By: art

art — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:36:00 +0000

Sad to all these states (and Rhode Island, Mass, CT, Penn, Illinois and others to a slightly less degree) have been done in by public sector labor committments to pay, pension, benefits. This includes local k-12 education as well. IN my State of Ct, there is a 20 billion unfunded pension and the same for healthcare- this in a state of 3 million. The gross numbers are much larger in bigger states, but only slightly larger if at all per capita. No business will move to these states, or if they are in the states all growth is out of the state (in CT United Technologies has many divisions but a charter not to grow in Conn.) To move into these states would be like marrying someone with a 100K American Express debt and as a term of marriage being asked to co-sign as a responsible party. Texas, Arkansas, Georgia, Fla, etc. have nowhere near the amount of legacy costs so any growth in America will be in those states. Those states are not great for business, just less bad. Public employees(teacher, firefighter, DMV) have the ability to cut your kid from the team, not respond to EMS, deny your renewal so there is no public pressure to change- so many have family members as well that to bring this up will ruin picnics, etc. I wrote a mild letter to editor once on this- and was deluged with crank calls at 4AM from i assume public “safety” employees. Also was told that i am now “public enemy #1″ to local teacher union, and was stopped twice at local grocery store parking lots by teachers asking “did i know what “keep the promise” means(some kind of pension funding slogan on local radio station by teacher union). Too much aggravation and everyone else hid in the tall grass. These states will have to go bankrupt and abrogate their contracts so i dont write letters anymore.

Comments on: California, New York & New Jersey: What went wrong?

By: art