From the Editor

Too many pigs, bloodsuckers and fools.

Monday, November 27, 2006

The unsustainable, greedy self-interest of those at the public trough will ultimately bankrupt the State. The problem; any politician with the public's best interests as the centerpiece of his campaign will never be elected. The truth goes unknown by the politically ignorant electorate and does not sit well with those who control the outcomes of elections in NJ.

State costs for public worker benefits increased 150 percent over five years and are expected to double by 2010 from $3.6 billion this year. That's will be $7.2 billion, just for benefits. Shockingly, the unions are vowing a fight. They claim, we elected you with our votes and heavy campaign contributions, now back off. Does anyone see anything wrong with this?

State workers elect the people who pay them, the elected pay those workers more for electing them and all their pay, both the elected and the electors, are paid with tax dollars. Then, after they have fed at the public trough they retire, some as early as age 45, with huge pensions which they collect in other states because they can't afford to live where they have driven the taxes through the roof.

This pyramid scheme is unsustainable. Unfortunately, as long as the payees control the payers, and there are 800,000 state workers, plus their families, plus aprx. 400,000 more beneficiaries of redistribution in the counties of Hudson, Essex, Union, Middlesex and Camden, nothing is going to change until the well is dry. They will buy you off next year with a fat property tax rebate, after all, it is an election year, but after that things will return to normal and the following year they will not have the money. This is why there are no real specifics or plans coming out of the special session, nothing but trial balloons. How can there be?

After decreasing the existing property tax rebate, despite a campaign promise to restore and increase it by 10%/yr., the current head payer who is beholding to the payees, instead, immediately raised the sales tax by 16% and now crows that the State is only looking at a $2 billion budget deficit next year. If you are starting off $2 billion in the hole and you want to spend another $3 billion on tax relief and schools, and you are unwilling to offend any of the payees, who in four years will mandate an additional $3.6 billion be spent just on their benefits, and you only have one Turnpike and one Parkway to sell which, by the way, were already paid for with tax dollars and tolls, and you know the people who are not on the public payroll would rather have a Senator who is under federal investigation than a RINO, what are you supposed to do?

You do exactly what the payers are doing: you make a pretense of trying to do something, you then sell off the people's assets for a one time fix, give the fools a rebate which you say will be permanent all the while knowing it is unsustainable, give more money to the people at the trough, thereby guaranteeing yourself re-election, while punting the responsibility down the road without a real care because you know that you too can take your lifetime health coverage and your guaranteed pension and move to a more affordable State while the people of NJ continue to pay you.

© 2006 SAVENJ.