A recent thread bought up the question of union members supporting Democrats as a matter of pocket book issues versus gun ownership and created some acrimonious debate. That debate will probably pick up with Governor Christie announcing yesterday that he does not intend to carry out an agreement enacted as law to fully fund the pension system of NJ public workers, a group not particularly beloved by NJ residents. That agreement, made by the governor and the legislature was enacted as law and has the force of law. The governor no longer intends to enforce it and has issued an "executive order" effectively nullifying the legislation. A legal question raised by this is whether or not a governor may do this. If so why not just admit that the legislative process is a sham and grant the governor the power to rule by decree? But for gun owners concerned about gun rights the question raised is, should this governor be believed or trusted not only to keep his word on this matter but also his own credibility and willingness to enforce existing law on any matter at all.
our government has strayed away from its initial design to the point where its completely f**ked. We might as well elect Stalin and let him run the country.
I think what we have here is a case of TOO MANY GD DMN LAWS! Seriously, how many laws do we have/need? There's a law for freakin EVERYTHING! Ya know we have ridiculous laws like its illegal to orgasm or buy a vibrator In Alabama only men have a constitutional right to orgasm | Dr. Jen Gunter. Then there are the other ridiculous laws like its illegal to give your horse a bath on sunday. Who the hell writes these laws and how did they actually pass through all of the committees, legislature, and governor? Its ludicrous. Too many politicians, too many laws, too many people making A LOT OF MONEY as a career politician. Politicians do not serve the people... they serve themselves. Then these same politicians get to decide which law they want to follow, without any due process or consequence for showing favoritism towards their buddies, a maybe a certain rage, religion, etc. They just willy nilly sign bills into law, then decide for themselves how its handed. Just like the 30 day pistol permit thing here in NJ. We should be able to sue them for not meeting 30 days, but its a joke. No judge would even consider hearing it, although its clearly a violation of, heh, "LAW".
The "compromise" he worked out with the Legislature to get employees to pay more into the pension system was based on the fact he would make a certain level of payment as well. We now see how he operates. Asking if he will "enforce the law" is soft-pedaling it...he said he would do that if employees paid more. It's more like..."will he keep his word, or will he be shown to promise one thing in order to get what he wants, and then not hold up his end of the deal after he gets what he wants". That is the true nature of what happened. Anyone who is upset over how Obama is just ignoring the Laws and Congress and using Executive Orders to bypass them, should be just as disgusted with Christie, they really are no different.
Will public workers get to just ignore their increased contributions??? No. The state just takes it without any consent from the employee. The law, agreements, contracts and "his word" mean nothing to Christie. Where is his integrity? After seeing this kind of conduct, makes me wonder how he was as a prosecutor.
On the gun issue...our best hope was that he would still have some idea of a Presidential run, and he would HAVE to veto the Legislation to have any chance. He has done so many under-handed things, proven he can't be trusted and given so much ammunition to his opponents, he has no chance at that nomination now. There is so much material out there on him now he will be crushed in the primaries or general election. It's a 50-50 proposition whether he signs that Legislation now, and no one can know how it will go because you have nothing to base it on. Things he has said and promised in the past obviously mean nothing so it's anyone's guess how this will go.
well who signed this bill into law in the first place? Did Christie or one of the previous governors? If it was a previous governor, Christie could just be playing clean up on some bad legislation. Christie could sign some insane totally financially unsound legislation for the next Governor to deal with. Of course all of the blame for the entire thing, in the eye of the STUPID public, would be the incumbent. (sounds familiar?)
This was Christies deal...he said he would make the agreed upon payment if the Legislature forced public employees to pay more. Legislature didn't want to do it because, well first and foremost, they are Democrats, but also public employees have been paying all along and were not the problem with the system. But, Christie said he would make the payment if employees paid more, so the Legislature passed the Bill, Christie signed it, and now he is laughing while just not doing what he said he would, and what the law he signed, and ASKED FOR, requires.
sorry to say it but NJ public workers and teachers have had a sweet ride and the party is over. How do you work 20 years and get paid 2/3 rds salary for another 40 years while retired? Could you please tell me what private worker gets any deal anywhere near that? Teachers (my daughter is one) work 7-2:30 9 months a year great benefits and pension who else gets that? There is no reason public (state or county , federal) employees should not get similar deals to the rest of us that are paying the taxes to pay those salaries. Face it people live longer now and you cannot pay 40 years of pension to everyone. The money is not there. You know what my retirement is after 30 years at one employer? it is predicted to be about $400 a month. oh yea I have another 15 years until I can retire with that big pension. so my deal is 45 years and out at $400 a month or so.
Like it or not, pension is deferred compensation. Police, Fire, and Teachers, define our quality of life and real estate values. They are tax payers who put into their pensions, and due to electing shmucks who took their money over the last 30 years, New Jersey is in a predicament where the tab must be paid after we've eaten from the trough. The only one who has been at the teet are the tax payers who have borrowed billions of dollars from public workers. Our governor loves to throw around the term "entitlements." Pensions and health care for public workers are not entitlements. They are part of the compensation that they signed up for. The same compensation packages exist in NY and everything works there. The residents of NJ have been swindled. Our schools are terrific in NJ. There are many smart educators who have chosen to apply their skills to help children learn versus make real money in the private sector. If you are in the private sector and have not grabbed your piece of the pie, don't be jealous of the public worker. Either become one or work and get your piece. (Who is John Galt?) Besides borrowing excessively from TPAF, the Christie has also made measures to have public pensions placed into hedgefunds. The hedgefund managers, Christie's financial supporters, charged roughly $800 million in fees as of late. Guess how much the reduced cost of living adjustment has been to current retirees? That's right, roughly $800 million! The solution would be to grandfather the existing State employees and offer new employees a new deal. Suck it up NJ, Pay back our debt, change the verbiage that schools must provide a thorough and efficient education to all to something that implies a local level so that we can stop dumping money into Abbot Schools, elect better politicians, respect the bill of rights, use green energy, not because "Global Warming Exists," but because it is clean and it is the smart thing to do, legalize pot and tax the hell out of it (Colorado is raking in millions a month!) and make NJ a beacon of fiscal responsibility and freedom.
but but but but but teachers have such a hard jobbbbbbbbbbbbb [cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry][cry]
I did a lot of major renovations to state office buildings over the years and seen first hand how hard they work, don't get me wrong, some of the offices are swamped and hardly pick their heads up from their work and others and a lot of them do absolutely nothing. Back in the 70's was doing a big job between the labor and industry build and downtown Trenton. Every day we'd see the same guy exit L&I and head to the local time bar on Warren about 11and we see him heading back sideways around 3. Come to find out he was a state big shot! Well paid to watch girls shake there ass, must be nice.
well does Christie have anything he wants run through the legislature that he can go tit for tat on? Ya know sign a couple anti-gun bills, then get a couple unrelated (R) Christie bills put on his desk ok-d but the house dems. This is the way it works, at the cost of our freedom.
Chris krispy Cream Christy is just another politician and just like all the rest he will do what serves his interests and no one else's so I'm not at all surprised.
I am however in agreement that the public sector workers have been at the tit to long and it's time to cut them off.
I did not mean this to be a thread arguing the merits of state pensions in general or whether teachers have an easy job ( I suspect that in Newark, Patterson, Trenton and Camden they earn every dime they get) but simply the credibility of the present governor and whether CC or any governor for that matter, under the NJ state constitution, has the power to unilaterally announce that he will not comply with a law already on the books. I know Obama is getting away with this and I am alarmed at our state governor invoking the same principle. It subverts the very foundation, the bed rock of a republic, that this is a government of laws, not of people.
There is a giant short fall in tax revenues this year and major cuts are needed before the next budget. Too many state workers, liberal pay, benefits and way too much money forced to fund lousy school districts will kill any state. This is why N.J. has always been in the top of the most expenses places to live. It should be one of the best places to live with the good median family income but if all goes out to the high cost of living.
I didn't want to turn this thread into a public workers or teacher bashing thread but I am not going to let that last remark go unanswered. What this state is, is morally bankrupt, inhabited increasingly by people who have decided that NJ is a wonderful place to get "free stuff" and no one in the state legislature is willing to ask who these people are and why they are moving into the state at the same rate job creating businesses are fleeing the state. As for the remark that NJ's public schools are "worthless" that is not true of most of the state's schools. If one removes the twenty some odd something "Special Needs Districts", the Abbott schools districts, from the equation our schools do very well in comparison with the students of any other schools in the USA or the rest of the world, and that by any standard of measurement, whether in numbers of students taking AP courses and theirs scores,or SAT's or ACT's. Yes, the over all cost of educating students in NJ is high but that is because the Abbott districts are soaking the taxpayers for what have turned out to be, shall we say, disappointing results. Again dropping them from the equation NJ gets good value for the money spent on its schools. Most of the people writing on this site are products of those schools and the high caliber of writing here reflects that good value in education. But again, I had hoped to make this thread a discussion on whether or not a governor may refuse to enforce established law because he does not like the law.
I couldn't disagree more about the schools but I'll save that for another time and another tgread so i don't derail the intended direction of this thread.
He has not yet issued that order, he has only threatened to because he doesn't expect the Dems to go along with it. It changes this whole thread and needed to be mentioned. Time will tell, but as someone else said, we have a serious income shortfall this year and the budget needs to be cut deeply. The economy remains in the doldrums and that is nation-wide with some minor exceptions (North Dakota and Texas come to mind). The Dems will scream, but they were the ones looking the other way when their guys were in the Governor's office and not fully funding public sector pensions.
I seriously want to know where they think the money comes from. I'm middle class NJ resident, doing my best to survive. In my public sector job, the company is not make nearly as much money as we used to, and we sell things. As a result my benefits have been eroded and my 401k has stopped being matched. No raise in over a year and benefits costing more have caused me to stop funding my 401k too. My taxes are going up every year and in my neighborhood, more and more houses are becoming empty.
Taxes need to be cut, and in order to do so, the cost of government must go down.
JD H. I totally agree with the article you provided. Public workers were robbed blind by both Dems and Republicans, all of whom had grandiose plans for public workers money. And Happy Blood Trail, you bet state spending has to be cut and I suggest cutting it for the parasitical part of the population flooding this state for generous benefits provided by legislators too cowardly to stand up and question their presence among the working, productive element of the citizenry who are footing the bill for people producing nothing of any value to the state for the all the benefits they demand. But most of the folks in the state's pension system are hard workers who by mandate contributed from their pay checks month after month, year after year, in good times and bad. Whether you agree or not, the state passed that law back in 2011 requiring increased pension payments from workers and reduced benefits from retirees in return for the legal requirement that the state would make their required contribution this year, and subsequently, and the governor, on his own, has announced that he will not make those required payments, assuming to himself the power to determine whether or not he will enforce this law. It's a bad precedent, as future governors will defy established law and cite the Christie Administration as the justification. Governors in our NJ state constitution do not get to decide the enforceability of laws. The courts have the power to do that but not the governor's office. That is the greatest danger here. That power in a man who will not keep his word, his sworn oath to enforce the laws, all of them, is deadly to a republic.
I still don't understand the idea behind a "law" that states money will continue to be paid out, what happens when the money is not there? Where will it come from?
I thought I read he cut it to 774 million. I did just read on "The Hill" that he is still blaming Corzine for the budget crisis . He sounds like obama more every day. He has grossly over estimated revenue every budget he had put forth. NJ credit rating has been lowered 6 times while he has been in office to just above junk status. I agree the pensions do not have sustainability. I also believe he should not state he is funding an amount and then back out because he can not estimate revenues even remotely close after all these years. We are 47th or 48th slowest growing economy in the country under his watch. Christie and Obama perfect together.
RDFHunter. That is less than half of what the 2011 legislation mandated, which is how the pension got into trouble in the first place and most importantly, the governor is claiming that he has the right to reneg on a law he does not agree with. If he cannot be entrusted to enforce the law as written what can he be entrusted with?
As as a tax payer CC is doing exactly what I what him to do. He is contributing what the state can afford & not digging into the real middleclass's pocket.
ps what state workers gets 80 percent ?????????????????????????
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