-By Warner Todd Huston
Barbara Hollingsworth of the Washington Examiner has a piece celebrating the efforts of New Jersey’s new Governor Chris Christie in his effort to take on the state’s over indulged public employees unions.
Christie has taken on one of the worst budgets in the country and the task ahead of him will be difficult in every way imaginable. Unfortunately, the former Governor, John Corzine, made matters worse by negotiating a deal that will prevent Christie from furloughing state workers until 2011.
But Christie is forging ahead making the cuts he can.
Already Christie has cut 375 of 378 state programs. One of his most controversial proposals is a 5 percent across-the-board reduction in state education funding affecting 500 school districts; 100 will lose all state aid for the remainder of the year. But Christie says he used a “scalpel,” and none of the cuts exceed each district’s reserves.
Naturally, the teachers unions are going crazy over these needed cuts.
Predictably enough, the 200,000-member New Jersey Education Association attacked Christie’s “doomsday budget” as hundreds protested in his home town. The Communications Workers of America warned that it would challenge any efforts to override their negotiated pay and benefits packages in court.
But the state is $46 billion short in its pension responsibilities and the unions still expect a 3.5 percent pay increase!
Chris Christie has a long-hard slough ahead of him with these spendthrift unions nipping at his heels the whole way.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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