Denying The Untouchables

JAN. 13, 2011

As California grapples with substantial proposed budget cuts, many are asking if the cuts  can actually save the state. Instead of addressing the need for comprehensive reform of the historically untouchable public employee unions, and welfare and state-funded health care budgets, Governor Jerry Brown’s budget is just not enough – the concept of “total reform” was left out.

While I’m grateful for the cuts Brown included in his budget, it’s not nearly enough to save the state from insolvency or bankruptcy. In fact, there is talk in Washington that legislation amending the federal bankruptcy law is being prepared by congressional Republicans, with the goal of allowing states to declare bankruptcy.

California has aptly demonstrated that it cannot live within a budget. But budget issues are not the only demons that state legislators face – the complete sellout to public employee unions is coming back to bite lawmakers in the rear end as the state is becoming a banking liability.

But then many conservatives think California should be forced to live with impending bankruptcy.

Since Jerry Brown first served as governor back in the 1970s, California legislators have handed public employee unions the keys to the castle. And we can’t discount the vast gifts of increased budgets to the tangled web of social welfare programs.

Brown might consider taking a lesson from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has been implementing real reform in his state. He closed the $2.2 billion budget gap by initiating 375 spending freezes and cuts, for a grant total of $13 billion. Putting the cuts into perspective, one news story reported that this saves the state $232 million a day, or $9 million an hour.

But the bigger story is that Christie accomplished this in only two weeks by using the full power of the Office of the Governor, through the executive order.

Budget cuts are not the only cuts on Christie’s radar. He has not been shy about taking on New Jersey’s untouchable public-employee unions and has been in a very public battle with the teachers union for most of the past year, becoming a star on youtube. But stardom can have a hefty price, for those who care about it.

Christie obviously does not.

The teachers are a little mad at Christie about his audacious suggestions of salary freezes and school funding cuts. And they tried to show him who the boss really is – with attacks on Facebook.

“In Facebook messages visible to the world — not to mention their students — the teachers have called Christie fat, compared him to a genocidal dictator and wished he was dead,” reported the Daily Caller last April. “The postings are often riddled with bad grammar and misspellings. ‘Never trust a fat f…,’ read one profane post on the teacher’s Facebook page, ‘New Jersey Teachers United Against Governor Chris Christie’s Pay Freeze.’ One educator, a librarian with a Master’s degree, described the cuts as ‘rediculous.’”

Despite the vitriol, Christie has stayed on message. “The overwhelming number of teachers pay nothing toward full family, full coverage health benefits, not just for the years of their employment, but for life.”

Recently, Christie successfully pushed a law to limit wage hikes to an average 2 percent annual increase, between the state and public-employee union labor arbitrations.

The lesson here is that the cuts need to be big, and the labor negotiations drastic enough to modify union contracts. Otherwise, the choice for states is insolvency or bankruptcy court, where at least they can fully reorganize state finances and contracts for future financial stability.

California’s politicians have pillaged the state coffers to the point of needing relief, but federal aid may not be quite so forthcoming by the new Republican-led Congress. “Congressional Republicans appear to be quietly but methodically executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy,” wrote financial columnist James Pethokoukis in Reuters Breakingviews.

The dream of many taxpayers and business owners in this state is “No more schools run for the teachers and by the teachers — nor will such unions as the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees dominate state legislatures,” Dick Morris wrote in a recent column.

Should Brown heed the lesson currently being taught by Christie, the untouchable unions would no longer be able to dictate terms to the taxpayers… or to legislators.

Christie, and many other politicians, are demanding tangible reforms within the states’ massive bureaucracies. Entitlements and special interests have been annihilating budgets throughout the country, with California proudly leading the way.

And now it’s time to pay the piper.

-Katy Grimes