Public Employees Lecture New Jersey Taxpayers

The last thing we need is to be lectured to by Carla Katz. Yes, that Carla Katz. The union leader is upset because “there has been an escalating attack on the pension and health benefits of public employees”.

Katz: “Public workers are public servants who have dedicated their lives to providing needed and critical public services to New Jersey.”

Leave it to Katz to characterize state and local government employees as people dedicating their lives to public service. The vast majority of people earning their paycheck from taxpayers are not “first responders” - police and firefighters. They are bureaucrats and other government workers who are no more special or important to society than private sector workers.

We believe police and firefighters deserve special consideration – they put their lives on the line for all of us – that is true public service. The other categories of public employees do not deserve salaries and benefits that far exceed those offered to employees in the private sector. There is no possible justification for the average government worker receiving compensation greater than the people footing the tab.

Katz: “Public workers have chosen public service — not personal gain — as their life's work”

Katz speaks of public workers as if they were Sisters of Charity. If public employees have chosen “public service” over “personal gain” why do they need unions to press for ever higher wages and benefits on their behalf? Public workers go to work for the same reason as people in the private sector - to earn a paycheck.

A recent Courier News article reported that New Jersey’s public employees not only have secure jobs, they receive salary and benefits that exceed those earned by private sector employees.

Salary: “In fact, a New Jersey government worker averaged $54,600 a year while a private sector worker averaged about $49,000 a year, according to figures compiled by the state Labor Department for the first quarter of 2004.”

Health Insurance: A recent study reported New Jersey public workers both active and retired have a health insurance plan that is among the best in the nation.

“For example, nearly half of the government workers provided with health insurance, or about 168,000, enrolled in a managed care plan known as NJ Plus in which they pay none of the premium, have no deductible and have a $5 co-payment for doctors' visits.”

Time off: New Jersey public employees typically enjoy up to five weeks of vacation per year along with 13 sick days, 13 holidays and three personal days.

Pension: While the private sector has moved to 401k employee retirement plans, New Jersey’s public employees receive a “defined-benefit" paying 50% to 70% of annual salary, plus annual cost-of-living increases. As retiree benefit costs pushed the state deeper into debt, New Jersey’s lawmakers sweetened the public employee retirement plan with a 9 % boost in benefits in 2001.

Katz: “The benefits of New Jersey's public workers are hard won and hard earned.”

Public employees need to be reminded that taxpayer income is “hard earned” and that it is employees in the private sector that make public workers’ jobs and paychecks possible.

Katz: “The Whitman administration income tax cuts cost the state $1.5 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2005 alone. In total, they have cost the state more than $14 billion in lost revenue.”

The “state” didn’t lose anything. Whitman saved taxpayers $14 billion which they in turn used to purchase homes, start businesses and invest in their families’ future. That $14 billion was earned by workers and used to create wealth and taxpaying jobs.

Katz' sense of entitlement to other people’s income is emblematic of Democrats who believe “the state” has a greater claim on your income than you do. As homeowners struggle under the burden of high property taxes, the inequitable distribution of state funding to local schools (derived 100% from income taxes) and tax revenue squandered through mismanagement, a lack of fiscal discipline and corruption - Katz complains “the state” (tax receivers) have been short-changed by $14 billion.

Acting Governor Codey’s blunt assessment of New Jersey’s finances – “The good news is, we're not bankrupt. The bad news is, we're close.” – apparently has no meaning to public employees. When Codey identifies a major cause of the state’ financial crisis - public employee pensions and benefits – Carla Katz gives taxpayers a lecture and displays an utter lack of concern for taxpayers.

While we are sure there are many hard working public employees, people that serve the public with a customer service attitude, there are others that have nothing but contempt for taxpayers. Need another example? Here is one more lecture from a guy that works in a municipal office in New Jersey:

We have always debated in the office as to what would lead a person to waste time and energy to come to the tax window rather than mailing their payment in. Lack of trust in the post office comes to mind. Lack of trust in government is mentioned, too. I choose a different answer; stupidity combined with stubbornness and a need to complain.

They are non-sensical, lost, confused, silly, hostile, and abusive people. Clearly, they come to the window with one goal in mind; to being ranting and raving lunatics.

Mail in your checks, folks, and chill out. Taxes suck. However, coming to the window to whine to a grunt employee is simply foolish, worthless and mean-spirited.

The public employee who wrote the comments above is backing Jon Corzine for Governor of New Jersey and so is Carla Katz. Corzine is in the hip pocket of the public employee unions and if elected, offers no hope for controlling the ever increasing number of employees paid by taxpayers or the out of control salaries and benefits demanded by public employees.

This November, taxpayers will have a choice - Doug Forrester who will represent all citizens of New Jersey or Jon Corzine, the champion of tax receivers and Carla Katz.