2 VIDEOS – COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 101 AND UNION 101
Sunday, March 6th, 2011First view the video regarding collective bargaining. When that video is finished, you will be able to click on the video for Unions 101.
Archive for the ‘Chris Christie’ Category
HERITAGE VIDEO – BUDGET BATTLE SHOWDOWN IN OUR STATE CAPITALS
Saturday, February 26th, 2011DANIELS AND CHRISTIE – WHERE THE LEADERS ARE
Monday, February 21st, 2011
- FEBRUARY 18, 2011
Where the Leaders Are
In a time of crisis, two governors show Washington the way.
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By PEGGY NOONAN
There were two big speeches this week, and I mean big as in “Modern political history will remember this.” Together they signal something significant and promising. Oh, that’s a stuffy way to put it. I mean: The governors are rising and are starting to lead. What a relief. It’s like seeing the posse come over the hill.
The first speech was from Mitch Daniels, the Indiana governor who is the answer to the question, “What if Calvin Coolidge talked?” President Coolidge, a spare and serious man, was so famously silent, the story goes, that when a woman at a dinner told him she’d made a bet she could get him to string three words together, he smiled and said, “You lose.” But he was principled, effective and, in time, broadly popular.
The other speech was from a governor newer to the scene but more celebrated, in small part because he comes from a particular media market and in large part because he has spent the past year, his first in office, taking on his state’s most entrenched political establishments, and winning. His style—big, rumpled, garrulous, Jersey-blunt—has captured the imagination of the political class, and also normal people. They look at him and think, “I know that guy. I like that guy.”
Mitch Daniels
VIDEO – CHRIS CHRISTIE AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Friday, February 18th, 2011
VIDEO – CHRIS CHRISTIE AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Friday, February 18th, 2011CHRIS CHRISTIE’S YEAR TO DELIVER
Sunday, January 16th, 2011
- JANUARY 14, 2011
The governor has proven you can take on government unions and survive. Now he has to get real pension reforms.
In 2010, New Jersey’s Chris Christie proved that a governor can take on teachers unions and not only survive politically, but attract an enthusiastic following. In 2011, Mr. Christie has a chance to prove that his inspiring YouTube speeches are translating into significant reform.
The most pressing need is to reduce one of the nation’s heaviest tax burdens. Thanks to Mr. Christie’s 2010 veto of a bill targeting the state’s high earners, New Jersey has surged from dead last in the Tax Foundation’s annual ranking of state business-tax climates all the way up to number 48. But Mr. Christie knows that being slightly better than New York and California is no recipe for job creation. And the Garden State’s suffering homeowners realize they are still the reigning champs when it comes to the nation’s highest property taxes. It’s a crown they are more than eager to relinquish.
Critical to reducing the tax burden is to scale back the outlandish pension promises that politicians have made to government employees, often without clear disclosure to taxpayers. One infamous giveaway in 2001 even helped trigger fraud charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The pols had cooked the books and pretended that the state’s pension funds had enough money to cover a 9% increase in benefits. After hoodwinking taxpayers, the state government then misled investors by repeating the fraud in various bond-offering documents.
Now the size of the pension disaster is coming into view. Officially, the state’s unfunded pension liabilities amount to $54 billion, but the state optimistically assumes average investment returns of 8.5% per year. Independent estimates put the shortfall closer to $175 billion. On top of that are the separate unfunded liabilities for retiree health benefits, which the state hopefully estimates at another $67 billion. (more…)
LABOR’S COMING CLASS WAR
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011- JANUARY 4, 2011
Private-sector union workers begin to notice that their job prospects are at risk from public-employee union contracts.
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By WILLIAM MCGURN
Jeffrey Brown of PBS’s “NewsHour” recently summed up the year’s economic performance by invoking the most overworked chestnut of modern American punditry: “the disconnect . . . between Main Street and Wall Street.”
The notion that Wall Street and Main Street are fundamentally at odds with one another remains a popular orthodoxy. So much so that we may be missing the first stirrings of a true American class war: between workers in government unions and their union counterparts in the private sector.
In theory, of course, organized labor is all about fraternal solidarity. For many years, it is true, private-sector unions supported collective-bargaining rights and better benefits for government workers, while public-employee unions supported the private-sector unions in their opposition to legislation such as the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s.
Suddenly, it’s a different world. In this recession, for example, construction workers are suffering from unemployment levels roughly double the national rate, according to a recent analysis of federal jobs data by the Associated General Contractors of America. They are relearning, the hard way, that without a growing economy, all the labor-friendly laws and regulations in the world won’t keep them working. (more…)
60 MINUTES – STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT MELTDOWNS
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE – “A SENSITIVE GUY”
Saturday, October 30th, 2010| N.J. Gov. Chris Christie calls Jon Corzine quintessential limousins liberal Democrat in America |