I'm no longer falling for it.
"Conn. unions tempt worse fate in refusing modest savings deal" June 29, 2011
IN A season of confrontations between state governments and their public-employee unions, the deal cut by Connecticut’s pro-labor governor, Dannel Malloy, and a group of 15 state unions was a model of cooperation. That is, until the membership failed to approve it last week, in a truly startling display of selfishness.
They have a long way to go to catch the bankers, war-profiteers, and scum elite money addicts, sorry.
This was no Draconian giveback. No one’s pay would be cut. There would be no raises for two years, followed by solid 3 percent hikes for three consecutive years. There were also modest cost-savings adjustments on pensions and health care, similar to some that have been enacted in Massachusetts. In return, however, the Connecticut government promised no layoffs for at least four years.
The no-layoff provision was key, because government job cuts have been dragging down the economy almost everywhere. At a time when the private sector is showing some signs of job creation, state governments, facing the loss of federal stimulus funds, have been dropping jobs like huskies shedding in the summer heat. These cuts only exacerbate the downward pressure on the economy.
Then stop paying off banks, investors, and bondholders first.
Fear of layoffs makes consumers stop spending, thereby hurting small businesses and obliging them to cut more jobs.
I'm not helping because I don't like to spend, period.
Connecticut, at least, seemed poised to avoid this catastrophe.
Now, as he said he would, Malloy has begun alerting 7,500 workers that their jobs are going to be terminated. The taxpayers are double losers: They’re getting reduced state services without any corresponding tax cut....
Since when has the banker's paper cared about taxpayers? I'm no longer fooled, Glob.
And people elsewhere will simply assume that whenever a reasonable deal is put forward, enough union workers, insulated by seniority provisions and unconcerned about junior colleagues facing layoffs, will put every hard-won perk ahead of the greater good of the union, the government, and the state economy....
I'm really, really, really sick of the attack on working people. The cop, the firefighter, and the teacher are not why state governments are going bankrupt.
It is the debt service payments to banks (hundreds of millions a month); the corporate welfare to well-connected concerns (did Hollywood really need Massachusetts to cut them an $82 million-dollar check last year?); and the funding of lavish political lifestyles by the same people telling unions they must give back and go without.
--more--"
Related: Deficit in Connecticut puts jobs on line
Also see: Biden's Boast
Isn't Connecticut solid blue?
