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Tax payers sent a message to public employee unions

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pilotyip

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Nov 26, 2001
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WSJ editorial 3-17-11
Anyone who thinks voter anger over tax increases, arrogant government officials and outsized public employee pay has died down should look at what happened in Miami on Tuesday. Mayor Carlos Alvarez, a Republican, was recalled by a vote of 88% to 12%. County commissioner Natacha Seijas was tossed out by a similarly lopsided margin.

What incited the voter eruption was Mr. Alvarez's mishandling of a budget crisis and $400 million deficit. Instead of tightening spending, the mayor and city council approved an intensely unpopular 14% property tax increase to raise $178 million—though home values in south Florida have collapsed by as much as half. He supported pay raises for public employees, who already pull in more than the average Miami resident, and at a time when family incomes have been flat or falling. He padded the six-figure salaries of his staff because, he claimed, their work load had increased.

What really seems to have sent the recall into nearly unanimous territory is that the mayor and his government used both taxpayer and union funds to finance their fight to stay in office. Government agencies joined public employee unions to launch a PR blitz defending the mayor, the tax hike and the pay increases. Thousands of transit, water and sewer and park department employees received pay for the time they were deployed in an "education" campaign to retain the mayor and keep the tax increase. When the county manager was asked about this use of scarce tax dollars, he responded: "What are we supposed to do? Surrender?"

The recall campaign was partly financed by billionaire Norman Braman, who once owned the Philadelphia Eagles, but Republicans may want to take note that among the voters most enraged by the taxes and government extravagance were low- and middle-income Hispanics. Thousands of residents wore shirts and carried signs saying "vote si."

Union protesters in Madison, Wisconsin have commanded the headlines of late, but what happened in Miami on Tuesday is a reminder that the taxpayer revolt against elected officials who treat voters like cash dispensers is alive and well. Every Governor and Member of Congress should be warned
 
Of course, Yipster, that recall could have been because the tax that idiot installed was highly regressive. Typical modern ryndian, hitler youth thinking.
 
It's very satisfying to see those smug public employees finally answering for their stubborn greed.

By the way, Maru, only teenagers still use the hitler analogy on the internet anymore. Godwin's law and all that.

But call us hitler all you like, since all it does is diminish your credibility as a thinking, serious adult, and make you look like the aforementioned emotional teenager.
 
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It's very satisfying to see those smug public employees finally answering for their stubborn greed.

By the way, Maru, only teenagers still use the hitler analogy on the internet anymore. Godwin's law and all that.

But call us hitler all you like, since all it does is diminish your credibility as a thinking, serious adult, and make you look like the aforementioned emotional teenager.
In the light of the Walker victory, this thread started in Mar of 2012 seems even more significant. The lower income private workers are done with this tax and give to public employees. It is not the nasky greedy GOP, but the 67% of the people calling themselves "Blue Collar" workers than supported Walker and his efforts to bring reality into public employee compensation and benefits. There is hope we may avoid becoming Greece.
 
It's very satisfying to see those smug public employees finally answering for their stubborn greed.

By the way, Maru, only teenagers still use the hitler analogy on the internet anymore. Godwin's law and all that.

But call us hitler all you like, since all it does is diminish your credibility as a thinking, serious adult, and make you look like the aforementioned emotional teenager.
In the light of the Walker victory, this thread started in Mar of 2012 seems even more significant. The lower income private workers are done with this tax and give to public employees. It is not the nasty greedy GOP, but the 67% of the people calling themselves "Blue Collar" workers than supported Walker and his efforts to bring reality into public employee compensation and benefits. There is hope we may avoid becoming Greece.
 
In the light of the Walker victory, this thread started in Mar of 2012 seems even more significant. The lower income private workers are done with this tax and give to public employees. It is not the nasty greedy GOP, but the 67% of the people calling themselves "Blue Collar" workers than supported Walker and his efforts to bring reality into public employee compensation and benefits. There is hope we may avoid becoming Greece.
Yeah. "We" can become like Honduras instead. Which is OK if you live in the plantation house, not-so-good if you're the guy up in the tree chopping down the bananas all-damn-day.

It's kind of hard to resolve words like "greedy" and "childish" when you're talking about the billionaire Koch Bros...
 
Yeah. "We" can become like Honduras instead. Which is OK if you live in the plantation house, not-so-good if you're the guy up in the tree chopping down the bananas all-damn-day.

It's kind of hard to resolve words like "greedy" and "childish" when you're talking about the billionaire Koch Bros...
So the Blue Collar workers are going to turn this into a Banana republic with their vote, with their lower taxes, with their growing private sector jobs, is this what is going to happen?
 
So the Blue Collar workers are going to turn this into a Banana republic with their vote, with their lower taxes, with their growing private sector jobs, is this what is going to happen?
I don't know what's going to happen. Ask any number of leading economists, and they'll all tell you what's going to happen. The problem is, they'll disagree with one another on exactly what that is.

It was an interesting (and brilliant, politically) move on Walker's part to separate the police and firemen's unions from his effort to reduce the power of collective bargaining. Interesting, because police and firemen tend to make considerably more than other public sector workers...a cost that increases exponentially when shifted into the pension system. Brilliant politically, because he knew that he couldn't fight all the unions. Either he or his successor will be back later to deal with the police and firemen.

Or maybe he won't. In which case, taxpayers will be left paying the salaries of $60-$70-$80,000/yr policemen (many of whom work in administrative capacities...I.E., "paper-pushers") while the really good teachers seek work in other industries or other locales altogether.

"Growing, private-sector jobs" covers a lot of territory. Laying off a $60,000/yr teacher "shrinks" government (a good thing), while creating a $10,000/yr fast-food position creates "growth in the private sector" (also a good thing). Of course, if the only jobs that are being created are in the fast-food and service industries, maybe we don't need that many teachers after all.

Time will tell.....
 
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Laying off a $60,000/yr teacher "shrinks" government..
But teachers were only laid off in three disricts where the union contract would not allow any change. Throughout he rest of Wisc, teachers were not laid off, in fact many were hired, the school suddenly were showing a surplus and having smaller class sizes.
 

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