The New Jersey War
By Wes Keene | February 18, 2010 | In Category: Tax Policy
There is an old adage from fighter pilots that goes something like: “you know you’re over your target when you start taking fire”. If that’s true, the Governor Christie is exactly where he needs to be. He has correctly identified that you can no longer fix New Jersey’s budget deficits by simply increasing taxes as his predecessor did. It’s time to make deep cuts.
NJ.com has published Christie’s recent address to the State’s legislature. In the speech he outlines a large number of budget cuts and freezes. One of the more controversial cuts is a hold on $475 million in State aid to schools. Naturally, this raises the ire of the teacher’s union. The cuts are decried as dangerous, unnecessary, and terrible for children. The unions already have the left wing media turning on the waterworks. Christie isn’t falling for it.
Another fiscal problem Christie identified will hit home for California politicians:
“One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits — a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?”
Not only is it unfair, but it doesn’t even make fiscal sense. The tax rate required to support pension programs like this would never pass on a referendum, and officials know it. That’s why these sorts of benefits are “hidden”, taxpayers only see the current cost of teachers’ salaries, and it seems reasonable at the time. Years later, when it’s time to pay for these benefits is when the taxpayers really feel the pain. Now is that time for New Jersey.
Then there are the moral arguments. Why does a government worker get better treatment than everyone else? That sounds like a form of government our Founding Fathers worked hard to get away from, not something we should embrace. A public servant is just that, a servant. We should not be creating government jobs that pay better than their private sector equivalents, provide better benefits, and make it nearly impossible to get fired. But that’s exactly what nearly all government jobs do.
I’m liking this guy more and more. I wonder if he’s busy in 2012.
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