dues to the same people who order protesters to storm a state house, there is no longer any guarantee of public safety.

There is no guarantee of an education, a fire rescue, or that the bureaucracy will function when you need it.  The unions, it appears, can stop it with a phone call.

So while these people get paid by you, they obviously do not work for you.

The people running your state are not the voters, or the elected officials, they are union bosses who are not afraid to scare you, your politicians, or anyone else into silence and inaction.  What is going on in Wisconsin is the progressive agenda.  It is mobocracy.  And if you let it succeed there, your ability to act against their will shall be diminished because they will make the same phone call in your state, or town, or village.

It is not about safety, or education, or rights.  It is about union power defining all of these things for you, at your expense.

This is sometimes referred to as extortion.  Your children, your safety, and your government are being used against you to extort more money from you.

So how do you feel about that?

Cross Posted

Who Voted Against HB 474? The Right to Work Bill

You can probably guess who voted against HB 474.  Democrats.  In fact not one single Democrat voted for it. But they are not beholden to the unions.  Nah.

The Final Roll Call was 221 for, 131 against.  My original post, with a margin of 221 to 121 was incorrect, (which means I need to find a second tweet source in the House for verification purposes.)

Of those voting no 40 were Republicans.  Of those not voting, 11 were democrats and 36 were Republican.  So while a veto is promised, an override is still very possible.

But is it likley?

The Republicans can't just hope the entire caucus shows up, they need to flip a chunk of those 40 Republicans to make this happen.  But can they herd cats like the left?

We'll probably get to find out.

Until then, here are the lists of those Republicans who voted no, and those who did not vote. (on the jump.)

Voted No

Bolster, Peter	Republican	Belknap	5	Nay
Brownrigg, Randall	Republican	Hillsborough	27	Nay
Buxton, Michael	Republican	Hillsborough	24	Nay
Case, Frank	Republican	Rockingham	1	Nay
Chirichiello, Brian	Republican	Rockingham	5	Nay
Copeland, Timothy	Republican	Rockingham	13	Nay
Day, Russell	Republican	Hillsborough	7	Nay
Devine, James	Republican	Rockingham	7	Nay
Dowling, Patricia	Republican	Rockingham	5	Nay
Dwinell, Richard	Republican	Cheshire	5	Nay
Ferrante, Beverly	Republican	Rockingham	5	Nay
Gonzalez, Carlos	Republican	Hillsborough	17	Nay
Gould, Kenneth	Republican	Rockingham	5	Nay
Hopper, Gary	Republican	Hillsborough	7	Nay
Katsakiores, Phyllis	Republican	Rockingham	5	Nay
Lockwood, Priscilla	Republican	Merrimack	6	Nay
Luther, Robert	Republican	Belknap	4	Nay
McCarthy, Michael	Republican	Hillsborough	21	Nay
McKinney, Betsy	Republican	Rockingham	3	Nay
Messier, Irene	Republican	Hillsborough	17	Nay
Millham, Alida	Republican	Belknap	5	Nay
Palmer, Barry	Republican	Hillsborough	26	Nay
Pepino, Leo	Republican	Hillsborough	11	Nay
Pilliod, James	Republican	Belknap	5	Nay
Proulx, Mark	Republican	Hillsborough	15	Nay
Quandt, Marshall	Republican	Rockingham	13	Nay
Quandt, Matt	Republican	Rockingham	13	Nay
Remick, William	Republican	Coos	2	Nay
Richardson, Herbert	Republican	Coos	2	Nay
Russell, David	Republican	Belknap	6	Nay
Sapareto, Frank	Republican	Rockingham	5	Nay
Soltani, Tony	Republican	Merrimack	8	Nay
St. Cyr, Jeffrey	Republican	Belknap	5	Nay
Stroud, Kathleen	Republican	Hillsborough	19	Nay
Terrio, Ross	Republican	Hillsborough	14	Nay
Tholl, John	Republican	Coos	2	Nay
Tremblay, Marc	Republican	Coos	4	Nay
Waddell, James	Republican	Rockingham	15	Nay
Webb, James	Republican	Rockingham	5	Nay
Welch, David	Republican	Rockingham	8	Nay

Not Voting

Beattie, Thomas	Republican	Hillsborough	17	Not Voting
Belanger, Ronald	Republican	Rockingham	4	Not Voting
Bergevin, Jerry	Republican	Hillsborough	17	Not Voting
Boehm, Ralph	Republican	Hillsborough	27	Not Voting
Brown, Julie	Republican	Strafford	1	Not Voting
Champagne, Norma	Republican	Hillsborough	12	Not Voting
Coughlin, Sean	Republican	Hillsborough	6	Not Voting
DeSimone, Debra	Republican	Rockingham	6	Not Voting
Emerton, Larry	Republican	Hillsborough	7	Not Voting
Gagne, Larry	Republican	Hillsborough	13	Not Voting
Gandia, Laura	Republican	Hillsborough	27	Not Voting
Harty, Martin	Republican	Strafford	3	Not Voting
Hogan, Timothy	Republican	Hillsborough	23	Not Voting
Hutchinson, Karen	Republican	Rockingham	3	Not Voting
Huxley, Robert	Republican	Hillsborough	3	Not Voting
Infantine, William	Republican	Hillsborough	13	Not Voting
Kidder, David	Republican	Merrimack	1	Not Voting
Knox, J. David	Republican	Carroll	4	Not Voting
Kurk, Neal	Republican	Hillsborough	7	Not Voting
Larsen, Kirsten	Republican	Strafford	2	Not Voting
Laware, Thomas	Republican	Sullivan	5	Not Voting
Marcus, Bruce	Republican	Hillsborough	3	Not Voting
Mirski, Paul	Republican	Grafton	10	Not Voting
O'Brien, William	Republican	Hillsborough	4	Not Voting
Oligny, Jeffrey	Republican	Rockingham	8	Not Voting
Perkins, Amy	Republican	Rockingham	14	Not Voting
Perkins, Lawrence	Republican	Rockingham	14	Not Voting
Peterson, Lenette	Republican	Hillsborough	19	Not Voting
Reed, Michael	Republican	Hillsborough	26	Not Voting
Renzullo, Andrew	Republican	Hillsborough	27	Not Voting
Robbins, David	Republican	Hillsborough	26	Not Voting
Sapienza, Marie	Republican	Rockingham	8	Not Voting
Sterling, Franklin	Republican	Cheshire	7	Not Voting
Sytek, John	Republican	Rockingham	4	Not Voting
Waterhouse, Kevin	Republican	Rockingham	4	Not Voting
Weyler, Kenneth	Republican	Rockingham	8	Not Voting



Cross Posted

A Modest (Budget Cutting) Proposal

There are plenty of towns like mine trying to figure out where they can cut costs.  But every conversation seems to end at cutting education or safety services.  While I find it hard to believe that there is nothing else in a budget you can trim, I think I have come up with a reasonable compromise (if not just for the sake of our own rhetorical amusement) that can cut at least a little bit of money from the budget without affecting staffing or resources.

Any teacher, support staff, officer, firefighter or public employee who currently pays union dues will have the total amount of dues paid calculated and that amount removed from their respective department budgets (aka:paychecks).  This will do the one thing no one ever seems willing to do; include the unions in the burden of cost cutting.

The Unions are always in a "partnership" with the town and the residents when it comes to increasing labor and administrative costs but seem to avoid bearing any of that burden when the economy reduces the values of residents homes, eliminates taxpayer jobs, or cuts their wages.  These things make it harder for them to meet current or rising town budgets bloated by unions and things like Evergreen laws, which give Labor groups no incentive to bargain at all.

In fact, the only way to get at the union at all is to fire people.  But we don't want to fire people, that would hurt services or put the children's future at risk.  Isn't that right?  So instead we should just cut everyone's pay, knowing that the hard working, dedicated and caring public Union employees can and will take one for the team because this is not about the capitalsit pursuit of wealth before all things, it is about the quality services they provide to the community.

It's about the children.

And consider the value.  Public employees pay taxes (with our taxes) so they too share in the burden but with this altruistic leap that value goes further. When someone on the public payroll takes a pay cut it reduces that employees tax burden while reducing their taxes, the town budget, and frees up much needed capital that goes back into the community or can be allocated for other important projects or purchases.  It's a win-win for everyone.

And rather than force the taxpayers and their elected officials to bargain with the bargaining group about budgets and wages and benefits, oh my! let the employees bargain with their unions over the burden of paying union dues to the unions, who are really just a big, greedy, selfish business getting rich on the backs of their members.

Yes, their are legislative hurdles but let me dream.  Because it is time to engage the relationship where taxpayers fund unions through their town employees only to have the union mug them in a dark alley to get even more money.  So pay-cut time.  If they don't like it they can quit.  In this economy, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people across the country to replace them. Qualified people who will do their job for less than we are paying now.  They'd be happy just to have a job. 

Cross Posted

For Quite Some Time

For quite some time more than a few of us out here in the private sector have been paying into our own retirement plans--if we can--for years.  After the Housing bubble burst many of us began reducing the amount we contributed as a lousy economy consumed opportunities, wage growth and jobs--our neighbors or even our own. 

Companies, small businesses in particular, that were once able to provide some benefits and 401K matching dollars shifted gears, re-directing that revenue (if they had it) to keeping the business afloat so they could pay enough remaining core employees to keep the company a company--with desks, paperclips, post it notes, and a space to keep them in.  We paid for our own retirement plans, owners and managers paid for theirs, took pay cuts, employees took pay cuts, millions accepted reduced hours, part time status, or were overcome by the recession and had to be let go.

At the same time various levels of government were handing out (or handed) Billions and Billions of dollars that did not exist, to prop up the public sector unions.  These unions, collective bargaining groups (emphasis on collective) were the primary benefactors of the past two years accumulation of debt.  Government rules favored them in opposition to all else and in contradiction to common sense, not just for cash handouts but the hand out of jobs as well.  And even at the local level, the public sectors union handlers, who are really nothing more than fat cat capitalists selling shares in human flesh for a profit in the from of a dues check each pay period, have fought against the tide to raise salaries, benefits, and keep jobs that must be paid for by the people going the opposite direction.

So the public sector unions, operating as nothing more than a private business whose goal is to grow revenue, continued to do so at taxpayers expense while whining about the private sectors greed and malfeasance.

Why can't we call them out for this?  Why are taxpayers not afforded the same kind of consumer protections from the fat cat, union boss, price gougers who hold us hostage with fears of neglected children, and declining public safety if we don't pony up the extortion money we don't have to fund wage and pension schemes so far out of parity with our own?

November 2010 was as much a reaction to this addiction to taxpayer money as anything.  But the union bosses persist.  And many of the employees in their care, stewed in a culture of entitlement, ride along on the tide, while supporting a corrupt and unholy alliance with the democrat party to protect and defend the unions and their monopoly as the legalized money launderers of choice to convert extorted taxpayer dollars into democrat party campaign contributions.

But this isn't like some business that you can claim (right or wrong) is stockpiling cash to weather a long and uncertain fiscal winter.  The evil capitalist fat cats on the other side of the public sector equation (you and I) are the people who have paying into their own retirement, giving up wages and advancement, and losing jobs in the million, while the cost of government--that would be the cost to keep and maintain public sector workers--continues to climb.  And there is no magic pot of money to fill the pension and benefit holes.  Obama and the 111th congress have spent it all.

All we have left is debt, and no one in the world can pay it off for us.  So something has to give.

It is time to put government on a diet. It is time for equality and fairness in the workplace and if that means forcing public employees to prop up their own pensions then so be it.  If it requires us to ask them to pay significantly more for their benefits, then that is how it has to be.  If it requires eliminating pensions, benefits, and jobs then that is how it will go down, and there is no time like now to do it.

Never in recent history has there been a more diverse and qualified pool of willing and able bodied persons who would be more than happy just to have a job than there is now.   These are people who just want a pay check, and they will work long and hard to get it.  They will be dedicated, fast learners, looking for a reliable opportunity, and they are out there in the millions.

So labor is cheap at a time when income for public sector costs and debt service to sustain it is at an all time high.  How simple a problem is this to solve?

The taxpayer need to step up and put the public sector union fat cats out of work.  When that happens, people who have to work for the taxpayers again may rethink how valuable having a job is in this economy, when there are probably 1000 people who would gladly work longer and harder and do their job for less.

The cats can't eat better than the masters.  The money is just not there, and there are no more bailouts to soften the blow.   It is time for a public sector union reckoning.  And that has to go for non-union government employees as well.

We cannot afford you.  If you would like to soul search over how this came to be, feel free to do so.  If you would like to play the "can't cut services, then explain why you would let them be cut rather than provide them for less.  We've been doing it ourselves for quite sometime.  Now it's your turn.

Image Source: Newsreel Blog 

Cross Posted