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Democrats vow to block Chris Christie's common sense public pension reforms

New Jersey's public employee pension system is broke. Hundreds of billions of dollars in the red broke. Yesterday Governor Christie unveiled the second phase of his pension reform plan, a much-needed restructuring of current benefits and eligibility requirements.

Numero Uno on the hit parade? A rollback of the 9% pension payment "bump" former Governor Christine Todd Whitman handed out during one of her re-election bids. It was a naked ploy to buy votes; it failed; and we never had (and never will have) the money to pay for it.

Buh-bye!

Real reform also requires tackling health care costs. Most public employees pay nothing toward their coverage. They'll start contributing a mere 1.5% of salary this fiscal year. On top of that Christie will now increase their co-pays and ask workers to pay 30% of their premiums.

Why? Because when it's your money you tend to spend it wisely. It's called having skin in the game. Workers will pay more attention to costs and that will save everyone money.

Democrats and union hacks are having a cow. State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) has vowed to block any pension reform initiatives until Governor Christie (or a magic unicorn) fully funds the current pension system. Exactly where he expects the necessary billions of dollars to come from is unclear. But his histrionics play well with the featherbedded set.

They really don't want to lose their cushy "20 years and out" early retirement packages. The "normal" retirement age for state employees is 55. Fifty-five? Didn't that go out with Jimmy Carter?

Really. You and I have to work until 65 (or longer). Why not the clerks in the DMV? Oh, but police and firemen should be "young".

Bill Lavin, president of the state Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association, said the proposals would "compromise the public safety ... "It's a young man's job, and to believe we can force people to work longer to get less benefits is wreckless," he said.

Cry me a river.

There's a fire inspector who visits my office on a regular basis to fret about our computer room's halon system. He's approximately 107 years old, and still going strong. If he can do it, so can you.

Christie also wants to make it harder for cops to pad their pensions with overtime (the Port Authority police are especially adept at this). It's common practice to rack up the OT in their last year, because right now their final salary determines the pension payout. The proposal calls for 5 years of salary to be averaged during the calculation.

Hey, Social Security averages all of our working years. Using five years for a public employee hardly seems unreasonable to me.

According to the state's actuaries these proposals would cut the pension fund deficit from $181 billion to a much more manageable $23 billion after 30 years.

These fixes are long overdue. Chris Christie has put together a comprehensive, realistic plan to restore fiscal sanity to the state. Knee-jerk opposition is unhelpful.

Being from South Jersey Senator Sweeney should take a good hard look at what happened in Delaware last night. The people are fed up. Remember too that the unions couldn't deliver a victory for Jon Corzine either. It's unlikely they'll be able to beat back the rising tide of public discontent next November when Sweeney and his merry band of obstructionists are up for re-election.

Advantage Christie!

UPDATE 15 Sep 2010 12:34:
The Governor's office sent out an official press release with more details.

Pension Reform Fact Sheet (PDF)

Benefits Reform Fact Sheet (PDF)

And here is the video of Christie's town hall meeting yesterday.

Governor Christie will sit down for a live interview with Neal Cavuto on Fox News today at 4:45 PM.

Posted at 12:09 by Chris Wysocki   [/nj_politics]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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